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Could the next Pope be…Canadian?!

March 12th, 2013 by Lucy Martin

Cardinal Marc Ouellet passing Swiss Guards in Vatican City yesterday. Photo: Michael Swan, CC some rights reserved

The conclave has begun. Any day now there will be a new Pope.

There’s been vigorous speculation about who it might be. According to numerous media reports in Canada, Cardinal Marc Ouellet is in the running. And he has a chance, because front runners can sometimes take each other out, so to speak. Here’s how the Toronto Star framed it:

Ouellet is often described as a possible compromise candidate, if the two cardinals widely speculated as the current front-runners — Italy’s Angelo Scola and Brazil’s Odilo Pedro Scherer — remain deadlocked.

Going by this Wikipedia profile, Ouellet comes with some solid credentials:

He is the present prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and concurrently president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America since his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI on 30 June 2010. Previously, he was archbishop of Quebec and primate of Canada. He was elevated to the cardinalate by Pope John Paul II, on 21 October 2003. Ouellet is considered a contender to succeed Pope Benedict XVI, who resigned on 28 February 2013.[2]

Ouellet is fluent in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and German. He is known for his missionarywork in South America.[3]

Bookies actually put odds on the Pope race (and why not, for those who bet on anything?). Ouellet is no longer among the top favorites, but looks well-positioned as a compromise candidate.

Treating this selection process as a horse race or political contest is offensive to any who see the conclave as a sincere attempt to discern and do God’s will. But any organization that involves power and money will attract political motives and strategic maneuvering.

So what is Ouellet like? Here’s 13 Things You Didn’t Know about the Canadian Cardinal from the HuffingtonPost.ca

According to media accounts, Ouellet is not hugely popular in his home province of Quebec, largely because he’s seen as a hard-liner in a culture that threw off the yoke of stern religiosity and doesn’t want it back. Here’s how Kyl Chhatwal put it:

One thing is certain however: if Ouellet is elected pope he’ll become a sort of symbol for Quebec to rest of the world.

And many in la belle province may find that prospect a little … well, frustrating.

The BBC’s North American Editor Mark Mardell wrote a detailed column on what Ouellet might be like were he to become the next Pope. Mardell quotes Archbishop Gerald Lacroix on the man he succeeded: 

“He’s portrayed sometimes as very rigid and stern and serious. But once you know him on a personal level you see he is very sensitive and very attentive to the needs of people.”

The Montreal Gazette has this compilation of quotes from Ouellet on hot-button issues. According to this Globe and Mail article, a group that advocates for victims of sex abuse thinks Ouellet would be a bad choice:

Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet is among the “Dirty Dozen” of cardinals who should not be considered for pope, according to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

SNAP, the largest U.S. advocacy group representing abuse victims, said the dozen would be “the worst choices in terms of protecting kids, healing victims and exposing corruption.”

As readers know, Brian Mann has done extensive coverage of the Catholic Church and the challenges it faces. Hearing about this post Mann commented that there’s a certain irony in Ouellet being a viable candidate, considering his career connection to the social collapse of Catholicism in Quebec. Mann wonders if that experience might give Ouellet “interesting tools for thinking about the conflict with modernism in the rest of the West.”

I am quoting Brian by way of including a great link he shared, that discusses just this, as stated by Benedict XVI:

“Nations that once were rich in faith and vocations are now losing their identity, under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture.”

It can be guessed that, among these nations that once were exuberantly Christian but are no longer so, Pope Joseph Ratzinger is thinking of Canada, and more precisely of Québec.

An intriguing aspect, is it not? One of the many, major challenges the church faces is how to remain relevant in Europe and North America.

Interviewed by CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, Ouellet called for allowing women more power in the Church, but stated his opposition to female priests. Segments of the exclusive interview are presented here.

It’s impossible to know who the next pope will be. But on the odd chance it’s Ouellet, this post is meant as a small primer on the man and his views.

