The moment of truth for health care is at hand, and the distortion that perhaps gets the most traction is this:

We have the greatest health care system in the world. Sure, it has flaws, but it saves lives in ways that other countries can only dream of. Abroad, people sit on waiting lists for months, so why should we squander billions of dollars to mess with a system that is the envy of the world? As Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama puts it, President Obama’s plans amount to “the first step in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known.”

That self-aggrandizing delusion may be the single greatest myth in the health care debate. In fact, America’s health care system is worse than Slov””er, oops, more on that later.

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The Vatican said it experienced “surprise and sorrow” when a European court ruled that the crucifixes hanging in Italian public schools violate religious freedom.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled Nov. 3 that the crucifixes hanging in every public classroom in Italy were “a violation of the freedom of parents to educate their children according to their own convictions and of the religious freedom of the students.”

Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, reacted to the decision saying, “The crucifix has always been a sign of God’s offer of love and a sign of union and welcome for all humanity. It is sad that it is being considered a sign of division, exclusion or limitation of freedom. That is not what it is and that is not the common feeling of our people.”

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Calling himself a “collapsed Catholic,” well “beyond lapsed,” [NY Times] Bill Keller said the liberal spirit of Vatican II died when it “ran smack-dab into the sexual revolution. Probably no institution run by a fraternity of aging celibates was going to reconcile easily with a movement that embraced the equality of women, abortion on demand and gay rights.”

The archbishop offered his “Foul Ball!” commentary to the Times editors, who declined to publish it. [Timothy] Dolan then posted the essay on his own Web site, while also offering it to FoxNews.com — which promptly ran it.

Dolan was, of course, livid about Dowd’s broadside, calling it an “intemperate,” “scurrilous … diatribe that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish or African-American religious issue.”

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An article in today’s Financial Times, headed ”˜Vicars’ pensions under threat as church is seduced by equities cult’, is misconceived and fails to take adequate account of the scheme’s relative age compared to other schemes, says Dr Jonathan Spencer, Chairman of the Church of England Pensions Board:

“The scheme concerned is responsible for paying pensions in respect of clergy service after 1 January 1998. The fact of the matter is that this scheme remains quite ”˜immature’ in pensions terms, with approximately £70m coming in each year to fund future pensions, and only around £12m going out. So the scheme’s main liabilities are some way in the future. With this in mind, we have acted at all times in accordance with mainstream actuarial and investment advice given by the Board’s professional advisors. This advice has consistently been that the Board should place the scheme’s investments in equities and equity type investments, which have historically produced the best returns.

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A draft text for a common statement on ecclesiology and mission was discussed. The Council will present it to the Anglican and Old Catholic Bishops’ Conference and recommends that it be made the theme of the forthcoming International Old Catholic and Anglican Theological Conference in 2011.

Attention was given to the recently published document “Kirche und Kirchengemeinschaft” (Church and Communion) of the International Roman Catholic-Old Catholic Dialogue Commission (IRAD), as well as to the recent Vatican announcement of the Apostolic Constitution to provide personal ordinariates for Anglicans and former Anglicans.

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The UK wing of the Traditional Anglican Communion ”“ a group of rebel traditionalists who have left official Anglicanism ”“ has voted to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of a Personal Ordinariate. The TAC has only a few small communities in Britain, but the Pope will be pleased by this development.

Hat-tip to Fr Tim Finigan, who says on his blog: “I hear a lot of sceptical comments about the Holy Father’s offer of Personal Ordinariates, with the conventional wisdom being that it will not really attract many people. So it is good to hear news of twenty or so parish communities that will be interested. The TAC asked for the provision in the first place so it is to be expected that they would be first off the mark; but I think that there may well be plenty more to follow in due course.”

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“The people of Maine voted to uphold the true nature of marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” noted Archbishop Kurtz. “Marriage is an institution which precedes all others, whether political or religious. It deserves the state’s reinforcement and protection.”

While the archbishop acknowledged that the Church’s opposition to gay “marriage” is hard for some to accept, he urged “all to respect it.”

The Church “stands for the basic rights of all people,” he continued, and noted that it speaks out against discrimination or unjust treatment of any group of people.

But the issue of marriage, the archbishop explained, “has nothing to do with denying basic rights to anyone, though it is often framed in such terms.”

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“I want to thank the people of Maine for protecting and reaffirming their support for marriage as it has been understood for millennia by civilizations and religions around the world. I am thankful for those who engaged in sincere and civil discourse on this matter of such serious consequence to our society.

