The Rev. Rick Lawson hates the sight of discarded Christmas trees in the gutter as he drives home from church on Christmas Day. He winces at the day-after rush to the stores.

“Nothing is more shocking to me,” says Lawson, dean of St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Salt Lake City. “So many people see it as the end of the festivities, but in the church it is just the beginning of a celebratory season.”

For many branches of Christianity, that season culminates on Jan. 6, which is known variously as Epiphany, or Twelfth Night. Taken from the Greek for “manifestation,” Epiphany began in the Eastern Orthodox Church in the third century to honor Jesus’ baptism. In that tradition, the Epiphany service includes a blessing of water as a symbol of renewal and regeneration. Individual members can take some of the blessed water to their homes to drink and to use for healing.

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Say cheese, Father Malia.

On the day the Episcopal church opened an investigation into his nightclub crawls, new pictures surfaced of a Pennsylvania priest getting his party on.

The candid camera caught the Rev. Gregory Malia living it up with lithe lovelies at one of his favorite haunts, Pink Elephant.

He’s seen drinking Perrier Jouet pink champagne that costs $550 a bottle and doing shots with the gals, all wearing identical minidresses.

Read it all.

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

Go here and click on the video at the top to watch (about 3 3/4 minutes). It starts in Auckland and ends in New York. I liked the fireworks in Sydney and the music in Berlin the best–see what you think.

It is the Bernard Madoff Debacle which brings this to mind at present, but the broader topic is worth pondering also–KSH.

Affinity fraud refers to investment scams that prey upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, the elderly, or professional groups. The fraudsters who promote affinity scams frequently are – or pretend to be – members of the group. They often enlist respected community or religious leaders from within the group to spread the word about the scheme, by convincing those people that a fraudulent investment is legitimate and worthwhile. Many times, those leaders become unwitting victims of the fraudster’s ruse.

These scams exploit the trust and friendship that exist in groups of people who have something in common. Because of the tight-knit structure of many groups, it can be difficult for regulators or law enforcement officials to detect an affinity scam. Victims often fail to notify authorities or pursue their legal remedies, and instead try to work things out within the group. This is particularly true where the fraudsters have used respected community or religious leaders to convince others to join the investment.

Read it all and take special note of the examples listed.

Update: There is a good NPR segment on this subject there.

Another update: Ronald Cass’ WSJ article mentioned in the NPR interview is here.

Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday threw his support behind a huge pro-family rally in Madrid in what was the latest in a recent series of widely reported comments he has made on traditional marriage and human sexuality. “Dear families, do not allow love, openness to life and the incomparable bonds that unite your families to become distorted,” he said in Spanish during the midday Angelus from his window overlooking St Peter’s Square at the Vatican. The message was broadcast live to Madrid where hundreds of thousands of Catholics joined Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela at an outdoor Mass. The purpose was to support traditional marriage in the face of the Socialist Government’s liberal reforms, including legalised same-sex marriage, quicker divorces and easier abortions.

“The Pope is by your side,” Benedict XVI told the Catholic Spaniards on the Feast of the Holy Family. Cardinal Rouco avoided criticising the Spanish Government at the Mass, following reports that Pope Benedict had asked the Spanish bishops to be less confrontational.

The Pope also urged Catholics at his Angelus to pray for the Fourth World Meeting of Families, which is to take place 14-18 January in Mexico City.

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For the past several years, as this Army installation in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains became a busy way station for soldiers cycling in and out of Iraq, the number of servicemen implicated in violent crimes has raised alarm.

Nine current or former members of Fort Carson’s Fourth Brigade Combat Team have killed someone or were charged with killings in the last three years after returning from Iraq. Five of the slayings took place last year alone. In addition, charges of domestic violence, rape and sexual assault have risen sharply.

Prodded by Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, the base commander began an investigation of the soldiers accused of homicide. An Army task force is reviewing their recruitment, medical and service records, as well as their personal histories, to determine if the military could have done something to prevent the violence. The inquiry was recently expanded to include other serious violent crimes.

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When Ryan T. Muneio was tailgating with his parents at a Michigan State football game this fall, he noticed a big tent emblazoned with a Bank of America logo. Inside, bank representatives were offering free T-shirts and other merchandise to those who applied for credit cards and other banking products.

“They did a good job,” Mr. Muneio, 21 and a junior at Michigan State, said of the tactic. “It was good advertising.”

Bank of America’s relationship with the university extends well beyond marketing at sports events. The bank has an $8.4 million, seven-year contract with Michigan State giving it access to students’ names and addresses and use of the university’s logo. The more students who take the banks’ credit cards, the more money the university gets. Under certain circumstances, Michigan State even stands to receive more money if students carry a balance on these cards.

Hundreds of colleges have contracts with lenders. But at a time of rising concern about student debt ”” and overall consumer debt ”” the arrangements have sounded alarm bells, and some student groups are starting to push back.

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I am not going to spoil it by quoting it, but you need to read it all.

Members of many black churches in New York and around the country concluded services at the stroke of midnight Wednesday with the same simple act that has signaled the arrival of the new year in their tradition for almost 150 years.