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The Church and Bishop Finn

September 9th, 2012 by Brian Mann

Late last week, a judge in Missouri found Bishop Robert Finn guilty of failing to disclose that church officials knew that one of their priests was a predator targeting very young girls.

The priest’s crimes, known to diocesan officials in Kansas City, included photographing the genitals of an infant girl so young that she still wore a diaper.

Yet he was allowed by Bishop Finnto continue ministering to children, albeit on a “trial” basis. No one in the community, or in the priest’s family, received warning of the extraordinary and on-going danger.

This occurred not in 1911, 1961, 1991 or even 2001.

These crimes occurred in 2011, long after the priest abuse scandal exploded, revealing a cancerous response to child sex abuse within the Roman Catholic hierarchy that has rocked the Church from Rome to Dublin to, well, Kansas City.

It’s important, as always, to note that clergy, Roman Catholic and otherwise, are no more likely to be sexual predators than anyone else.  The vast, overwhelming majority of men called to religious life are good, noble, and caring.

The on-going crisis here is, rather, the response of the Church’s vast bureaucracy, which has often appeared to place institutional concerns — money, careers, prestige and public relations– above the welfare and safety of kids.

In this latest debacle in Kansas City, Bishop Finn said, according to the New York Times, “I truly regret and am sorry for the hurt that these events have caused.”

Note the passive, impersonal construction of that sentence. Not the “hurt that I have caused” but a muddled hand-wringing about “events.”  That’s hardly confidence-building for a man whose entire career is built around a claim to moral clarity.

One of the startling nuances of this case, which sets it apart from other pedophile-priest cover-ups, is that all sides agree on the facts of the matter.

There is no dispute about what the church hierarchy new or when they knew it.  All parties signed and submitted a set of stipulated facts to the judge.

We know, for example, that Bishop Finn was urged repeatedly by several members of his staff to turn the predator in their midst over to police. We know that as early as 2010, parents were alerting church officials about their fears.

We know that in the end a brave church official waited until Bishop Finn was out of town and then, acting on his own courageous initiative, called the cops.

It’s also noteworthy that Bishop Finn only appointed an official diocese “ombudsman” — in fact, a woman — to improve protections for children a month after his subordinate ratted out the pedophile whom the Bishop had been protecting.

Which brings us to the questions raised by this matter:

1.  What were Bishop Finn’s motivations?  Long after one would think that American bishops were experts on the moral and legal implications of a predator priest in their employ, this bishop sat on his hands.  Why?  And does that have implications for other dioceses across the US?

2.  Why does Bishop Finn still have a job?  The Church has known for months (at last) about Bishop Finn’s behavior and the long chain of astonishing decisions that left so many innocent children vulnerable.  Yet he still holds a position of awesome moral, spiritual and administrative authority.  His parishioners deserve to know what this means.

3.  Who in the Church hierarchy knew about Bishop Finn’s decisions?  The US Bishops have coordinated their responses to the child sex scandal for years; and the Vatican has been heavily involved.  Did Bishop Finn keep this horrible business secret from his higher-ups?  If not, parishioners should know how they responded.

I know that many Catholics, particularly within the clergy and the religious orders, view this kind of thing as anti-Church, a kind of religious bigotry.

On the contrary. We need a strong, vibrant, active and morally confident Roman Catholic church, here in the North Country and around the world.

And it’s also not a question of making an example of Bishop Finn, as some have suggested.  It is, rather, simply a question of whether the Church finally has its priorities straight.

Church leaders from Rome to Ogdensburg have made significant strides in recovering from the scandal, improving their focus on child safety and in their cooperation with civil authorities.

Bishop Finn’s actions, unless properly explained, will leave new and significant doubts in people’s minds.

 

 

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Survey finds massive decline in religion in US, world

August 9th, 2012 by Brian Mann

Does God play a role in your life? A growing number of Americans, and people around the world, say No.

