Following the lingering debate on the possibility of same sex married priests holding Church leadership positions, erudite scholar and bishop of Kaduna Anglican Diocese, Rev.Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, has stated that the Anglican Church stood by its determination in rejecting same sex marriages and would not accept at any level, holding of Church leadership by men of such status.

According to Bishop Fearon who spoke after conducting a confirmation service, “The position of the Church has not changed in standing by the standard of the Church which has been on for time.Our position is not different from the one we took in 1998, which we called resolution 110. It is clearly stated there that in this church, as far as we are concerned, marriage is between a man and a woman. It is clear and we have not changed that position.

Secondly, people who have other sexual orientation, which is if you have a man who is living with another man and they claimed they are married, we cannot accept them to be leaders in this church. That is the position of the Anglican community, and that has not changed”.

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I hold doggedly and dearly to the primacy of Scripture. It forms the bedrock of both my faith and my action. It constantly and properly confronts me with inadequacies and failures along with inspirations and opportunities. At the same time, I see no way in which contemporary people can continue to fly in the face of what, for example, a scientific discipline such as Genetics may yet reveal about why any of us is as we are. But through-out my main point is that the dynamic, pro-active theological method of Scripture, Tradition and Reason contains within it an elasticity of approach and a faithfulness of intention to new situa-tions, problems and difficulties: with Scriptural authenticity; within the total Tradition; informed by Reason both in terms of Hooker’s understanding of the natural law as revealing something vital
of God and in terms of rigorous criticism, scholarly acumen and scientific credibility. For none of these I make an apology in an Anglican world. The Church of Ire-land is not a confessional church and the
Anglican Communion is not a confessional Communion. Anglicanism is built on a foundation of the saving work of God in Christ but also on the utter provisionality of existing ecclesial institutions and earthly articulations of belonging. This is to do nothing more radical than to say that Anglicanism, in its self-definition, takes eschatology very seri-ously. I see a great deal of sense in the final sentence of the Editorial of The Church Times of June 20th 2008 following events in St Bartholomew’s Church, Lon-don: ”˜The challenge for the Lambeth Con-ference, and for GAFCON before it, is to demonstrate how Christians can disagree profoundly and yet recognize the work-ing of the Holy Spirit in those with whom they disagree.’ This, my friends, is where The Tower of Babel meets The Day of Pentecost and is redeemed in the encounter.

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When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.

That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.

“We need an interstate transmission superhighway system,” said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Read the whole article.

Now that others have helped set the stage, Mr. Obama must demonstrate his own passion and policy mastery. He needs to show that he has his own plan for solving this country’s many problems, from reviving the economy to rebuilding a broken military. That is especially true if Mr. Obama is to win the votes of moderate Republicans. Many recognize that President Bush’s terms have been a disaster but still see the Democrats the way Republicans have painted them: the party of a weak defense and economy-killing taxes.

This country certainly can use true bipartisanship ”” something it has not seen under Mr. Bush. But conventions, like elections, are partisan events, where candidates begin to define themselves for voters. At the 1932 Democratic convention, Franklin D. Roosevelt promised a “New Deal.” At the 1980 Republican convention, Ronald Reagan declared his revolution against “overgrown and overweight” government.

Without such clear choices, elections end up where they are now, wars of attack ads with voters focused on labels and minutiae.

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Don’t misunderstand: I would not, could not disparage my marriage (not on a train, not in the rain, not in a house, not with a mouse). After 192 months, Will and I remain if not happily married, then steadily so. Our marital state is Indiana, say, or Connecticut — some red areas, more blue. Less than bliss, better than disaster. We are arguably, to my wide-ish range of reference, Everycouple.

Nor is Will the Very Bad Man that I’ve made him out to be. Rather, like every other male I know, he is merely a Moderately Bad Man, the kind of man who will leave his longboat-sized shoes directly in the flow of our home’s traffic so that one day I’ll trip over them, break my neck, and die, after which he’ll walk home from the morgue, grief-stricken, take off his shoes with a heavy heart, and leave them in the center of the room until they kill the housekeeper. Everyman.

