Protestant children are entitled to be educated in Protestant schools. It’s as simple as that. At least it was until the latest Budget cuts saw grants to the sector slashed. Without grant aid some Protestant children may now find themselves with no choices and few rights

THERE WAS little sympathy for fee-paying schools when it emerged that they had been hit harder than their free counterparts in the recent Budget. Leafy suburbia would hardly be rocked to its core. If pushed, the schools could simply raise the fees a little couldn’t they?

Some fee-paying schools do not have that luxury. While a small number of Ireland’s fee-paying Protestant schools fit the stereotype, with wonderful facilities and well-heeled students, most serve a very different community. For them, the Budget cuts are disastrous.

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A conservative province in the Anglican church faces “punishment” this week for offering a safe haven to conservatives.

Senior bishops and laity meeting in London are to consider suspending the Anglican church in South America for taking rebel US dioceses under its wing.

The move will bring the Anglican Communion closer to a formal split. Early next month, rebel conservatives are expected to finalise plans for a new Anglican province in the US, to sit as a parallel jurisdiction alongside the existing Episcopal Church.

Unless this new province is recognised as part of the Anglican family by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and the other 38 primates, it will in effect become a new Anglican church.

Read it all, keeping in mind that Ruth wrongly summarizes what the Episcopal Church was asked to do; something a large portion of the Anglican Communion believes it has not done.

For decades, Claremont kindergartners have celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up as pilgrims and Native Americans and sharing a feast. But on Tuesday, when the youngsters meet for their turkey and songs, they won’t be wearing their hand-made bonnets, headdresses and fringed vests.

Parents in this quiet university town are sharply divided over what these construction-paper symbols represent: A simple child’s depiction of the traditional (if not wholly accurate) tale of two factions setting aside their differences to give thanks over a shared meal? Or a cartoonish stereotype that would never be allowed of other racial, ethnic or religious groups?

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The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.

The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.

When Congress approved the TARP on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. Now, as regulators commit far more money while refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return, some Congress members are calling for the Fed to be reined in.

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Update:Barry Ritholtz notes that “Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures ”“ combined”:

Ӣ Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
Ӣ Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
Ӣ Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
Ӣ S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
Ӣ Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
Ӣ The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
Ӣ Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
Ӣ Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
Ӣ NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

______________________________________________________________________

data courtesy of Bianco Research

Read all he has to say as well.

‘Tis the season for family, faith, fellowship ”” and fat.

As families gather around buffet tables smothered with food on Thanksgiving, religious diet groups caution us God might not approve of that second piece of pie. Yes, that’s right. The omnipresent world of wonder diets and slim-down regimes now has a foothold in the world of the omnipotent.

Faith-based weight loss groups have been a quietly growing presence for more than three decades. Organizations such as First Place 4 Health, a Texas-based group with chapters in more than 12,000 churches nationwide, and the Weigh Down Workshop,which offers in-person and online Bible-based weight-loss plans, boast that participants have lost the pounds (and kept them off) by placing more faith in God, and less in Ben & Jerry’s.

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The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that it would buy up to $600 billion in mortgage-backed assets in another attempt to deal with the financial crisis.

The Fed said it would purchase up to $100 billion in direct obligations from the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the Federal Home Loan Banks. It also will purchase another $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities, pools of mortgages that are bundled together and sold to investors.

The $600 billion effort on mortgages came as the Fed also unveiled a program to help unfreeze the market that backs consumer debt such as credit cards, auto loans and student loans.

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The Dec 3 ceremony will not launch a new province, CCP moderator Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh said, but will be an “an important concrete step toward the goal of a biblical, missionary and united Anglican Church in North America.”

Speaking in Boston on Nov 15 in a sermon broadcast by Anglican.TV, Bishop Duncan said the CCP leaders will “receive and god-willing commend a draft constitution” for the “Anglican Church in North America.”

We want to “bring Jerusalem to American” and “claim our place as members of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans,” he said.

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A Province I task force has issued “a pastoral resource for Province I Episcopal clergy ministering to same-sex couples.” The document is the first of its kind in the Episcopal Church.

The report was accepted at the Province I synod held November 21 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Concord, New Hampshire with a resolution stating that its “use is to be determined by diocesan bishops.”