A new study released this week found an astonishing drop off in the experience of active religious live around the world, as more and more people describe themselves as non-religious or outright atheist.

The report is drawing particular attention in Ireland, once a bastion of Roman Catholic culture, where now only 47% of people describe themselves as disconnected from a faith-based life.

The Irish Examiner newspaper connected the shift to the clergy scandal:

Fr Brendan Hoban of the Association of Catholic Priests said the numbers of religious had likely declined due to increased prosperity, education, greater independence, and the handling of child abuse complaints.

Kieran O’Connor, a sociologist at University College Cork, said the rapid distancing from religion was a direct response to the cover-up of abuse in the Catholic Church.

“Six years ago, we were affluent and educated. That change has not just materialised recently. So the Church’s handling of the abuse crisis has clearly affected our views of religion.”

But it’s not just Ireland, or Roman Catholics, who are seeing a massive transformation in the way people view and experience religion.

According to the survey, which you can read in full here, the average decline in the number of people describing themselves as religious over the last seven years was 9%.  That’s a remarkable change.

In the US, meanwhile, the decline was 13%.

Taken in isolation, this survey might be see as an outlier, but a wide range of studies suggest that the young, the well-educated and the affluent are increasingly turning away from organized religion.  This from the National Catholic Reporter.

It is no secret that Christianity is in decline in the West. A Newsweek cover story in March 2009 reported that 86 percent of the U.S. population self-identified as Christians in 1990.

By 2009, the percentage dropped to 76 percent, while the number who claimed “no religion” doubled to 16 percent in that same period. Among those under the age of 30, the figure declaring “no religion” was close to 30 percent.

If the trend continues, the “no religion” plus the “non-Christian” categories will outnumber Christians by the year 2042.

I have grappled repeatedly with the notion that a decline in religiosity equals a decline in moral or cultural values, as argued by many within the US Christian community.

But even if you don’t share a view that this shift is somehow dire or dangerous, it is remarkable nonetheless.

A centerpiece of human civilization for thousands of years — the conviction that a higher power influences and judges our actions — seems to be moving to the margins of our collective lives with astonishing speed.

That has implications for everything from the way our charities work to the way our big political parties organize their messages and their platforms.

But heated rhetoric aside, the big takeaway here is not that faith has been pushed out of public life.  It’s that more and more of our neighbors are choosing to leave faith out of their personal lives as well.

So here are my questions to you:  Do you see a hollowing out of your church?  Fewer people in the pews?  What does this decline in religious activity mean?

And if you’re one of the people who have stepped away from active faith, is there a way that organized churches could draw you back?

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Sunday Read: Debate over public prayer rekindles in North Country

July 22nd, 2012 by Brian Mann

County and local governments in northern New York are grappling with new questions surrounding the practice of beginning public business with Christian prayer.

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican is reporting this morning that Essex County officials are at odds over whether to resume distinctly Christian prayer before board of supervisors meetings.

According to reporter Lohr McKinstry, the prayers were begun several years ago.

The practice was discontinued recently after County Attorney Daniel Manning III told supervisors they needed a policy to cover the prayers, which should be nondenominational in nature.

But Supervisor Ronald Moore (R-North Hudson) tried to move a motion this week to resume Christian prayer at the board’s regular monthly meetings.

His resolution was tabled so Manning could provide them with more information on how to legally go about it.

The county appears to be moving toward a non-denominational prayer.  Meanwhile, Washington County faces similar questions.  This from Jon Alexander’s article earlier this month in the Glens Falls Post Star:

Hartford Supervisor Dana Haff has spent the past two years as the county board’s chaplain. He opens the monthly board meeting with sometimes politically charged sermons.

The issue blew up earlier this year when Greenwich Supervisor Sara Idleman criticized Haff’s usage of terms and phrases like “God” and “Our Lord,” alleging Haff’s prayers are unconstitutional because they essentially serve as an official county endorsement of Christianity.

