he Vatican is ramping up its opposition to threatened military strikes against Syria as it draws attention to Pope Francis’ plans to host a day of fasting and prayer for peace this weekend.

The Vatican has invited all ambassadors accredited to the Holy See to attend a briefing Thursday on the pope’s agenda for the four-hour vigil Saturday night in St. Peter’s Square, and bishops’ conferences from around the world have announced plans to host local versions of the vigil as well.

Even the Vatican’s often dysfunctional bureaucracy seems to be on message with the initiative, Francis’ first major foray into international diplomacy since being elected in March.

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The United States’ competitiveness among global economies is rising again after four years of decline, though northern European countries continue to dominate the rankings published annually by the World Economic Forum.

In its latest survey, released Wednesday, the Forum ranked the U.S. ”” the world’s largest economy ”” in fifth place for overall competitiveness, up from seventh last year. The U.S. turnaround reflects “a perceived improvement in the country’s financial market as well as greater confidence in its public institutions,” the report concluded….

Six European countries dominated the top 10: Switzerland, Finland, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The remaining three slots were Asian: Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.

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The Syrian civil conflict is both a proxy war and a combustion point for spreading waves of violence. This didn’t start out as a religious war. But both Sunni and Shiite power players are seizing on religious symbols and sowing sectarian passions that are rippling across the region. The Saudi and Iranian powers hover in the background fueling each side.

As the death toll in Syria rises to Rwanda-like proportions, images of mass killings draw holy warriors from countries near and far. The radical groups are the most effective fighters and control the tempo of events. The Syrian opposition groups are themselves split violently along sectarian lines so that the country seems to face a choice between anarchy and atrocity.

Meanwhile, the strife appears to be spreading. Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq is spiking upward. Reports in The New York Times and elsewhere have said that many Iraqis fear their country is sliding back to the worst of the chaos experienced in the past decade. Even Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain and Kuwait could be infected.

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Enjoy the whole slideshow.

Now comes the third labor regime: a confusing mix of old and new. The private safety net is shredding, though the public safety net (unemployment insurance, Social Security, anti-poverty programs, anti-discrimination laws) remains. Economist Fishback suggests we may be drifting back toward “unfettered labor markets” with greater personal instability, insecurity ”” and responsibility. Workers are often referred to as “free agents.” An article in the Harvard Business Review argues that lifetime employment at one company is dead and proposes the following compact: Companies invest in workers’ skills to make them more employable when they inevitably leave; workers reciprocate by devoting those skills to improving corporate profitability.

“The new compact isn’t about being nice,” the article says. “It’s based on an understanding that a company is its talent, that low performers will be cut, and that the way to attract talent is to offer appealing opportunities.”

Workers can’t be too picky, because their power has eroded. Another indicator: After years of stability, labor’s share ”” in wages and fringes ”” of non-farm business income slipped from 63 percent in 2000 to 57 percent in 2013, reports the White House Council of Economic Advisers. But an even greater decline in 22 other advanced countries, albeit over a longer period, suggests worldwide pressures on workers.

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Pope Francis attempted to set a new tone for a Vatican beset by scandals on Saturday by naming a veteran diplomat as secretary of state, a role often called the “deputy pope”.

Archbishop Pietro Parolin’s appointment ends the era of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who was widely blamed for failing to prevent ethical and financial scandals that marked the eight-year reign of former Pope Benedict, who resigned in February.

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“Two of the most powerful insurgent factions in Syria are al-Qaeda factions,” Evan Kohlmann, senior partner at Flashpoint Partners in New York, said by telephone. “Even were the Assad regime to fall and there be some kind of takeover by rebels, there’s not a clear understanding that everyone here will be able to agree and form any kind of government.”

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I don’t intend to repeat the powerful points that have been made on international law which is itself based on the Christian theory of Just War, and that has been said very eloquently. But I want to pick up a couple of points – first is, it has been said, quite rightly, that there is as much risk in inaction as there is in action. But as in a conflict in another part of the world, a civil conflict in which I was mediating some years ago, a general said to me “we have to learn that there are intermediate steps between being in barracks and opening fire”. And the reality is that until we are sure that all those intermediate steps have been pursued, Just War theory says that the step of opening fire is one that must only be taken when there is no possible alternative whatsoever, under any circumstances. Because, as the noble Lord Lord Alli just said very clearly and very eloquently, the consequences are totally out of our hands once it has started. And some consequences we can predict ”“ we’ve heard already about the Lebanon and about Iran, particularly the effect that an intervention would cause on the new government in Iran as it is humiliated by such an intervention.