The document consists of four parts: an historical and theological overview of same-gender unions; an exploration of issues specific to same-gender couples and their congregations; a statement of legalities, which vary from state-to-state; and a framework for counseling same-gender couples who desire a public commitment. An appendix of websites, books, documents and other resources is also included in the report.

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Evangelical Christians are adopting ”” and adapting ”” the rituals of Advent, the four weeks leading up to Christmas that are traditionally celebrated by Catholics, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox and other liturgical churches.

They’re giving a new, personalized spin to the prayers, candles and calendars to track the building excitement, and set a spiritual tone day by day. This year Advent begins on Sunday.

Popular evangelical authors are offering readings and composing prayers for the Advent season. And Family Christian Stores, the nation’s largest Christian retailer with 301 stores nationwide, has seen sales of Advent-related items climb 35% in the past year.

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For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

–1 Corinthians 3:11

Tough economic times are forcing more people than ever to seek help with their Thanksgiving meal, creating such demand at local food pantries that many will likely be disappointed this year.

Martha Reed, coordinator of the food pantry at Grace Episcopal Church, said the church had begun to turn people away Monday.

“A woman came this morning with six children. I was able to give her a couple of good-sized chickens, but there are a lot more people looking,” she said.

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By this year, the bleeding housing market had drained the equity from Judy Jones’ home in Murrieta, but her life still seemed secure. She had a government job, after all, and a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 5.875%, unlike the shaky, variable-rate loans of many of her Inland Empire neighbors.

Then her employer, the city of Corona, decided to deal with the economic slump by eliminating 112 positions, including Jones’ job as a code enforcer. Last month, at age 61, she joined a surge of once-solid borrowers who no longer could afford their mortgages.

“Every week at church, somebody else is out of work,” Jones said. “I’ve been a homeowner a long time — the last 10 years as a single mother — and I never missed a payment. Now look at me. And it could be you — any middle-class person who goes to work today could be walking out the door of a foreclosed house in a couple of months.”

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Ministers are to examine how extra funding can be given to churches, with one in five of them under threat of being closed.

Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, said there would be a new drive to make them central to community regeneration, backed up with financial support.

His comments follow The Sunday Telegraph’s Save our Churches campaign, which has called on the Government to increase grants to churches and allow them greater freedom to make the buildings suitable for community use. The campaign has been backed by politicians, celebrities and leading church figures, including Joanna Lumley, Jools Holland, David Cameron and Archbishop Rowan Williams.

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Life Plaza Center in San Gabriel used to teem with diners heading to Green Village, a Chinese restaurant in the middle of the horseshoe-shaped mall on Valley Boulevard.

But after the eatery closed five months ago, the 7,500- square-foot space remained vacant. With no tenants stepping forward and fewer customers clogging the parking lot, the plaza is quiet, with a curiously dark core.

It’s a scene repeated in various forms throughout the region, as the economic crash that started rolling through single-family housing more than a year ago begins to hit shopping centers, turning what had been a residential phenomenon into one that threatens commercial real estate as well.

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The trillions of dollars in public funds U.S. officials are putting on the line to stabilize financial markets and protect the economy from a deep recession would, in normal times, inspire fear of soaring inflation and a tumbling dollar.

But these are not normal times.

“The patient’s on the floor right now. You want to get him up off the floor; then you worry about diet and exercise,” said James Horney of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Read it all. Well, the Reuters headline says it is not a worry now but it is to a lot of us, and it should be as demonstrated in this article in this past weekend’s Barrons by Jack Willoughby. Make sure to read that also–KSH.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on November 21 inhibited Diocese of Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker for abandoning the communion of the Episcopal Church.

In the text of the inhibition, the Presiding Bishop wrote that “I hereby inhibit the said Bishop Iker and order that from and after 5:00 CST Friday, November 21, 2008, he cease from exercising the gifts of the ordained ministry of this Church; and pursuant to Canon IV.15, I order him from and after that time to cease all ‘Episcopal, ministerial, and canonical acts, except as relate to the administration of the temporal affairs of the Diocese of Fort Worth,’ until this Inhibition is terminated pursuant to Canon IV.9(2) or superseded by decision of the House of Bishops.”

Jefferts Schori acted the day after the Title IV Review Committee certified that Iker had abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church.

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The history of past recessions suggests that President-elect Obama has set a difficult but not impossible target for economic recovery: 2.5 million more jobs within two years.