NYCLU Capital Region Director Melanie Trimble in a letter sent Friday to county board Chairman John Rymph said Washington County’s monthly benediction violates the establishment clause of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Earlier this spring, a court rules against an upstate town — Greece, NY — which had begun meetings with a specifically Christian prayer.  This from the Associated Press:

An upstate New York town violated the constitutional ban against favoring one religion over another by opening nearly every meeting during an 11-year span with prayers that stressed Christianity, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the town of Greece, a suburb of Rochester, should have made a greater effort to invite people from other faiths to open monthly meetings. The town’s lawyer says it will appeal the ruling in Galloway v. Town of Greece.

What do you think?  Should there be a specifically Christian moment of worship before public meetings?  If so, does it matter whether the prayer reflects the views of one particular Christian group?

Do we lose something if we remove this kind of worship from civic life?   And what about the growing percentage of New Yorkers who are not Christian, how should their values be respected?

This is a tough one, and we’ve had some rocky flare-ups over matters of religious faith, so be thoughtful and keep it civil.

Remember, we’re not talking about the merits of anyone’s particular faith or beliefs here:  we’re talking about the pros and cons of bringing those traditions into the civic and political arena.

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Homosexuality, hatred

June 1st, 2012 by Brian Mann

For a long time, opponents of same-sex marriage — and gay rights in general — have managed to put a friendly face on their efforts.

With the exception of a few zany  whackos, like the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, the message has been “hate the sin, love the sinner.”

The public image has been one of healing, of redemption, and of dialogue.  And for many conservative Christians, that’s an accurate and fair portrait.

A lot of people who struggle with the idea of gay marriage aren’t bigots.  They’re grappling reasonably and earnestly with a major societal shift.

But privately, away from the mainstream conversation, the tone of the anti-homosexual movement has been far more toxic, often straying from the territory of legitimate culture war difference into the realm of pure bigotry.

That darker vein been exposed recently, due to an effort by gay and progressive advocates to “out” conservative religious leaders who advocate violence, hatred and repression of gays and lesbians in their communities.

The latest painful episode is a recording made of a sermon at the Independent Baptist Church in Oakland, Maryland, where Pastor Dennis Leatherman acknowledged to his congregation a desire to eradicate gays.

“First of all, there is a danger of reacting in the flesh, of responding not in a scriptural, spiritual way, but in a fleshly way,” Leatherman preached.

“Kill them all. Right? I will be very honest with you. My flesh kind of likes that idea, but it grieves the Holy Spirit. It violates Scripture. It is wrong.”

This follows on the release of audio of a sermon delivered by Curtis Knapp, pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, Kansas, who goes a step further, defending the idea of killing gays.

“They should be put to death — that’s what happened in Israel.  That’s why homosexuality wouldn’t have grown in Israel.  It tends to limit conversions.  It tends to limit people coming out of the closet,” Knapp argued.

He goes on to insist that scripture actually supports the idea of government-backed extermination of gays and lesbians.

“Oh, so you’re saying we should go out and start killing them? No, I’m saying the government should. They won’t, but they should.”

These aren’t isolated incidents, nor are they limited to tiny, fringe churches.  North Carolina pastor Charles L. Worley of the Providence Road Baptist Church, responding to President Barack Obama’s support of gay  marriage, offered his view last month that gays should be quarantined in special ghettos.

“I figured out a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers but I couldn’t get it passed the Congress.  Build a great, big, large fence — 150 or 100 mile long — put all the lesbians in there,” Worley suggests.  “Fly over and drop some food.  Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can’t get out…and you know what, in a few years, they’ll die out.  Do you know why? They can’t reproduce!”

His congregation responds with a hearty Amen, particularly when Pastor Worley describes Mr. Obama as “a babykiller and a homosexual lover.”

This is ugly stuff.  And it’s healthy that the scab is being pulled off so that conservative and traditionalist Americans, in particular, can grapple with the vein of hatred, fear and ignorance that shapes this debate.