But there is a further point, talking to a very senior Christian leader in the region yesterday, he said “intervention from abroad will declare open season on the Christian communities”. They have already been devastated, 2 million Christians in Iraq 12 years ago, less than half a million today. These are churches that don’t just go back to St Paul but, in the case of Damascus and Antioch, predate him. They will surely suffer terribly (as they already are) if action goes ahead.

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The US, Great Britain, France, Germany, Turkey, Jordan, Canada, Australia, the Arab League and Israel have all determined that a massive chemical attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21 was conducted by Assad’s armed forces. Over one thousand died in the attack, and thousands more were wounded.

But the White House and 10 Downing both faced an onslaught of questions laced with references to the botched intelligence assessments that led to the allied invasion of Iraq in 2003.

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron both acknowledged those concerns, but rejected the comparison as fundamentally flawed.

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The Catholic Church has been following with concern the radicalization of Syria’s civil war. The country hosts a sizable Christian minority, which has mostly sided with Assad during the two-year long conflict.

In an interview with Vatican Radio, Archbishop Maroun Lahham, the vicar for Jordan of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, said he hoped the “world’s ”˜bigs’” would “make peace instead of war and find a peaceful solution.”

Other Syrian Catholic leaders have been even more vocal in condemning a possible Western intervention.

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From Barrons [it may also be found here]:

When [President Barack] Obama proclaimed his red line on Syria and chemical weapons, he assumed the issue would not come up. He made a gesture to those in his administration who believe that the United States has a moral obligation to put an end to brutality. He also made a gesture to those who don’t want to go to war again. It was one of those smart moves that can blow up in a president’s face when it turns out his assumption was wrong. Whether al Assad did launch the attacks, whether the insurgents did, or whether someone faked them doesn’t matter. Unless Obama can get overwhelming, indisputable proof that al Assad did not — and that isn’t going to happen — Obama will either have to act on the red line principle or be shown to be one who bluffs. The incredible complexity of intervening in a civil war without becoming bogged down makes the process even more baffling.

Obama now faces the second time in his presidency when war was an option. The first was Libya. The tyrant is now dead, and what followed is not pretty. And Libya was easy compared to Syria. Now, the president must intervene to maintain his credibility. But there is no political support in the United States for intervention. He must take military action, but not one that would cause the United States to appear brutish. He must depose al Assad, but not replace him with his opponents. He never thought al Assad would be so reckless. Despite whether al Assad actually was, the consensus is that he was. That’s the hand the president has to play, so it’s hard to see how he avoids military action and retains credibility. It is also hard to see how he takes military action without a political revolt against him if it goes wrong, which it usually does.

President Obama is considering military action against Syria that is intended to “deter and degrade” President Bashar al-Assad’s government’s ability to launch chemical weapons, but is not aimed at ousting Mr. Assad from power or forcing him to the negotiating table, administration officials said Tuesday.

A wide range of officials characterized the action under consideration as “limited,” perhaps lasting no more than one or two days. The attacks, which are expected to involve scores of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from American destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, would not be focused on chemical weapons storage sites, which would risk an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe and could open up the sites to raids by militants, officials said.

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Opposition in the Church to military action in Syria is growing after the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey warned it could lead to a regional war.

He said that despite a sense of “moral outrage” at the use of chemical weapons by the regime, armed intervention would drag the UK into a war which could engulf the whole of the Middle East.

And he voiced surprise that David Cameron is even contemplating a military response after slashing the armed forces to a “pitiful degree”.

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An imminent U.S. strike on Syrian government targets in response to the alleged gassing of civilians last week has the potential to draw the United States into the country’s civil war, former U.S. officials said Tuesday, warning that history doesn’t bode well for such limited retaliatory interventions.