Still, beneath the thumpingly ordinary nature of our marriage — Everymarriage –runs the silent chyron of divorce. It’s the scarlet concept, the closely held contemplation of nearly every woman I know who has children who have been out of diapers for at least two years and a husband who won’t be in them for another 30. It’s the secret reverie of a demographic that freely discusses postpartum depression, eating disorders, and Ambien dependence (often all in the same sentence) with the plain candor of golden brown toast. In a let-it-all-hang-out culture, this is the given that stays tucked in.

This is the Mid-Wife Crisis.

Mind you, when I say Mid-Wife Crisis, I mean the middle-of-married-life kind, not the kind where you go to Yale to learn how to legally brandish a birthing stool. As one girlfriend remarked, it’s the age of rage — a period of high irritation that lasts roughly one to two decades. As a colleague e-mailed me, it’s the simmering underbelly of resentment, the 600-pound mosquito in the room. At a juncture where we thought we should have unearthed some modicum of certainty, we are turning into the Clash. If I go will there be trouble? If I stay will it be double? Should I stay or should I go?

Read the whole article.

National Guard troops stand ready, batteries and water bottles sold briskly, and one small-town mayor spent a sleepless night worrying. The New Orleans area watched as a storm marched across the Caribbean on the eve of Hurricane Katrina’s third anniversary.

With forecasters warning that Gustav could strengthen and slam into the Gulf Coast as a major hurricane, a New Orleans still recovering from Hurricane Katrina’s devastating hit drew up evacuation plans.

“I’m panicking,” said Evelyn Fuselier of Chalmette, whose home was submerged in 14 feet of floodwater when Katrina hit. Fuselier said she’s been back in her home one year this month, and called watching Gustav swirl toward the Gulf of Mexico indescribable. “I keep thinking, ‘Did the Corps fix the levees?,”Is my house going to flood again?’ … ‘Am I going to have to go through all this again?'”

Taking no chances, city officials began preliminary planning to evacuate and lock down the city in hopes of avoiding the catastrophe that followed the 2005 storm. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin left the Democratic National Convention in Denver to return home for the preparations. Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency to lay the groundwork for federal assistance, and put 3,000 National Guard troops on standby.

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Religious leaders and people of faith who’ve been invited to the table at this week’s Democratic National Convention are not sitting quietly with their hands in their laps.

The head of a large African-American denomination challenged the party on abortion. An Orthodox Jewish rabbi raised his voice about school choice. A thirty-something evangelical Christian author warned against Democrats who mock believers.

Although well aware that party officials have political reasons for reaching out to them, several faith figures taking part in convention events say they want to go beyond talk about how faith and values inform longstanding Democratic policies. They are also calling for change on core Democratic issues, which could create tension.

“It’s important that people of faith are being listened to just like other constituencies, that we’re not marginalized,” said Alexia Kelley of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which has pressed the party to support policies aimed at reducing abortion rates. “Just because we’re participating in the process and engaging people who may not agree with us doesn’t mean we’re just a mascot.”

Read it all.

ARE YOU GAME?
You don’t play to win.

California-based artist and video-game designer John O’Neill has gone back to basics with an old-fashioned board game with a twist: It’s meant to shake up the preconceived notions of “winning” and “losing.” Paradice combines the strategic challenge of checkers or chess with a thoughtful new approach to competition. A favorite at eco-conscious festivals, Paradice is a game for two to four players who switch roles between Giver and Taker as the game progresses. In the end, the Giver wins by bringing all the “humans” on the board eye to eye. The game embodies the philosophy it teaches: The set is constructed of sustainably harvested wood and nontoxic dyes. Paradice also comes in an elegant version made from hand-poured resin.

— Liz Seymour, USAirways Magazine August 2008

Don’t Stop at the Lights, launched [this week]… by Church House Publishing, includes sermon ideas and extensive bible study notes drawing on ancient theological themes which aim to reconnect the church to the natural world and the roots of its faith. It inspires priests to make churches beacons in their community, offering case studies linked to the Church’s year including:

* setting up a decorations swap shop during Advent for people to exchange unwanted decorations;
* using Lent as an opportunity to carry out a complete internal environmental audit and to set targets, beginning on Ash Wednesday;
* re-establishing the tradition of beating the bounds at Rogationtide to help refocus congregations on God’s gifts and the role of the Church in preserving justice and extending charity;
* limiting the number of nights that the church is floodlit and then inviting members of the congregation and wider community to ”˜sponsor’ an evening’s illumination in memory of a loved one or to mark an anniversary

Former Church of England environment adviser Claire Foster and David Shreeve, a current adviser to the Church and director of The Conservation Foundation, have written the book to help enable churches to take climate change seriously as a core Christian concern. It follows last year’s successful pocket guide by the same authors and also produced by Church House Publishing, called How Many Lightbulbs does it take to Change a Christian? which will be published in the United States this Autumn.