Perhaps the most disturbing image in this new series of “outings” is video of a little boy in the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle Church in Indiana.  In a sweet, innocent voice, he sings “ain’t no homos gonna make it to heaven.”

The congregation stands, applauds and cheers wildly.  It’s fair to debate what this kind of thing represents, but it sure isn’t Christian love.

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What happens when you insult the Bible accurately?

May 8th, 2012 by Brian Mann

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family, deep in the heart of the Bible belt. I was an altar boy, the kind of kid who prayed while he walked home from school.

When I was nine or ten years old, I got out of being thrashed silly on the playground by lecturing another kid — the biggest kid I’d ever seen in my life — about Jesus Christ.

I’m not making this up. The bully later approached me when nobody else was looking and asked, in an awed voice, if I really believed all that stuff about God.  I gave him an earful.

I have long been a close and diligent reader of the Bible.  I rank it not only as one of the most profound books on my shelf, but also one of the most beautiful.

Which is why my ears perked up when Dan Savage, one of the most prominent gay rights activists in the country, sparked a furor by talking trash about the Good Book.

Speaking to a group of young people recently, Savage argued that it’s time to discount Biblical teachings about homosexuality, in the same way that we casually discount so much else that’s in Scripture.  Here’s what he said:

“We can learn to ignore the bull%#$ in the Bible about gay people. The same way, the same way we have learned to ignore the bull#$* in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bull@#@ in the Bible about all sorts of things.”

Savage’s comments have been described as anti-Christian bigotry and as a form of hate speech.

On first listen, they slot neatly into the take-no-prisoners culture war that rages in America, fitting somewhere between the war on Christmas and the effort to ban gay marriage in North Carolina.

But as someone who reads and thinks and grapples with the Bible a lot, I think it’s important to point out that on the basic facts, Savage is absolutely correct.

The Bible contains a lot of profound wisdom, but it also articulates moral points of view about slavery, about women, about human sexuality, about science, and about mundane things like diet and daily ritual that most of us would find shocking today.

The problem, of course, is that so few Christians actually read the Bible.  And when they do, they often digest it in tiny, out-of-context Bible verses, each carefully packaged with a modern, fuzzy-minded exegesis.

We used to be made of tougher stock.  In 1843, the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard grappled at length with the story of Abraham’s decision to murder his own child at the behest of a God so jealous that He wanted proof of Abraham’s loyalty.

Kierkegaard confronted the creepiness and the moral nausea that the story conjures up today, titling his own book “Fear and Trembling.”

These days, the folks in the pews rarely wrestle with the deep quandaries, the ugly bits, the parts of the Bible that to modern eyes seem flatly unacceptable.

Take, by way of example, the idea of “traditional” marriage.  The truth is that a healthy marriage, as we understand it today, is completely unlike the Biblical version.

The Old Testament casually accepts polygamy, absolute patriarchal dominance, the treatment of women within marriage as property, and the beating of children with “a rod.”

And consider the Bible’s treatment of rape, one of the crimes we now see as among the most brutal.

“If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver,” commands the book of Deuteronomy.

Then there’s this additional prescription.  The rapist “must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.”

Yikes. The point here isn’t that the Bible is crummy or bad. It’s not.  It’s just really complicated.

And Savage is correct in that gays and lesbians are in an almost unique position in our society, in that they are still being asked to live by strict Biblical teachings. Indeed, many conservative Christians want those teachings codified in secular law.

Savage made his point, well, savagely.  One can question him, even condemn him, on style points. He’s been crudely provocative before and will be again.

But he is also asking a fair and even a vital question.  If we insist that the gay community be judged by a Gospel that most of us never read, are we willing to do the same?

Will we submit ourselves to state and Federal laws that would punish us brutally for adultery or premarital sex?  Should we accept a Constitutional ban on divorce, in the way that many Christians want a ban on same-sex marriage?