The best historical parallels ”” the 1998 cruise missile strikes on targets in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan ”” are rife with unintended consequences and feature little success.

“The one thing we should learn is you can’t get a little bit pregnant,” said retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who was at the helm of U.S. Central Command when the Pentagon launched cruise missiles at suspected terrorist sites in Afghanistan and weapons facilities in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. “If you do a one-and-done and say you’re going to repeat it if unacceptable things happen, you might find these people keep doing unacceptable things. It will suck you in.”

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“So is Lewis to be seen as an Anglican writer? It is impossible to answer this question in the negative. Lewis chose to self-identify as a member of the Church of England, both in his public declarations and his pattern of church attendance. Furthermore, Lewis shows a clear literary and theological resonance with the Anglican writers of the late 1500’s and early 1600’s. Lewis may not be a ‘typical Anglican writer’ (a deeply problematic notion, by the way). Yet the historical study of Anglicanism reveals such complex and shifting patterns of Anglican identity that Lewis can easily be accommodated within its broad spectrum.

Yet from about the year 2000, when internal debates over the future directions of Anglicanism as a family of churches began to raise awkward questions about any notion of shared Anglican identity, the question of Lewis’s Anglican credentials is increasingly being framed in new ways. Many younger Anglicans, anxious to affirm both theological orthodoxy and their denominational commitment, are coming to regard Lewis as a benchmark of Anglican identity. For them, Lewis embodies — and, for some, even defines — what Anglicanism ought to be: a theologically orthodox, culturally literate, imaginatively engaged, and historically rooted vision of the Christian faith.

The recent failure of professional Anglican theologians and church leaders to captivate the imaginations and enlighten the minds of a rising generation within global Anglicanism has created a vacuum — which Lewis is increasingly coming to fill. Lewis embodies a liturgically and ecclesiologically unfussy Anglicanism that is rooted in the ‘Golden Age’ of its divinity, rather than being shaped by more recent controversies; that is lay rather than ordained; that speaks in eloquent and imaginatively satisfying ways, rather than in less accessible jargon of academic theology, which so often seems disconnected from personal faith; and which has no desire to dominate or belittle other denominations. Paradoxically, the question that a future generation might ask is not “Is Lewis really Anglican?’ but ‘Why isn’t Anglicanism more like Lewis?'”

–Alister McGrath, The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), pp. 158-159 (my emphasis) [Hat tip: JM]

It is deeply unhelpful of the Archbishop to use language which appears to suggest that the risk that those who wish to affirm gay people present is one of a lack or loss of core beliefs. That just isn’t true and is a nasty slur against fellow Anglicans. The US and Canadian churches are not places where God is absent and if the Archbishop needs to find that out, he needs to go there and meet them, something that his predecessor seemed to find impossible to do.

People will read the sermon in the US and Canadian churches and take immediate offence. (I find it offensive here in Scotland, but there it will appear to be a judgement on their national churches). Those who wish to affirm the place of LGBT people do so because of their core beliefs as Christians and as Anglicans, not because of any lack of belief or loss of God.

Does the Archbishop of Canterbury not have anyone on staff from the US or Canada or someone who knows those churches who could look at this kind of stuff and say, “hang on a minute, Father, that might not go down too well?”

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For centuries ”“ from Florence Nightingale to ER ”“ the medical professionals who treated patients have been nurses and physicians.

Yet in a world with a dearth of such trained individuals, new professions in the healthcare system have emerged to attempt to fill the void. While the expansion of health professions in the US and other Western countries has been rapid, recognizing and welcoming nurse practitioners (NPs), physicians’ assistants (PAs) and nurse anesthetists (NAs) has been a very slow process, especially in a country like Israel whose union-oriented conservative medical establishment is not enamored of change.

The NP is Israel’s first new medical profession to be recognized by the Health Ministry, which organized a first, year-long course that turned 19 veteran nurses from around the country into recognized NPs.

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The Catholic Church is ramping up support for immigration reform with plans to mobilize up to two dozen dioceses in key states in hopes of convincing House Republicans to support a comprehensive bill, organizers said.

