Driveby post

Because it's 2 and I was up after 4 last night watching tennis after the Grand Prix. Oops.

On the train this morning, two people from a publisher I used to work for chatting loudly about someone I vaguely knew.

"Yeah, he's moved from Sydney to San Francisco. So he's gone from the gayest city in the world to the gayest city in the world."

Never a truer word spoken. Back fine, camera bought, cats adorable. More later.

Driveby post

Because it's 2 and I was up after 4 last night watching tennis after the Grand Prix. Oops.

On the train this morning, two people from a publisher I used to work for chatting loudly about someone I vaguely knew.

"Yeah, he's moved from Sydney to San Francisco. So he's gone from the gayest city in the world to the gayest city in the world."

Never a truer word spoken. Back fine, camera bought, cats adorable. More later.

It's raining amen

ABC Newsreader tonight: "In one week's time, Sydney will become a Mecca for Catholics."

Errr ...

Before I get on with the ranting: HAPPY BIRTHDAY oldenuf2nb. You're a lovely, talented person who would do well if you had charge of a major religion.

Feel free to ignore the rest of this post if neither politics nor religion interest you in any way.

It's been a very strange week in religious news. With World Youth Day bearing down on the city, everyone has started to pay attention to the religious news in this corner of the world. There's an awful lot of it, from both the Paddies and the Proddies, largely propelled by Cardinals Pell and Jensen, the heads of the Catholic and Anglican Churches respectively in Sydney, who are both exceptionally conservative men. In my opinion they are power-mad ideologues. In their opinions they are senior leaders of the Church.

I know that most people aren't interested in religion, and I should confess that I am not a spiritual person, being a third-generation atheist and just about able to believe in cat ghosts as a metaphor. But this is THE issue of the early 21st century. Between the radical Christianity that has powered the USA for the last eight years and the radical Islam that has given rise to the Taliban and al Qaeda, it has propelled the major conflicts of this century. At the same time the Catholic church is making a desperate bid to regain lost ground, and the Anglican/Episcopalian/Church of England is schisming merrily in ways that bring Henry VIII to mind.

Here Pell has been hauled over the coals for the last day or so after he told falsehoods regarding a case of child sexual abuse. He says that he misspoke. The lawyers arguing the victim's case accept that perhaps he did in a world where a man can write write the correct version of the details at one time of a day, then misspeak it utterly at another time the same day. However, they point out that even if they take a generous view, the Cardinal's view that the victim should have gone through the Church's reconciliation process rather than taken his right to have the case dealt with under secular law was a view based in bad faith, since that reconciliation process is funded by the Catholic Church's insurers.

Let me spell this out for you: the Catholic church in New South Wales pressures its members to deal with cases of abuse within the church, without legal representation, and with compensation payments that are determined by the church, at the behest of its insurers, the same people who are responsible for the large payouts that tend to stem from proven cases of abuse pursued through the secular courts.

Pell's piéce de résistance? On the case in question, he spoke with the abusing priest, a man who he had been shown was a serial abuser, and then told the victim that since the abusing priest had said that particular act was consensual, he, Pell, could not judge as it was the priest's word against the victim's.

At the same time, the international Anglican synod has voted to allow women bishops, which has led to 1000 clergy saying they'll break away, because Jesus does not want to have his word taught by women, a fact proven by the 12 apostles all being men. I am not sure if they read the same Bible that I waded through twice, but if they did, they might like to recall that the apostles were a group of travellers who moved about the countryside with Christ, having been gathered in working environments. Jewish women of the first century were not famous for working in trades nor for travelling the countryside with bands of unrelated men.

(And before any smartypants says "Ah, but what about the Magdalene?" I would remind you that there is exactly no doctrinal evidence to support the idea that she was a prostitute, it's a much later church tradition that took away her honour.)

The actual Bible is filled with women who take on leadership roles and teach the word of god, from Ruth and Deborah, to Prisca, who even that old woman-hater Paul acknowledged was a great teacher of the scriptures and who helped bring others to his new faith.

In addition, the four gospels show Christ seeking out the company of women and discussing fine points of theology with them, from sundry Marys to Martha.

'Why does this all matter?' you may ask. 'Relax, Brammers,' you may say. 'Deep breaths. It's not as though you set foot inside a church except for weddings, funerals and christenings.'