Would we — and in the context of religious teachings, this is no small thing — be willing to have the government intervene to restrict our sinful diets, or restructure our sinful sabbath-defying schedules?

Are we willing to see a clear and unambiguous primacy of men over women enshrined in secular law?

The bottom line is this:  The Bible was written as a moral and spiritual guide, and some of its teachings are timeless and universal.

But it was also scripted as a worldly teaching, laying out laws and edicts that were highly specific to a time and a place and a culture that existed roughly two thousand years ago.

Yes, those laws include a firm condemnation of homosexuality.  But they also condemn many of the habits, customs and lifestyles that we all take for granted.

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“Radical feminist” nuns in the North Country?

April 20th, 2012 by Brian Mann

You’ve probably been hearing that the Vatican has sharply rebuked the organization that represents roughly 80% of the nuns within the Roman Catholic church, including those serving here in the Diocese of Ogdensburg.  This from the Washington Post.

In a stinging report on Wednesday, the Vatican said the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had been “silent on the right to life” and had failed to make the “Biblical view of family life and human sexuality” a central plank in its agenda.

It also reprimanded American nuns for expressing positions on political issues that differed, at times, from views held by U.S. bishops. Public disagreement with the bishops — “who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals” — is unacceptable, the report said.

An archbishop from the West Coast has been charged with “reforming” the organization.

This comes at a time when nuns in the North Country are being asked to serve bigger, more influential roles, due to the shortage of priests.

So what do you think?  Have nuns strayed from the path?  Is a course correction needed?

Or is this an overreach, and a sign of continuing tensions within the American Roman Catholic church.

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What’s part of your holiday weekend?

April 7th, 2012 by Lucy Martin

Looking for something topical for this weekend, I happened across “Top 10 strange Easter traditions” on a New Zealand web site. And here’s the list:

Chocolate "Easter Bilbies" in dark, milk and white varieties. The bilby is an Australian marsupial. No doubt the pouch is handy for carrying eggs.

1. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia men and boys whip women and girls with decorated instruments, usually adorned with colourful ribbons. The Easter Monday tradition is not intended to be painful, but instead is meant to encourage good health and beauty. The women and girls may think differently.

2. New Zealand is famous for our butter – but Poland and Russia are famous for their butter lambs. Butter is sculpted into the shape of a lamb, which accompanies a meal.

3. The leftovers from Christmas create some fun at Easter time in Germany. Remnants of Christmas trees are piled into a heap and burnt as a way of recognising the end of winter and moving into spring.

4. You’ve probably seen chocolate eggs and bunnies, but what about a chocolate Bilby? In an attempt to raise awareness about the dwindling Bilby population, this small rabbit size marsupial with large ears, native to Australia, has been immortalised in chocolate.

5. While we may hide Easter eggs in New Zealand, some people in Switzerland display them proudly for everyone to see. It is a tradition in Nyon, near Geneva, to adorn fountains with flowers, ribbons and eggs.

6. The bells in France’s churches are silenced on Good Friday to recognise the death of Jesus. But legend says that the bells actually fly to Rome and fly back in time to be rung on Easter Sunday. There are many paintings and pictures attesting to this tradition.

7. The burning of Judas is an ancient Easter ritual in Orthodox and Catholic nations, but only a few countries still practice it. An effigy of Judas is often displayed and burnt at Easter time in parts of Greece, Mexico, Portugal and Spain.

8. It’s most likely that a man was behind this Polish tradition. Men in Poland are not allowed to make Easter bread, and some say any food at all over Easter, in fear that their moustache will turn grey.

9. Finland may need a reminder that it’s Easter, not Halloween. Children often dress up as witches and wander the streets with broomsticks in the hunt for treats. The tradition is said to have come from the belief that witches would fly to Germany and cavort with Satan. Bonfires are meant to scare them away.

