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Marquette University’s decision to withdraw an offer to Jodi O’Brien, a self-described “sexuality scholar” to become Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the Jesuit-led institution continues to divide the faculty. Although Ms. O’Brien reached a settlement with the University last week, her supporters maintain that she is the victim of homophobia. Teachers who criticized the initial job offer say that Ms. O’Brien’s sexual orientation is not what disqualifies her, but rather the fact that her publications disparage Catholic moral teachings on marriage, sexuality and the family.

In a post-settlement letter sent June 9th to the Marquette community, University President Father Robert A. Wild wrote, “[W]e have apologized to Dr. O’Brien for the way in which this was handled and for the upset and unwanted attention that we have caused to this outstanding teacher and scholar.” Yet Fr. Wild also added that he stands by his decision to rescind the employment offer, a decision “made in the context of Marquette’s commitment to its mission and identity.”

The specific nature of the job at issue””as dean Ms. O’Brien would have been charged with helping to implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II’s 1990 apostolic constitution intended to revitalize Catholic higher education””may have driven Marquette to back off this particular appointment. But the real story here is that in the upside-down world of Catholic higher education, there is more status in hiring a sexuality scholar who denigrates Catholic teachings on sexuality and marriage than in choosing a serious scholar who might actually support Catholic teachings.

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I am beyond speechless about the referee–KSH.

These were the questions asked of Canon Kenneth Kearon by Executive Council. More later on his responses.

There is a covenant being considered that has in it certain processes, some of which have caused great concern for some of the provinces on how fairly they would be applied. For example, the Province of New Zealand gave only partial approval to the covenant, with members of its General Synod noting that Section 4 could “get into a situation where we sanctify a process of exclusion or marginalization” and that it might be implemented in ways that are “punitive, controlling and completely unAnglican.” Do the recent actions of the Archbishop of Canterburygive credence to these concerns? [Canon Rosalie Balletine, Esq., Chair of the World Mission Legislative Committee, Diocese of the Virgin Islands]

There are always consequences to living authentically as Christians. Within relationships among Christians, however, we ought to have opportunity to question those consequences, lest all end up walking on eggshells. Is there such a process now? And, do you foresee a season of such sanctions or is the removal of ecumenical committee appointees from The Episcopal Church an isolated event? [President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson, Diocese of Michigan]

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To believe Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, the end of government bailouts is near. In truth, the financial-overhaul legislation now before Congress would do little to arrest the bailouts already in progress.

When the U.S. government rescued American International Group Inc. in 2008, it reasoned that a disorderly failure of the financial-services giant would lead to an economic catastrophe. What the Treasury and Federal Reserve said they needed was a way to wind down systemically important institutions without sending them into bankruptcy courts, to keep the companies from triggering defaults on their obligations that would cascade throughout the broader financial system.

Congressional leaders say their final bill will deliver the resolution authority regulators have been seeking. “It will end bailouts, ensuring that failing firms can be shut down without relying on taxpayer bailouts or threatening the stability of our economy,” Dodd said June 10 at the House-Senate conference committee where the differences between the two chambers’ bills are being negotiated.

It wouldn’t end AIG’s rescue, though. The reason AIG hasn’t failed is that the Fed and the Treasury continue to stand behind it. There’s no sign this will change anytime soon. Nor would the legislation force the government to do otherwise.

Read the whole thing.

A decision by the Anglican mission society the USPG to end its funding to Latin America and the Caribbean has been criticised by bishops in the region….

When the changes were first mooted in March, the Primate of Brazil, the Most Revd Mauricio Andrade, and ten other Brazilian bishops wrote to the society’s trustees to express “surprise and disappointment”.

They had not been consulted, they said, and it was “unjustifiable” to “completely eliminate an entire con­tinent from your sphere of mission”. This demonstrated a “lack of con­cern for Latin America and the Carib­­bean within the Anglican Com­munion”, and smacked of “colonial favouritism”. The cuts would force them to “abandon” projects. They called for period of transition.

The Bishop of Peru, the Rt Revd Bill Godfrey, described the decision to “cut off this whole part of the world as extraordinary and regret­table”. He said that he had “been on USPG’s books for 25 years”. While he acknowledged that the USPG had to balance its books, he said: “I find it hard to believe the only answer is to withdraw funding. There have always been good times and more difficult times financially, but we pass through them.”

He, too, spoke of a lack of con­sultation….

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“Modern Christianity . . . has increasingly defined itself by way of the project of modernity and its characteristic hopes, in short, has come to see itself almost exclusively as the religious aspect of modernity and consequently has become oblivious and even resentful of the faith that comes from the apostles.”

–Reinhard Hütter, “‘In hope he believed against hope’ (Rom 4:18): faith and hope, two Pauline motifs as interpreted by Aquinas: a re-lecture of Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical letter Spe salvi,” Nova et vetera: the English edition of the international theological journal 7, no. 4 (Fall 2009): p. 841 (Hat tip: SP)

It is still early days at the 2010 World Cup but the tournament is already taking shape.

From South Africa’s draw with Mexico in the curtain-raiser through to Switzerland’s shock win over Spain on Wednesday, we have now had a chance see all 32 teams play at least once.

For some, like Germany, qualification already looks a formality, but others are less certain of their fate. With the help of Jurgen Klinsmann and Mark Lawrenson, BBC Sport takes a look at what we have learned about each of the eight groups so far.

Read their analysis and see what you think.