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In Vernor Vinge’s version of Southern California in 2025, there is a school named Fairmont High with the motto, “Trying hard not to become obsolete.” It may not sound inspiring, but to the many fans of Vinge, this is a most ambitious — and perhaps unattainable — goal for any member of our species.

Vinge is a mathematician and computer scientist in San Diego whose science fiction has won five Hugo Awards and earned good reviews even from engineers analyzing its technical plausibility. He can write space operas with the best of them, but he also suspects that intergalactic sagas could become as obsolete as their human heroes.

The problem is a concept described in Vinge’s seminal essay in 1993, “The Coming Technological Singularity,” which predicted that computers would be so powerful by 2030 that a new form of superintellligence would emerge. Vinge compared that point in history to the singularity at the edge of a black hole: a boundary beyond which the old rules no longer applied, because post-human intelligence and technology would be as unknowable to us as our civilization is to a goldfish.

The Singularity is often called “the rapture of the nerds,” but Vinge doesn’t anticipate immortal bliss. The computer scientist in him may revel in the technological marvels, but the novelist envisions catastrophes and worries about the fate of not-so-marvelous humans like Robert Gu, the protagonist of Vinge’s latest novel, “Rainbows End.”

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There’s no in between. You’re either Abercrombie hot ”“ or you’re not.

Kristen Carmichael discovered she didn’t fit the clothing store’s self-described “sexy, effortless style” when she was pulled from a sales position on the floor of the NorthPark Center store and shoved back to the stockroom to fold clothes.

This was after they’d rated her face.

The college student who was in Dallas for the summer and her female co-worker had received a 0 ranking on a district manager’s monthly audit. The report, posted on a wall in the office, included the question, “Do all female models currently working have beautiful faces?”

Read the whole article.

Rev Prof Kenneth Newport, pro vice-chancellor of Liverpool Hope University, has deciphered more than 1,000 pages written 250 years ago between 1736 and 1756.

He has uncovered details of Wesley’s anxieties over the possibilities of a split from the Church of England, his younger brother’s plans to marry and even over the growing influence of Islam.

He used a handwritten transcription of the four gospels made by Wesley as a guide to deciphering the journals themselves.

Wesley’s concerns over the prospect of the newly founded Methodist Societies splitting from the Church of England echo the Anglican Church’s current debate over the consecration of gay clergy and the threat of schism.

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Gustav swirled toward Cuba on Wednesday after triggering flooding and landslides that killed at least 22 people in the Caribbean. Its track pointed toward the U.S. Gulf coast, including Louisiana where Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc three years ago.

Oil prices jumped above US$119 a barrel as workers began to evacuate from the offshore rigs responsible for a quarter of U.S. crude production and much of America’s natural gas.

“We know it’s going to head into the Gulf. After that, we’re not sure where it’s heading,” said Rebecca Waddington, a meteorologist at the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. “For that reason, everyone in Gulf needs to be monitoring the storm. At that point, we’re expecting it to be a Category 3 hurricane.”

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Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain enjoys a 16-point lead ”” 51 percent to 35 percent ”” among Southern voters over rival Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, a new poll by Winthrop University and ETV shows.

And, the further into the South you go, the larger McCain’s lead grows, the poll of likely voters in 11 Southern states shows.

Likely voters in the Deep South ”” those in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina ”” preferred McCain by a 25-point margin, 56 percent to 31 percent.

Southern voters said what they want most in a president is honesty, experience and shared values. Southern voters rated McCain ahead of Obama in each of those categories.

McCain’s strongest support comes from white working-class Southerners ”” who favor him by a 34-point margin ”” and white evangelicals ”” who favor the Arizonan by 54 percentage points.

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U.S. and European banks, already burdened by losses and concerns about their financial health, face a new challenge: paying off hundreds of billions of dollars of debt coming due.