10. Here we eat eggs, in England they roll them. Egg rolling is still a popular sport in the United Kingdom. People compete by rolling eggs down large hills. The ones that roll the furthest or survive the most competitions win.

Sunrise services, egg hunts, decorated baskets, a special family meal and (hopefully) lots of chocolate…how will you make the day, if it’s different than an ordinary Sunday for you?

Not to ignore Passover, Here’s an article from USA’s Today’s Cathy Lynn Grossman about the many, many ways to hold a Seder, which ends with the question: How would you tell the Exodus story in modern terms?

Whatever you’re doing this weekend, may a sense of spring and renewal be upon you.


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What journalists talk about when we talk about sex

March 17th, 2012 by Brian Mann

Over the last week, a lot of newspapers around the US decided not to run Gary Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” cartoon as it delved into the flame-hot issues of sexuality and politics that have emerged in the 2012 presidential season.

The editorial board of the Plattsburgh Press-Republican argued in an essay that the “six ‘Doonesbury’ installments just struck us as too offensive,” and so the strip was shelved for a week.

NCPR has also wrestled with this question:  How do we talk about sex — especially the politicized, polarized aspects of human sexuality now being debated — without being “offensive.”

When our reporter Sarah Harris interviewed Erica Macilintal, a Roman Catholic woman at SUNY Plattsburgh struggling to live within the constraints of her Church’s teaching, we took a deep breath and plunged ahead.

“Are you sexually active?” Harris asked.  “I know that’s a really weird question to ask you, but I’m kind of curious because a lot of people, you know, can believe something and practice another.”

Weird, yes.  Awkward, yes. Borderline offensive, even, by any traditional rules of social decorum.

Polite people just don’t ask other people publicly about their sex lives.

But as Harris’s lead editor on this project, I made it clear that I didn’t think we had a choice.  We had to ‘go there.’

Here’s why.  As a journalist, I’ve reached the conclusion that we have to set aside our squeamishness and address these issues head-on.

If lawmakers are going to force women who are choosing to have legal abortions in the US to have ultra-sounds that include the insertion of medical devices into their vaginas, journalists and pundits need to talk about that stuff honestly, not obliquely.

We need to accept that the politics of sexuality require us to open our airwaves, news pages, and editorial space to frank discussions that might, in some quarters, be viewed as “offensive.”

What, after all, is the alternative?  Should we not speak bluntly and factually about the very issues that are defining much of our politics?

In this culture war era, politicians have marched boldly into our bedrooms, into the treatment rooms of our gynecologists and family physicians, and into the moral decisions that Americans (not just women) make about their sexuality.

They have also hoisted their flags over that fractious, bitter terrain that lies at the intersection of religious faith and human intimacy.

For better or worse, journalists have to follow them.

This isn’t to say that Mr. Trudeau gets it “right.”  His argument that the government-mandated insertion of a medical device into a woman’s vagina is “rape” is clearly only one possible point of view.

Others have argued that requiring these ultrasounds is a way to ensure that women have all necessary medical information “before making such a critical decision.”

This is the debate we need to treat accurately and unblushingly, even when it makes us uncomfortable.

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Morning Read: North Country pastor says No to going green for St. Pat’s Day

March 16th, 2012 by Brian Mann

First Baptist Church, Watertown--"Not a billboard."

The Watertown Daily Times is reporting this morning that a Baptist pastor in Watertown is unhappy with a plan to light up his church tower with green spotlights as part of a St. Patrick’s Day Irish festival.

The Rev. Jeffrey E. Smith…insists the green floodlights will give people the perception he and his church condone the consumption of beer at this weekend’s events.

“This is our house of worship. It is not a billboard,” he said. “We call our church ‘the Lighthouse on the Square.’ This cheapens our church.”

The pastor said he believes the city should have been more sensitive to his parishioners, some of whom are recovering alcoholics and former drug users.

So there you go.  What do you think?  Too grumpy by half?  Or a good, solid principled stand?

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