By announcing this specific goal, alongside a stimulus plan and a team of top economic officials, Mr. Obama signaled that he is focused squarely on the challenge of job losses and an erosion of economic confidence.

He plans to ramp up spending on everything from roads and schools to solar panels and investments in energy efficiency.

The task ahead is formidable.

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On Aug 26, attorneys for Bishop Schori submitted a 64-page indictment to the Title IV Committee. Bishop Schori believed the Anglo-Catholic leader had “so repudiated the doctrine, discipline and worship” of the church by his “persistent position that the Diocese may choose whether or not to remain a constituent part of the Episcopal Church,” that he should be found to have “abandoned the Communion of this Church.”

Bishop Schori’s lawyer, David Booth Beers added the “presiding bishop would appreciate consideration of this matter on an expedited basis, specifically, if at all feasible, before the next meeting of the House of Bishops on September 17, 2008.”

The Title IV Committee declined to deliberate at an expedited pace, and on Sept 12 Mr. Beers provided further documents in support of its contentions. A third memo to the committee was mailed on Oct 3 by Mr. Beers with clippings of an article written by Bishop Iker entitled “10 Reasons Why Now is the Time to Realign.”

In his Oct 3 letter, the presiding bishop’s attorney said that his client “has asked you consider again the evidence” against Bishop Iker. Mr. Beers noted the deposition of Bishop Duncan had now set a precedent that permitted a bishop to be deposed for bad thoughts, without recourse to having committed bad actions.

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Rushing to rescue Citigroup, the government agreed to shoulder hundreds of billions of possible losses at the stricken bank and to plow a fresh $20 billion into the company.

Regulators hope the dramatic action will bolster badly shaken confidence in the once mighty banking giant as well as the nation’s financial system, a goal that so far has been elusive despite a flurry of government interventions to battle the worst global crisis since the 1930s.

The action, announced late Sunday by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., is aimed at shoring up a huge financial institution whose collapse would wreak havoc on the already fragile financial system and the U.S. economy.

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See page 22, and read it all .

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It can be argued that the establishment of an orthodox North American Province (even if it is initially recognized only by some of the GAFCON primates) is the best way to deal with the crisis in the Communion. (a.) The orthodox will be able to look after themselves, so “border crossing” for episcopal oversight by overseas bishops and primates can cease. (b.) Instead of being a beleaguered minority within TEC, the orthodox can be treated as equals in a dialogue intended to resolve the crisis of authority in Anglicanism. (c.) TEC will have greater incentive to respond to the calls of the rest of the Communion to return to Anglican norms, lest they lose credibility compared with the new Province. TEC’s leadership fears the realization of this last point, which is the main reason why they are working so hard to prevent establishment and recognition of a new Province….

While some may argue that the best way to preserve the unity of the Anglican Communion is to preserve the unity of the American Church (or, failing that, not to recognize any group that splits off from the American Church), I would argue the exact opposite. The best way to preserve the unity of the Anglican Communion is to allow the American church to divide (which is happening anyway, whether anyone likes it or not) and to recognize two North American provinces. Some overseas provinces will relate to one of the North American provinces more than the other. But there will not be the present level of vigorous advocacy (and border crossing) that now threatens to divide the Communion. And there will not be any reason why the other provinces of the Communion should be impaired in their relationships with each other or with Canterbury. However, if the present situation continues, and Canterbury does not recognize the new North American Province, it will eventually (and sooner rather than later) force some Global South provinces to end their relationship with Canterbury, and the Communion will be lost.

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The failure of the House of Bishops to discipline our own for lesser infractions than pulling a diocese out of TEC (thereby giving incontrovertible proof of violating the oath to “conform to the doctrine, discipline and worship of The Episcopal Church) is a matter of significance, I think. Bishop Duncan in particular has done a number of things which should have called for a disciplinary response from the HoB. Indeed, he asked for it specifically, back in September 2002, when he stated to the House that he had deliberately “provoked a constitutional crisis” (his words) by interfering in a parish in another diocese. And nothing happened. That the present Presiding Bishop is acting may be closing the barn door after the horse has left. But just leaving it swinging in the breeze would be dereliction of duty.