At issue are so-called floating-rate notes — securities used heavily by banks in 2006 to borrow money. A big chunk of those notes, which typically mature in two years, will come due over the next year or so, at a time when banks are struggling to raise fresh funds. That’s forcing banks to sell assets, compete heavily for deposits and issue expensive new debt.

The crunch will begin next month, when some $95 billion in floating-rate notes mature. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. analyst Alex Roever estimates that financial institutions will have to pay off at least $787 billion in floating-rate notes and other medium-term obligations before the end of 2009. That’s about 43% more than they had to redeem in the previous 16 months.

The problem highlights how the pain of the credit crunch, now entering its second year, won’t end soon for banks or the broader economy. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said on Tuesday that its list of “problem” banks at risk of failure had grown to 117 at the end of June, up from 90 at the end of March. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said her agency might have to borrow money from the Treasury Department to see it through an expected wave of bank failures. She said the borrowing could be needed to handle short-term cash-flow pressure brought on by reimbursements to depositors after bank failures.

Read it all from the front page of this morning’s Wall Street Journal.

While I and a number of others are not in favor of an Anglican Covenant, I believe it is something that is going to happen. Therefore The Episcopal Church needs to be fully part of the conversation which forms it. — A “document” will be the result of the indaba group conversations, but this should not be interpreted as the last word. There are voices yet to be heard. Each Province of the Anglican Communion will have an opportunity to respond to the document. This will take time.

Many were looking for a definitive outcome of the Lambeth Conference. “What will you tell the people back home?” was a question frequently asked by the press and by visitors to the Conference. I believe the answer to that question has less to do with the issues we wrestled with than with what evolved during the process of Lambeth 2008. My answer is that we moved closer to God, we grounded ourselves in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we realized more fully the importance of a worldwide Anglican Communion. We focused on the spiritual, rather than the political. Those who came to Lambeth with heightened expectations will be disappointed. Under the leadership of Archbishop Williams, we avoided the cultural aspect of creating winners and losers. We agreed that we are Church in different contexts, and we agreed to continue our journey together. I believe Lambeth has been a huge success. It is a beginning, not an end. Our trust in one another is greatly improved and “we” are the outcome of the Conference.

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The Diocese has taken steps under Canon 15 towards removing clergy who have left the Anglican Church of Canada rather than accepting the decisions of the Diocesan Synod and General Synod.

The Diocese has invoked the provision that returns control of the parishes to the Diocese, an action that was approved by Diocesan Council.

The parishes are St. Matthew’s Abbotsford and St. Matthias and St. Luke, Vancouver. Former diocesan clergy who have continued working in the parishes are Trevor Walters, Michael Stewart, and Don Gardner at St. Matthew’s, and Simon Chin at St. Matthias and St. Luke.

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(ENS) Part of the responsibility of living in community is building relationships. That may mean connecting with someone who has a different set of beliefs or cultural standards. That may mean, as the Gospel reading for August 24 suggested, that the pursuit of truth is not about the end product of defining truth but about the journey together.

“Does one person, like the Archbishop of Canterbury, for instance, have a ”˜corner on the truth market?'” asked Anderson in her sermon. “Has one particular group been given the gift of pure truth and the rest of us just can’t hear it?

“I don’t think so. Right now the how of coming to the truth is as important as getting to the truth. Right now, the way in which the Anglican Communion goes about the search for the elusive truth is as important as the truth itself.”

Through relationships characterized by intimacy and vulnerability, “we come to know the truth,” said Anderson. The relationships between bishops that were forged and fostered at the Lambeth Conference are an important beginning to this journey for truth. But laity, priests and deacons all must be a part of building relationships and making connections so that the truth of Christ can be made known to the world.

Anderson challenged each group to live into the baptismal covenant.

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It’s a rough road to manhood for young guys, who more than ever are finding themselves confounded and conflicted about what “masculinity” means.

Behavioral researchers say being a heterosexual male used to mean being macho, but guys today get mixed messages on all fronts as they navigate sex, drinking, friendships and the future.