Well, that's true, but remember that Islam spent most of the Middle Ages being the bastion of enlightenment in the developed world. Islamic nations were the ones where science and free thought flourished, where other religions were allowed to be practiced freely, and where, in the early days of Islam at least before tribal traditions overthrew some of Muhammad's edicts, women had strong positions of leadership in both the church and culture.

Those who do not learn from history ...

It's raining amen

ABC Newsreader tonight: "In one week's time, Sydney will become a Mecca for Catholics."

Errr ...

Before I get on with the ranting: HAPPY BIRTHDAY oldenuf2nb. You're a lovely, talented person who would do well if you had charge of a major religion.

Feel free to ignore the rest of this post if neither politics nor religion interest you in any way.

It's been a very strange week in religious news. With World Youth Day bearing down on the city, everyone has started to pay attention to the religious news in this corner of the world. There's an awful lot of it, from both the Paddies and the Proddies, largely propelled by Cardinals Pell and Jensen, the heads of the Catholic and Anglican Churches respectively in Sydney, who are both exceptionally conservative men. In my opinion they are power-mad ideologues. In their opinions they are senior leaders of the Church.

I know that most people aren't interested in religion, and I should confess that I am not a spiritual person, being a third-generation atheist and just about able to believe in cat ghosts as a metaphor. But this is THE issue of the early 21st century. Between the radical Christianity that has powered the USA for the last eight years and the radical Islam that has given rise to the Taliban and al Qaeda, it has propelled the major conflicts of this century. At the same time the Catholic church is making a desperate bid to regain lost ground, and the Anglican/Episcopalian/Church of England is schisming merrily in ways that bring Henry VIII to mind.

Here Pell has been hauled over the coals for the last day or so after he told falsehoods regarding a case of child sexual abuse. He says that he misspoke. The lawyers arguing the victim's case accept that perhaps he did in a world where a man can write write the correct version of the details at one time of a day, then misspeak it utterly at another time the same day. However, they point out that even if they take a generous view, the Cardinal's view that the victim should have gone through the Church's reconciliation process rather than taken his right to have the case dealt with under secular law was a view based in bad faith, since that reconciliation process is funded by the Catholic Church's insurers.

Let me spell this out for you: the Catholic church in New South Wales pressures its members to deal with cases of abuse within the church, without legal representation, and with compensation payments that are determined by the church, at the behest of its insurers, the same people who are responsible for the large payouts that tend to stem from proven cases of abuse pursued through the secular courts.

Pell's piéce de résistance? On the case in question, he spoke with the abusing priest, a man who he had been shown was a serial abuser, and then told the victim that since the abusing priest had said that particular act was consensual, he, Pell, could not judge as it was the priest's word against the victim's.

At the same time, the international Anglican synod has voted to allow women bishops, which has led to 1000 clergy saying they'll break away, because Jesus does not want to have his word taught by women, a fact proven by the 12 apostles all being men. I am not sure if they read the same Bible that I waded through twice, but if they did, they might like to recall that the apostles were a group of travellers who moved about the countryside with Christ, having been gathered in working environments. Jewish women of the first century were not famous for working in trades nor for travelling the countryside with bands of unrelated men.

(And before any smartypants says "Ah, but what about the Magdalene?" I would remind you that there is exactly no doctrinal evidence to support the idea that she was a prostitute, it's a much later church tradition that took away her honour.)

The actual Bible is filled with women who take on leadership roles and teach the word of god, from Ruth and Deborah, to Prisca, who even that old woman-hater Paul acknowledged was a great teacher of the scriptures and who helped bring others to his new faith.

In addition, the four gospels show Christ seeking out the company of women and discussing fine points of theology with them, from sundry Marys to Martha.

'Why does this all matter?' you may ask. 'Relax, Brammers,' you may say. 'Deep breaths. It's not as though you set foot inside a church except for weddings, funerals and christenings.'

Well, that's true, but remember that Islam spent most of the Middle Ages being the bastion of enlightenment in the developed world. Islamic nations were the ones where science and free thought flourished, where other religions were allowed to be practiced freely, and where, in the early days of Islam at least before tribal traditions overthrew some of Muhammad's edicts, women had strong positions of leadership in both the church and culture.

Those who do not learn from history ...