The church is planning a series of loosely coordinated events, including an immigration-focused Mass at some churches Sept. 8 ”” the day before Congress returns from a five-week summer recess ”” and pilgrimages of church members to regional offices of lawmakers.

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Since the euro crisis began, many governments across Europe have been swept from power. France last year saw a presidential campaign heavily focused on Europe, and calls for alternatives to austerity have grown ever louder. So why is it that Germany, the country key to solving the euro crisis, seems immune to this polarization of views on the future of economic and monetary union?

Partly it has to do with the Greens and the Social Democrats, two opposition parties struggling to differentiate their euro policies from Merkel’s government, a coalition of her conservatives and the business friendly Free Democrats (FDP). Both the Greens and the SPD have supported all major euro rescue measures thus far. Even the Left Party, a stronger critic of the government, recently confirmed its overall commitment to the common currency. There is currently no anti-euro party in Germany parliament, with newcomers such as the euro-skeptic Alternative for Germany, media attention notwithstanding, yet to demonstrate their potential at the ballot box.

One reason is that Germans are still not feeling the pinch of the crisis. On the contrary, they continue to hear good news about strong exports, lower unemployment and economic growth. With the election looming, it is no surprise that the Merkel administration is wary of spoiling this mood of complacency by addressing the downsides of the “German model” for fellow euro-zone member states.

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This summer was no ‘vacation’ in the traditional sense as I worked to complete over 370 hours to fulfill the Summer Ministry Intensive but I loved every hour. Most of those hours were spent working with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans*, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI) community in Kampala, Uganda….

I felt bringing a pastoral care framework in an attempt to re-write exclusive theological narratives in Uganda would be effective because the country is overwhelmingly religious. In the most recent census, only 0.9% of as the population identified as non-religious while 82.6% identified as Christian. This “on the ground” reality of religiosity has been a breeding ground for Western Evangelical missionaries’ importation of homophobia and transphobia with few dissenting voices. As a Christian convicted in the belief that God loves and affirms the lives of queer and trans people, I felt called to bring that news here.

In Uganda it is commonly believed that homosexuality is a Western phenomenon, yet a brief history of the country makes it evident that homophobia, not homosexuality, is the Western import. For this reason, I believe the first step towards change is a new theology.

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Catholicity is that name we give to the priority of the local for the determination of faithfulness that can only be sustained by engagement with other local expressions of the faith, as well as engagement with the whole. As Rowan Williams reminded us at the 2008 Lambeth Conference,

“The entire Church is present in every local church assembled around the Lord’s Table. Yet the local church alone is never the entire Church. We are called to see this not as a circle to be squared but as an invitation to be more and more lovingly engaged with one another.”

“Such engagement, moreover, is crucial if the church is to be an alternative to the forces that threaten to destroy locality in the name of peace. We are in danger of confusing the universality of the cross with the allegedly inevitable process of globalization. We are in the odd situation of needing one another in our diverse localities in order not to be subject to the power of false universals. Kaye calls attention to Rowan Williams’s claim in the final address at the 2008 Lambeth Conference as an expression of this understanding of catholicity:

“The global horizon of the Church matters because churches without this are always in danger of slowly surrendering to the culture around them and losing sight of their calling to challenge that culture.”

“Read it all.

We might like to think more jobs are being created because factories are producing more car parts, cockpit mechanisms and furniture, but Robert Johnson says it’s just not that simple. He’s the director of economic analysis at Morningstar.

“I mean I can’t tell you how many times I sit down and talk with our analysts and they say, ‘I mean I can’t believe it. I just went out this factory and there were like ten guys sitting around computers,’ ” he says.

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So far, [the narrative is] so heartwarming; or so it might seem. After all, if scientists can understand the architecture of cancers, this should help them find better cures. No surprise, then, that investor interest in biomedicine is rising after several years of neglect. Indeed, the money raised through biomedical companies’ initial public offerings has jumped to $1.7bn this year, the highest level since 2000.

Sadly there is a catch; at least two challenges threaten to stop this new genomic revolution in its tracks. The first is an obvious one: as a fiscal squeeze bites in the western world, research budgets are being slashed for biomedicine and much else. This matters because even though the cost of sequencing the genome has plunged, the costs of other types of medical research remain high.