They got up off their knees.

It is the concluding ritual moment of Watch Night, a midnight prayer service first adopted in 1862, on the eve of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. This time around, with the first black president-elect poised for inauguration, it was a moment layered with profound meaning.

Black churches in the cities and suburbs of New York, Atlanta, Boston and Los Angeles were filled to capacity on Wednesday for Watch Night, also known as Freedom’s Eve. The Rev. Dr. Brad R. Braxton of Riverside Church in Manhattan described the passing year as one in which, for many black Americans, “the rhetoric of freedom in America came to be an actuality.”

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The Jaguar-driving priest has denied doing anything improper and predicted the church committee will clear him and let him return as vicar of a small summer parish.

He insists wild spending on visits to clubs like Pink Elephant were connected to fund-raising efforts and his for-profit company – a pharmacy for hemophiliacs.

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” [Gregory] Malia told the Daily News after an article about his extravagant jaunts led his shocked church bosses to take action.

I notice there is no mention of the fact that the bishop was not contacted before the first article by the Daily News was published. Hmmm. Anyway, read it all..

What a lot of fun this is from yesterday’s tournament of roses parade–watch it all.

Read it all and make sure to follow the three linked statements beneath the first one.

There were growing fears in Israel last night that Hamas missiles could threaten its top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona.

Rocket attacks from Gaza have forced Israelis to flee in ever greater numbers and military chiefs have been shaken by the size and sophistication of the militant group’s arsenal.

In Beersheba, until a few days ago a sleepy desert town in southern Israel, there is little sign of the 186,000 inhabitants. Schools are closed and the streets of shuttered shops echo with the howl of sirens warning of incoming rockets.

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Here are two:

”¢ ”¦ live within my means, wean myself off credit, and read the fine print of my mortgage papers.

”” The American consumer (and his government)….

”¢ ”¦ let college football teams decide the national championship on the playing field.

”” Administrators of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS)

In a New Year message, the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Michael Perham, said that his hope for the nation was “that we will find ways of supporting those most affected by the recession” and “learn the lessons that will create a society less obsessed with material wealth”.

The Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe, Dr Geoffrey Rowell, said that the economic crisis could be “as significant as the fall of the Berlin Wall in changing the world”.

Dr Williams, interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, said that the credit crunch was a “reality check”. Sooner or later, people had “to ask what are we assembling or accumulating wealth for”.

Acknowledging that it was “suicid­ally silly” for him to com­ment on the economy, because he was “not an economist by any stretch of the imagination”, the Arch­bishop said that he wanted to ask where the “moral questions are in the economic discourse”.

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Religion was inescapable in the news of 2008. Headlines featured pastors embroiled in politics, confrontations over same-sex marriage, deadly sectarian conflicts, in-fighting among Anglicans and a joyful visit to the USA by Pope Benedict XVI.

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The subprime mortgage market is “little more than an asterisk in the overall U.S. credit economy,” said Roth Capital Partners economist Donald Straszheim.

The concern that rising defaults among subprime borrowers would spill over to lower consumer spending in the broader economy is unwarranted, said Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness.

“It’s the latest episode of housing hysteria,” Snaith said. “It’s a small segment of the overall mortgage market and its problems are not akin to a currency crisis where there is some contagion that just ripples through an economy.”

—From a Reuters article on April 11, 2007

3. The fable of the experts: The public is told that they must listen to the experts from the investment houses who know where to invest because they are experienced stock exchange people.

Well, what did IBI CEO Zvi Lubetzky say in April 2008? “There is no bubble in the share market, the bank shares are a fantastic bargain.” And what did Migdal Capital Markets CEO Yaakov Weinstein say in May 2008? “The climax of the crisis is already behind us.” And what did Meitav chairman Zvi Stepak say in January 2008? “The attractiveness of the shares market is increasing.”

Since then, the markets have collapsed and anyone who listened to these experts lost a great deal of money. What is the conclusion?

The conclusion is never trust the experts, as I remember Boston College’s Peter Kreeft saying once in an interview is the one piece of advice he would give to people were he asked, and this goes not only for finances but in all areas of life. Can anyone forget that Ben Bernanke told us relatively early in 2007 that (as one article summarized it) “the subprime mortgage market’s troubles will be contained“? That is a monumental misjudgement worth remembering, and while you do please read the rest of this piece.

At the docks here, the stacks of shipping containers that used to loom above the highway overpass are gone. Logistics managers say they negotiate deeper discounts every week on ships that are leaving half empty.

In nearby Guangdong Province, so many factories are closing without paying employees that some workers are resigning pre-emptively and demanding immediate pay before their employers go bankrupt.

In Sichuan and other interior provinces, municipal officials are desperately searching for ways to provide jobs for millions of out-of-work migrant laborers whose families no longer need them for farming.

Read it all.

For many around the world watching the new year arrive, 2008 had not been pretty. Slumping stocks. Disappearing jobs.