“These past few months have served as a teaching opportunity to explain to parishioners and the wider community about how and why the Church views and values marriage as the union of one man and one woman. It has also been an opportunity for listening, and I trust that those who voted for such a radical change did so out of concern for our gay brothers and sisters. Respect and acceptance of all people regardless of sexual orientation is not a point of controversy ”” indeed, it is a teaching of the Church. While the Catholic Church will continue its commitment to work for the basic human rights to which all people are entitled, it remains devoted to preserving and strengthening the precious gift of marriage.”

Yesterday, Question 1 provided each of us with the opportunity to exercise our franchise, to express our support for the right of same-gender couples to be afforded the full rights and responsibilities of a civil marriage or to disagree. Yesterday, Mainers chose to disagree.

Many faithful Episcopalians are deeply grieved at this decision. They had hoped that they and their families might enjoy the recognition and protections afforded heterosexual couples. The rejection of the law also feels like rejection of them as persons. I join in their grief that the right of same gender couples to enter into a lifelong, monogamous marriage has been denied. At the same time I know there are other faithful Episcopalians who are thankful about the election results. I understand that this matter has been a matter of conscience for them. Although the question of same-gender civil marriage may be settled in Maine for now, I would remind all Episcopalians ”“ both here in Maine and across the wider Church ”“ that we will continue the conversation about these issues for years to come.

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It all began with pitchers and catchers reporting, then a World Baseball Classic won by Japan, then Opening Day pageantry, then longer pitch counts, then All-Star voting and a Midsummer Classic in St. Louis, then the Trade Deadline moves and those wild pennant races, and then a postseason that everyone watched right down to the very end, when Japan’s Hideki Matsui was a hero and the Yankees were world champs again.

Congratulations to the Yankees–read it all.

As much as mothers want their partners to be involved with their children, experts say they often unintentionally discourage men from doing so. Because mothering is their realm, some women micromanage fathers and expect them to do things their way, said Marsha Kline Pruett, a professor at the Smith College School for Social Work at Smith College and a co-author of the new book “Partnership Parenting,” with her husband, the child psychiatrist Dr. Kyle Pruett (Da Capo Press).

Yet a mother’s support of the father turns out to be a critical factor in his involvement with their children, experts say ”” even when a couple is divorced.

“In the last 20 years, everyone’s been talking about how important it is for fathers to be involved,” said Sara S. McLanahan, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton. “But now the idea is that the better the couple gets along, the better it is for the child.”

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Christianity is the world’s biggest religion, yet the BBC has not produced a major documentary series about it for decades. That will be rectified tomorrow, when BBC Four begins A History of Christianity, a six-part series presented by Diarmaid MacCulloch, an Oxford history professor whose books about Cranmer and the Reformation have been acclaimed as masterpieces.

MacCulloch is a vicar’s son who grew up in “one of those great Georgian rectories where Agatha Christie murders took place”. He has mastered the tricks of TV presenting without hamming it up: he has all the donnish passion of David Starkey but comes across as much more self-effacing ”“ not difficult, admittedly. Underneath it all, however, the bespectacled professor is just as opinionated. Judging by the first episode of A History of Christianity, there is some vigorous axe-grinding going on.

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Five new Congregations will be welcomed into the Diocese, with seat, voice, and vote, at our Annual Convention on November 6 and 7. The Church of Christ the Redeemer in Fort Worth will be recognized as a new mission church, with Fr. Christopher Culpepper as vicar. St.Francis Church in Dallas will be received as a new parish of the diocese; their rector in Fr. David Allen. The Bishop will introduce St. Gabriel’s Anglican Church in Springdale, Arkansas, as a new mission station, under the leadership of their rector, Fr. John Slavin. And then two parishes will be welcomed and seated under a new Parish Affiliation Agreement, authorized by the Bishop, Standing Committee, and Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. They are St. Matthias’ Anglican Church in Dallas, Fr. Dwight Duncan, rector; and the Church of the Holy Spirit, Tulsa, Oklahoma, whose rector is Fr. Briane Turley.

Check them out.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm warned Tuesday of a possible 20 percent cut in state spending next year, a draconian step after billions in cuts since 2003 already have dented police and fire services, pushed schools toward insolvency and reduced oversight of prison inmates.

The request from Granholm is a further blow to health care providers, state police, universities and others dependent on public money in a state where revenue, adjusted for inflation, is at about the same level as in 1965.

Double-digit cuts likely mean double-digit university tuition increases, for example.