In the final analysis, our polity exists to support a dynamic missionary expansion as its first priority, and it does this admirably. After all, TEC, despite our small size, has launched about one-quarter of the provinces of the Communion. As such, it is less well suited to resolving significant conflicts about doctrine and discipline, because sufficient agreement on these is presupposed in the structures themselves. How can you undertake to evangelize the world if you do not have enough basic trust in each other’s grasp of the Gospel and catholic order””the synthesis that is the genius of Anglican ecclesiology?

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[It was interesting to watch] the trek to Capitol Hill by the auto company chieftains, who sought $25 billion in federal loans ”” and instead got their heads handed to them by angry congressmen. Incredibly, the C.E.O.’s came with no convincing plan of action, no promise to do better, no offers of management resignations. Even the most sympathetic Democrats, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seemed to turn against them, telling them not to come back unless they devised a plan to show Washington how they would use the money to turn the companies around. And thus the tom-toms of bankruptcy grew louder. What else is left for them to do?

Before the country decides to head down that path, though, let’s consider for a minute what that would mean and what it would entail. In his Times op-ed article this week, Mr. Romney called for “a managed bankruptcy,” making it sound as if such a move would allow G.M.”” with more or less a snap of a finger ”” to close plants, invest in new products, abolish gold-plated union benefits and make the industry more competitive.

But bankruptcy is anything but a snap. It is a long, difficult, drawn-out process with no guarantee that a bankruptcy judge will go along with everything G.M. wants to do. Several bankruptcy lawyers I spoke to all made the same point: if there is any way these goals can be accomplished outside of the bankruptcy process, then that should be tried first. As one lawyer put it to me, “Bankruptcy sucks as a way to achieve real business resolution.” As it happens, I think there is another approach that might work. But it won’t be particularly easy either.

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In the current turmoil, accidents can pull us in vastly different directions. The unforeseeable bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the US investment bank, transformed a lingering financial crisis into a near-systemic meltdown. Depending on how other unpredictable events turn out in the next few weeks and months, we could end up with a deflationary depression, an inflationary boom or even one followed by the other.

In such an environment, economic forecasts are useless ”“ worse than useless, in fact, because they give us a sense of certainty where there is none.

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This is the real “Code Red.” As one banker remarked to me: “We finally found the WMD.” They were buried in our own backyard – subprime mortgages and all the derivatives attached to them.

Yet, it is obvious that President Bush can’t mobilize the tools to defuse them – a massive stimulus program to improve infrastructure and create jobs, a broad-based homeowner initiative to limit foreclosures and stabilize housing prices, and therefore mortgage assets, more capital for bank balance sheets and, most importantly, a huge injection of optimism and confidence that we can and will pull out of this with a new economic team at the helm.

The last point is something only a new President Obama can inject. What ails us right now is as much a loss of confidence – in our financial system and our leadership – as anything else. I have no illusions that Obama’s arrival on the scene will be a magic wand, but it would help.

Right now there is something deeply dysfunctional, bordering on scandalously irresponsible, in the fractious way our political elite are behaving – with business as usual in the most unusual economic moment of our lifetimes. They don’t seem to understand: Our financial system is imperiled.

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Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.

–Galatians 6: 7-9

When the California Supreme Court begins weighing arguments over same-sex marriage ”” again ”” in December, some 18,000 such marriages could hang in the balance. Opponents of such unions also have high stakes, having spent countless hours, and nearly $40 million, to pass Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage and is under review by the court. And the justices could lose out, too; some are already being threatened with being voted out of office if they rule Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

“This is the whole ballgame,” said Jesse Choper, a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. “They earn their salaries in having to decide these things.”

The central issue is whether California voters ”” who have repeatedly used ballot measures to rewrite state law ”” overstepped their bounds by passing Proposition 8, which added 14 words to the California Constitution stating that only male-female marriage would be “valid or recognized.” Opponents of the measure say it amounts to a major revision of the Constitution, not an amendment, and thus would require legislative approval.

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The number of soldiers seeking help for substance abuse has climbed 25% in the past five years, but the Army’s counseling program has remained significantly understaffed and struggling to meet the demand, according to Army records.

About 13,500 soldiers sought drug counseling this year and 7,200 soldiers were diagnosed with an abuse or dependency issue and enrolled in counseling, Army data show. That compares with 11,170 soldiers reporting to drug counseling in 2003, when 5,727 enrolled.

Army records show 2.38% of all soldiers had positive results on routine drug urinalysis screening, a 10-year record. In 2004, when combat troops returned from Iraq in large numbers, 1.72% had positive results.

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