“The social messages ”¦ about how to be a good person or a good guy vary quite widely,” says Glenn Good, professor of counseling psychology at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Joseph Hammer, 23, who is working on a master’s in counseling at Missouri, hears a lot of competing messages. “Your parents tell you things. Your friends tell you things. Your teachers tell you things. You see things on TV.”

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Health care has fallen from its status as the top domestic issue in this year’s presidential campaign, but that doesn’t mean voters no longer care.

A poll released last week found more than 80 percent of those surveyed think the nation’s health care system needs fundamental change. Both Arizona Sen. John McCain and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama are promising that, but change is really the only feature their plans have in common.

McCain and Obama have very different prescriptions for solving the problem of ballooning health care costs, says Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health politics and policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Read it all and consider listening to the longer, linked report.

Britain will overtake Germany and France to become the biggest country in the EU in 50 years’ time, according to population projections unveiled yesterday. A survey of demographic trends finds Britain’s positive birth rate contrasting strongly with most other large countries in Europe.

The impact of population shrinkage, coupled with the ageing of key European societies, spells big problems for pensions, health and welfare systems across much of the union, says the report, published by Eurostat, the statistical service of the European commission.

But Britain, it says, is likely to suffer less because of its strong population growth and the younger average age of British society.

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The Diocese of Singapore, in its teaching on biblical faith and order, is firmly committed to this orthodox position on sexual ethics. I need to express as clearly as I possibly can; that what the church here believes (in essential beliefs and moral ethics) needs to be taught and upheld personally and publicly by all our clergy, lay leaders and members of the Diocese. While we can continue to discuss the pastoral challenges on the ground, we need to remain faithful to the teaching of the Church by virtue of the trust committed to us by the Lord and our love for our fellow human being

We believe and hold that the Bible is clear and authoritative in bearing witness to God’s will regarding human sexuality; namely that sexual relations are to be expressed only within the life-long union of a man and a woman in holy matrimony. All forms of sexual promiscuity, including homosexual practices, between men or women, as well as heterosexual relationships outside marriage are incompatible with the divine vision and design of human life. The Bible describes them as sinful practices that are contrary to God’s good purposes. They dehumanise God’s image in humanity and need to be repented of. At the same time, we hold that there is divine grace of forgiveness, healing and transformation for all who repent of homosexual or other illicit forms of sexual practice. We do not condone inhuman and unsocial acts against homosexuals nor do we discriminate against them. Rather, we extend to them God’s love, compassionate ministry and true freedom through Jesus Christ.

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But the quest for theological coherency in the case is a quest for something more from a church which normally acts with, and not against, the grain of Scripture and its interpretation worked out and received as the church’s tradition. Questions I do not see being answered, in TEC or in ACANZP, include:

– what Scriptural basis authorises the church to bless a sexual relationship apart from a marriage between a man and a woman?
– where, in the long history of Israel and the church, both as written down in Scripture, and recorded through Christian history, does the tension between faithful marriage and committed singleness of leaders of Israel and of the church extend to the possibility that God calls leaders who are in committed same sex partnerships?
– given the fact that the situation in Western society now is such that the quest for ‘acceptance’ of homosexuality includes a growing agenda (gay, lesbian and bisexual and transgender; same sex couples rearing children with the aid of a third person as biological father or mother), where is the ‘positive’ basis in Scripture and the tradition of the church for acceptance of the whole agenda being advanced?
– how is the church to theologically sustain either of the following situations: being a church in which ministers may teach that the blessing of same sex partnerships is wrong and ministers may live in a blessed same sex partnership OR being a church in which both ministers may live in a blessed same sex partnership and ministers may not teach that such blessings are wrong?

Read it all.

TWR’s solution was to give extant pan-Anglican instruments of union legislative and juridical authority. Member churches were to commit themselves to submit innovations in doctrine or practice (especially those concerning whom the Church is prepared to ordain and bless) to the instruments of union for approval, and to refrain from giving such changes institutional expression until such approval was secured. In other words, pan-Anglican instruments were to be given a veto power over any changes of ”˜essentials’ by national churches. TWR suggested the mechanism of a pan-Anglican covenant, whose provisions would be given legal force through member churches changing their canons.

Rhetorically, TWR is remarkable for presuming its own legitimacy. It speaks throughout as if TWR polity were already in force and as if TEC and New Westminster had violated covenant commitments. Rhetorically, TWR encouraged the instruments of union to act on this presumption. Rhetorically, TWR was persuasive.