“I’m certainly having to take a job to find extra income to offset some of these (scholarship) cuts,” said Mitch Rivard, a 19-year-old Michigan State University junior from Bay City. “We’re going to see a very big gap in terms of who is be able to attend college if these cuts continue.”

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Despite White House efforts to discount the importance of the loss of the only two governorships on the off-year ballot, especially in New Jersey, where Obama had campaigned heavily for embattled Gov. Jon Corzine, the implications were clear to other Democrats.

Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, a leader of the moderate-conservative “Blue Dogs,” called the result “a wake-up call for Congress. A tidal wave could be coming.”

His fellow Tennessean, Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, said that Obama “retains his personal popularity, but his policies, and those pushed by the congressional Democrats, are scaring the daylights out of people.”

Democratic pollster Peter Hart, in a memo to his clients, warned of the possible consequences of “the disappointment and disgust the American public feels toward Washington. It is as strongly negative as the period of 1979-80 and 1973-74.” Both those cycles saw wholesale changes in Congress, the Democrats benefiting in the latter and the Republicans in the former.

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(Press Release) The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, formerly known as the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, will gather for its 144th Diocesan Convention at St. Stephen’s Church in Sewickley, PA on Friday, November 6 and Saturday, November 7. Two-hundred and ninety deputies and additional observers will represent the fifty-five congregations of the diocese gathered to celebrate their ministry, to pray and engage in hope-filled work for the year ahead.

Beginning at 6 p.m., the Friday evening portion of the celebration and banquet, featuring Archbishop Robert Duncan’s address, will be broadcast live on www.anglicantv.org. The Saturday business portion of the meeting, beginning with prayer at 8 a.m., will feature discussion and voting on the full admission of 4 new parishes: Harvest Anglican Church in Homer City, PA, Church of the Transfiguration in Cleveland, OH, Saint James Church in San Jose, CA and Holy Trinity Church in Raleigh, NC. The Convention deputies will also vote on ratifying the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh’s status as a founding member of the Anglican Church in North America constituted this past summer as an emerging Province of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Business bankruptcy filings jumped in October, reversing two consecutive months of declining commercial filings and indicating that bankruptcies could continue to rise as the economy struggles to stabilize….

“The margin for success is so thin that any financial hiccup” could cause a business to file for bankruptcy, said Jack Williams, a bankruptcy professor at the Georgia State University College of Law.

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The Vatican newspaper has criticized the Swiss-born Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung after he accused Pope Benedict XVI of an “unecumenical luring away” of discontented Anglicans.

A column signed by the editor of L’Osservatore Romano, Giovanni Maria Vian, in Thursday’s (Oct. 29) edition said an article by Kung published in several European newspapers contained “lies and inaccuracies”.

The Vatican announced in October that Benedict will set up a structure to allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church, while preserving elements of Anglican spiritual and liturgical practices.

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At present, the Church’s one million worshippers each give about £70 a year towards clergy pensions, amounting to £7,800 a year for each clergyman or woman. To make ends meet, this would have to increase to £110 per worshipper, or £11,000 for each stipendiary cleric. A diocesan consultation has concluded that worshippers are already giving as much as they can afford and that any increase along these lines is unsustainable.

“The view is that we are at the limit of affordability,” a Church pensions insider said.

Dr Jonathan Spencer, the chairman of the Church of England pensions board, said that the board’s professional advisers had “consistently” recommended placing the scheme’s assets in equities, “which have historically produced the best returns”.

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After opening in a new location, The Cathedral of Christ the King, a local Charismatic church affiliated with the Anglican Church in North America, started playing a recording of church bells every half hour — every day — from morning to night. To neighbors, it was a rude shock interrupting the peace and quiet of the community. To the church, it was a way to worship God.

Inevitably the case ended up in court where the judge sided with the neighbors….

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Episcopal Relief & Development (ERD) of the American Episcopal Church has filed suit against the Church of South India (CSI) to recover £1 million allegedly stolen by its former General Secretary Dr Pauline Sathiamurthy.

Detectives from the Central Crime Branch of the Madras police arrested Dr Sathiamurthy and three members of her family on Oct 13, after the church turned over the results of an internal investigation to prosecutors.

In a statement released on Oct 23, ERD said that two years ago it had “approached the local Church authorities with concerns when CSI failed to complete the financial reporting and required audits outlined in our agreement for 2005 and 2006. As a result, we suspended work with CSI and implemented an in-depth effort to account for the missing funds. After a lengthy process, we deeply regret that we have been forced to take legal action.”