“I’m looking forward to 2009,” said Randolph King of England, whose retirement fund was gutted in the global financial crisis. “Because it can’t get much worse.”

After the most volatile financial year in decades, people paused for a deep breath and a sip of … perhaps something cheaper than champagne.

Read it all.

(Please see the original post on this here.)

I read the Daily News article with deep distress and know its contents will trouble many parishioners. The allegations made in the article, if true, constitute a serious violation of ordination vows to be “a wholesome example” to a priest’s people. If true, they may also violate other canonical provisions and certainly portray an unacceptable idea of Christian stewardship.

The Episcopal Church provides due process when such issues arise, however, and no summary judgment can be made by me unilaterally. During the time that the Standing Committee is investigating Fr. Malia’s activities, I am removing him from his appointment as my vicar at St. James in Dundaff, and will be inhibiting him from the exercise of priestly ministry. The conservative group he has gathered around himself will be traumatized, and I will ask two priests in the locale to minister to them.

Read it alll.

Elizabeth and I went last night. Enjoyed it. A thought provoking story, and well acted, especially by the two leads–KSH.

A encouraging story to start the year with–God bless this man and his efforts on behalf of the troops. Watch it all.

For years now, the Episcopal Church in the United States has been divided as leadership continues to pursue liberal-leaning policies, while conservative members continue to feel alienated and isolated. In December, a federation of Anglican Christians formed a new Anglican church in North America. That announcement came from The Common Cause Partnership, a coalition of conservative Anglican churches. Robert Lundy with Common Cause said the decision was at least three decades in the making.

“We, as The Common Cause Partnership — and as sort of disaffected Episcopalians, Anglicans — feel it is the one step that we have to make. And we will reach out to other Christians who are in the Episcopal Church and help them, and we hope that they reach out to us and work together for mission,” Lundy shared. “But for The Common Cause Partnership and the 100,000 people who we represent, this is a step we feel that the Lord is leading us to take.”

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THE Bishop of Ripon and Leeds has played down the significance of the Church of England being disestablished.

The Rt Rev John Packer, whose sprawling diocese includes Leeds, Harrogate, Ripon and Richmond, is backing the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who contends that a separation would not be such a major step.

The bishops’ comments come after it was recently reported that Labour was pressing for a state split from the church.

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For more than 120 years an area the size of Europe has been known as the African Free State, the Belgian Congo, Zaire, and today the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Stretching from the Atlantic coast to the borders of Uganda and Rwanda and Tanzania in the east and Sudan and Angola to the north and south, this nearly ungovernable territory is home to a multitude of tribes and languages, huge potential of human talent, intelligence and imagination and vast natural resources.

Why, then, is such a wonderful part of God’s creation the subject of Joseph Conrad’s ominous novel The Heart of Darkness (1899)?

The even more crucial question is why over a hundred years later, as Andrew Mitchell MP reported in this Agenda column on November 28, is the Eastern DRC still “a humanitarian catastrophe”?

A very hearty amen to this final question. It remains a matter for daily prayer. Read it all.

The little white Anglican church at Livingston Street and Conklin Avenue is a very special place. For me and many more people it is a home and an extended family. Others, such as the Episcopal Diocese of [Central] New York, claim ownership since we are no longer Episcopal, but remain Anglican. Recently the Episcopal Church attempted to evict the Anglican faithful.

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An Elm Grove congregation is the first in Wisconsin to announce it will split from the Episcopal Church in the United States to align with a more conservative, rival province being formed in North America.

Wednesday’s announcement by St. Edmund’s Episcopal Church comes less than a month after a group of breakaway dioceses and parishes announced that they were forming a new, more theologically conservative North American province. Those churches have been angered by the liberal views of the U.S. Episcopalian and Canadian Anglican churches.

“We are not leaving the Episcopal Church; they have left us,” said Marsha Ohlgart, a board member and spokeswoman for the 125-member parish at 14625 Watertown Plank Road.

“This is a lateral move. We’re just joining with the traditional, conservative Anglican Church in the world,” she said.

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Each year, approximately one child in every 150 is diagnosed with autism. Eleven-year-old Andrew Skillings is one of those children. He has Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism.

For Andrew’s older sister Marissa, her brother’s diagnosis has affected every aspect of her life from the time he was born. She was almost 5 and shared a room with Andrew. Marissa says she remembers those first few weeks he was home.

“I decided he needed to go back where he came from, because as a baby he never, ever stopped screaming,” she says.

Read or listen to it all.

At least 800 Indian priests are working in the United States alone. India, Vietnam and the Philippines are among the leading exporters of priests, according to data compiled by researchers at Catholic University of America in Washington.

But these days the Indian prelates have reason to reconsider their generosity. With India modernizing at breakneck speed, more young men are choosing financial gain over spiritual sacrifice.

“There is a great danger just now because the spirit of materialism is on the increase,” said Bishop Mar James Pazhayattil, the founding bishop of the Diocese of Irinjalakuda, as he sat barefoot at his desk, surrounded by mementos of a lifetime of church service. “Faith and the life of sacrifice are becoming less.”

Read it all.