So when TWR went on to suggest ways of disciplining TEC and New Westminster (putting them on probation by asking them to withdraw from participation in pan-Anglican instruments until matters were settled, until TEC and New Westminster had repented and enforced moratoria on ordaining non-celibate homosexuals and blessing homosexual partnerships) and of protecting the faithful in (what came to be known as) non-Windsor-compliant dioceses or provinces, the ABC and the primates at Dromantine took authority and proceeded to do just that.

Read the whole argument

Jason Ford, 29, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., will be spending Election Day at home this year.

A self-identified evangelical Christian, Ford cast his vote for President Bush in 2004, but says he and his wife plan to stay away from the polls Nov. 4, rather than vote for Sen. John McCain.

“I’m not going to be able to vote for anyone who doesn’t take a 100-percent stand against abortion,” said Ford, “so right now I’m in a dilemma.”

Ford is concerned by McCain’s support for embryonic stem cell research, as well as reports that the Arizona senator may choose a running mate who supports abortion rights, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

“If he’s OK with that, then I’m not,” Ford said.

Read the whole article.

Under fire from U.S. Catholic bishops, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not backing off contentious comments about abortion she made during a weekend television talk show appearance.

Pelosi said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “doctors of the church” have not been able to define when life begins. That prompted swift rebukes from Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl and Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput, who said Pelosi was incorrect and that Catholic teaching has consistently condemned abortion.

Cardinal Edward Egan of New York voiced similar sentiment Tuesday. Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop William Lori, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, also issued a statement correcting Pelosi.

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said in a statement Tuesday that she “fully appreciates the sanctity of family” and based her views on conception on the “views of Saint Augustine, who said: ‘… the law does not provide that the act (abortion) pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation …’

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The Democratic National Convention has begun and the poll numbers are bouncing, but not in the direction that most people anticipated.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows Barack Obama attracting 44% of the vote while John McCain also earns 44%. When “leaners” are included, it’s still tied with Obama at 46% and McCain at 46%. Yesterday, with leaners, Obama had a three-point advantage over McCain….

Obama is supported by 78% of Democrats while McCain gets the vote from 85% of Republicans. The GOP hopeful also has a slight advantage among unaffiliated voters.

Read it all.

Update: The latest from Gallup is here.

Major League Baseball reversed its long-standing opposition to instant replay and will allow umpires to check video on home run calls in series that start Thursday.

The start date comes nearly 10 months after general managers voted 25-5 to use the technology, and following MLB agreements with the unions for umpires and for players.

“I believe that the extraordinary technology that we now have merits the use of instant replay on a very limited basis,” commissioner Bud Selig said. “The system we have in place will ensure that the proper call is made on home run balls and will not cause a significant delay to the game.”

Three series are scheduled to start Thursday, with Philadelphia at the Chicago Cubs, Minnesota at Oakland and Texas at the Los Angeles Angels. For other games, replays will be available to umpires starting Friday.

I am concerned it may unduly extend the games–but let us see how it works in practice. Read it all.

The Cubs are 31 games over .500 for the first time since 1984.

That ’84 team, of course, came agonizingly close to reaching the World Series for the first time since 1945, losing a best-of-five NL Championship Series to the San Diego Padres after taking a 2-0 series lead at Wrigley Field.

Comparisons between the ’84 team I covered for the Tribune and the current Cubs can always be debated. The ’84 Cubs, for instance, finished with a team earned-run average of 3.75. The current staff has a 3.74 ERA at this point.

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Catholic public leaders inconvenienced by the abortion debate tend to take a hard line in talking about the “separation of Church and state.” But their idea of separation often seems to work one way. In fact, some officials also seem comfortable in the role of theologian. And that warrants some interest, not as a “political” issue, but as a matter of accuracy and justice.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professional skills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them.
Interviewed on Meet the Press August 24, Speaker Pelosi was asked when human life begins. She said the following:

“I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition . . . St. Augustine said at three months. We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose.”

Since Speaker Pelosi has, in her words, studied the issue “for a long time,” she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit John Connery’s Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Loyola, 1977). Here’s how Connery concludes his study:

“The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion.”

Read it all.