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The Diocese of Northern Michigan has decided that it will choose from multiple nominees when it next elects a bishop.

The diocese’s 114th annual convention, meeting on Oct. 30-31 in Escanaba, Mich., approved a new election process that allows for nominees by petition and will stress regular communication with the wider Episcopal Church.

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Maine would have been the sixth state in the country to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, but instead becomes the 31st state to oppose the unions in a popular vote.

With 87 percent of precincts reporting as of 2 a.m. today, gay marriage opponents claimed 53 percent of the vote to supporters’ 47 percent.

Marc Mutty, campaign manager for Stand for Marriage Maine which opposed gay marriages, claimed victory at a rally in Portland just after midnight. “We’ve struggled, we’ve worked against tremendous odds, as we’ve all known,” he said. “We prevailed because the people of Maine, the silent majority, the folks back home spoke with their vote tonight.”

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England – the people in the United States known as Episcopalians – is in a terrible bind. Talk about “dithering.” The current Archbishop, a certain Reverend Rowan Williams, is stalling for time; which, of course, is a sign that he doesn’t know what to do. His problem is that the more conservative Anglicans or Episcopalians, especially the Africans, say they will leave the Church, known among Church types as the Lambeth Communion, unless the Archbishop disciplines the Americans, who have – horror of horrors – ordained a Gay Bishop and also, equally scandalous from their point of view, tolerate women priests. The Americans, on the other hand, are having none of the African stuff. They say, in effect, that if the Archbishop does something they don’t like, THEY will cut and run.

So, the Reverend Williams dithers. He stalls for time. I, of course, follow all of this stuff, but having grown up Baptist – people who are all too familiar with splits – I am not as sympathetic with the Archbishop’s plight as might be desired. In the U.K. I frequently suggest to my Anglican friends that splitting is not necessarily a bad thing. First there is one church, then two, then four, then eight, and so on. They don’t like that at all. Nor, of course does the Archbishop. His problem is simple: The Africans have the numbers and the Americans have the money. What a mess.

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Affirming Catholicism has noted with dismay the Press Release from the Revision Committee indicating the Committee’s decision to review General Synod’s support for the adoption of the simplest form of legislation enabling the admission of women into the episcopate in the Church of England coupled with a statutory code of practice, as expressed in July 2008.

We believe that the suggestion that certain functions should be vested in bishops by statute rather than by delegation from the diocesan bishop under a statutory code of practice runs counter to the principle that the diocese is the fundamental unit of the Church. In practice, this means that the Diocesan Bishop is and must be recognised to be Ordinary in his / her Diocese. Consequently, as we have argued consistently in our submissions to the Bishops of Guildford and Gloucester and to the Legislative Drafting Group, any designated special Bishops who exercise a ministry in a Diocese where the Ordinary is a woman must share in the ministry of the Ordinary in order that the unity of the diocese ”“ and with it the Church of England ”“ be preserved.

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[Phil] Linder has been dean of the downtown cathedral for a decade.

In an earlier letter bowing out of the nomination process, he made it clear it would be difficult to leave Trinity to become bishop.

“We are at a critical moment in the history of our beloved Trinity,” he wrote. Trinity, with a membership topping 4,200, is currently in the midst of a multi-million dollar renovation of the historic sanctuary, he noted. “Today, the staff, vestry and laity of Trinity are worshipping, working and serving Christ at a level that I have never before witnessed,” he said.

But in reconsidering, Linder told the congregation that much prayer and a lengthy discernment process “has led me full circle back to Trinity Cathedral, where I believe God, and I pray all of you, desire for me to continue to serve as your priest and dean.”

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While Anglican leaders say they appreciate the gracious tone of the offer, they believe it is a suspect use of a canon written for clergy who want to renounce their ordination. Few responded to the first offer that the Episcopal diocese made last month.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re in this situation, but it is asking us to renounce our vows, which we cannot do,” said the Rev. Mary Hays, canon to the ordinary for the Anglican diocese.

“They’re interpreting the canon in a way that it’s not been interpreted before. We’re all in a tough place, but our clergy have not abandoned their ordination vows.”

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Half of American kids will live in households receiving food stamps before age 20, according to a study reported Monday in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Although one in five children rely on food stamps for years, many more live in families who turn to food stamps during a short-term crisis, says author Mark Rank of Washington University in St. Louis. He analyzed 30 years of data from the University of Michigan’s Panel Study of Income Dynamics survey.

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