The second issue is more subtle: one consequence of the wave of recent cyber surveillance scandals is that voters are becoming more nervous about privacy. That is affecting not just online communication; it could also undermine scientists’ efforts to collect a big enough pool of genomic data to do their research.

Read it all (another link if necessary may be found there).
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I really enjoyed this–see if you do as well.

But what do you remember?

Throngs of flag-waving, chanting, cheering, singing, praying, young people extending for as far as the eye can see? A motorcade moving slowly through a vibrating, pulsating mass of humanity while a smiling Pope gestures, waves, and dispenses blessings to left and right? All this against one of the most breathtakingly beautiful natural backdrops in the world: the beach of Copacabana and the mountain of Corcovado. And of course you remember the babies ”“ babies and more babies, being kissed and cuddled and caressed by the Pope. But maybe you were paying particular attention and you also recall a visit to a slum and a hospital and a meeting with young prisoners and a prayer vigil and a papal pilgrimage to a Marian shrine”¦
But do you remember what he said?

“Promote justice and dialogue to hear the cry of the poor”, “Serve the community and a culture of encounter”, “Christ shares the crosses we carry in our lives”, “Is ours a Church that can still warm hearts?”, “Grandparents are important: the aged and the young build the future together”, “Faith isn’t a fruit-salad: don’t water it down”, “The Church is close to those suffering from addictions”, “Christian hope means being surprised by God”, “We cannot be part of a throwaway culture”, “Ours is a revolutionary Faith”, “Those who don’t go to Church are the VIP’s invited to the Lord’s table”, “We must learn how to embrace those in need”, “Jesus asks us to play on his team””¦

Read and listen to it all.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its International Energy Outlook today, and it’s chock-full of excellent data. It points to a number of global energy trends, and the overarching narrative that emerges is the economic ascendence of the developing world (especially China and India) and the sharp rise in energy usage expected to accompany that growth.

The EIA forecasts that OECD countries’ energy usage will grow by a surprisingly small 17 percent by 2040. But non-OECD countries will more than make up for this sluggish growth, as they are projected to nearly double their energy consumption over the next 27 years.

Sure, this is a familiar trend by now, but stifle the yawn. The actual numbers that the EIA is projecting are startling, and as you can see in the graph below, the energy sources many of these countries will be relying on in the future are worth noting….

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When is ignorance bliss? For some it’s when the subject is religion.

How many times have you heard someone remark, almost proudly, they know virtually nothing about religion? As if the deep convictions of four out of five of the world’s inhabitants were beneath them. Resistance to inter-religious understanding remains strong, judging from continuing global conflicts – and the shortage of courses about religion in the vast majority of North American public schools.

And also judging by the rotten eggs some pundits and activists have tossed at Quebec’s five-year-old “ethics and religious culture” curriculum. It requires all students to take classes in religious and secular world views.

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According to GMO, the asset manager, profits and overall net investment in the US tracked each other closely until the late 1980s, with both about 9 per cent of gross domestic product. Then the relationship began to break down. After the recession, from 2009, it went haywire. Pre-tax corporate profits are now at record highs ”“ more than 12 per cent of GDP ”“ while net investment is barely 4 per cent of output. The pattern is similar, although less stark, when looking at corporate investment specifically.

This change is profoundly odd. Economic theory says investment is driven by profitable opportunities on one side and the cost of capital on the other. High profits suggest there are decent opportunities to make money; historic lows in interest rates and highs in the stock market mean that capital is dirt cheap. Yet investment does not follow.

“We have this strange thing that the return on capital really does seem to be high, the cost of equity capital is low, and yet we’re getting a lot of share buybacks and not much investment,” says Ben Inker, co-head of asset allocation at GMO. “It just feels a bit weird.”

Read it all (if necessary another link may be found there).

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Investors have poured more money into US equity funds this week than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis, with the value of the benchmark S&P 500 index soaring to a record $15tn….

Some $19.7bn was invested in global equity funds in the past week, the most for six months, while $700m was pulled from bond funds, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch citing EPFR figures. The amount put in US equity funds was the most since June 2008, the bank said.

Read it all (another link there if needed).