It was yesterday’s Alastair Campbell moment. When Wayne Rooney was asked about the prominent cross he has been wearing during training here he replied: “It’s my religion.” This seemed to open up an interesting new flank in the Rooney story until the Football Association’s head of media relations, Mark Whittle, offered an aside reminiscent of Campbell telling Tony Blair: “We don’t do God.” Whittle replied for Rooney: “We don’t do religion.” Rooney, currently an officer of state of Blairite proportions, had already offered enough information to offer an intriguing insight into his Catholicism, though. Of the cross he said: “I’ve been wearing them for years now and you don’t usually watch training [to see them.] I obviously can’t wear them in games.”

The timing suggests that his recourse to Catholicism may have had its roots in his search for redemption after the events of Gelsenkirchen in 2006, though it seems that Rooney’s wife, Coleen, has had more influence than a red card against Portugal. She comes from a devout Catholic family and her father, Tony, is a particularly devoted, practising Catholic. Religion has formed a part in Rooney’s own life, though, from the letters “RC” to be found on his birth certificate to an education at Our Lady and St Swithin’s Roman Catholic Primary, a ten-minute walk from his childhood Liverpool home, and his particular success at religious education there. “Wayne’s recall of stories about the life of Jesus is quite detailed. His contributions to discussions show him to be a caring child who responds to the needs of others,” read a formative school report.

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Francis Campbell said that politicians are usually aware of the importance of faith because of their “lived experience” in constituencies.

But he claimed that government officials are less knowledgeable, and suggested they try to find out more from devout colleagues.

Mr Campbell, Britain’s first Roman Catholic ambassador to the Holy See, said that the Western belief that religion was in decline had been proved wrong and that faith should be an important consideration in foreign policy.

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No question, the Times’s worldview is secularist and secularizing, and as such it rivals the Catholic worldview. But that is not unusual with newspapers. What makes the Times unique””and what any Catholic bishop ought to understand””is that it is not just the nation’s self-appointed newspaper of record. It is, to paraphrase Chesterton, an institution with the soul of a church. And the church it most resembles in size, organization, internal culture, and international reach is the Roman Catholic Church.

Like the Church of Rome, the Times is a global organization. Even in these reduced economic times, the newspaper’s international network of news bureaus rivals the Vatican’s diplomatic corps. The difference is that Times bureau chiefs are better paid and, in most capitals, more influential. A report from a papal nuncio ends up in a Vatican dossier, but a report from a Times correspondent is published around the world, often with immediate repercussions. With the advent of the Internet, stories from the Times can become other outlets’ news in an ever-ramifying process of global cycling and recycling. That, of course, is exactly what happened with the Times piece on Fr. Murphy, the deceased Wisconsin child molester. The pope speaks twice a year urbi et orbi (to the city and to the world), but the Times does that every day.

Again like the Church of Rome, the Times exercises a powerful magisterium or teaching authority through its editorial board. There is no issue, local or global, on which these (usually anonymous) writers do not pronounce with a papal-like editorial “we.” Like the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the editorial board is there to defend received truth as well as advance the paper’s political, social, and cultural agendas. One can no more imagine a Times editorial opposing any form of abortion””to take just one of that magisterium’s articles of faith””than imagine a papal encyclical in favor.

The Times, of course, does not claim to speak infallibly in its judgments on current events. (Neither does the pope.) But to the truly orthodox believers in the Times, its editorials carry the burden of liberal holy writ. As the paper’s first and most acute public editor, Daniel Okrent, once put it, the editorial page is “so thoroughly saturated in liberal theology that when it occasionally strays from that point of view the shocked yelps from the left overwhelm even the ceaseless rumble of disapproval from the right.”

Read it all–another from the long list of post when I get a chance–KSH.

The State Senate on Tuesday, clearing aside decades of opposition, put New York on a course to adopt no-fault divorce ”” the last state to do so. It approved legislation that would permit couples to separate by mutual consent, a major shift with sweeping implications for families and lawyers.

For decades, New Yorkers have been bedeviled by divorce laws that critics said prompted endless litigation and custody fights that were both unnecessary and cruel.

Under current divorce law, one spouse must take the blame, even if both sides agree that a marriage cannot be saved. To get a divorce, one party must allege cruel and inhuman treatment or adultery or abandonment, or the couple must be legally separated for one year.

The new legislation still has to pass the State Assembly, which is considering two bills that would include some version of no-fault divorce. But advocates said Tuesday that they believed that victory in the Senate, which was controlled by Republicans until last year, gave the measure momentum and a high likelihood of gaining approval in the Assembly, which is also controlled by Democrats.

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New statistics show that the overall number of homeless people in America dropped slightly last year ”” although the number of homeless families rose 7 percent.

The report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development comes a week before the Obama administration plans to announce the first national proposal to prevent and end homelessness.

About 1.56 million people spent at least one night in an emergency shelter in 2009, according to the HUD report. The number was 1.6 million the year before. And that was at a time of high unemployment and record high foreclosure rates.

Read or listen to it all.

Almighty and everlasting God, who didst enkindle the flame of thy love in the heart of thy holy martyr Bernard Mizeki: Grant to us, thy humble servants, a like faith and power of love, that we who rejoice in his triumph may profit by his example; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.

–Matthew 18:21-22

Teach us, O God, to walk trustfully today in thy presence, that thy voice may encourage us, thine arm defend us, and thy love surround us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–New Every Morning

Much has been made of the way Barack Obama has changed the sociology of the capital. There’s the shifting locus of social activity from Georgetown to Logan Circle, and the intrusion of two basketball hoops on the White House tennis court. But, even in Obama’s Washington, some of the old status symbols still matter. Take, for instance, the periodic ritual of the state dinner. In advance of such affairs, the most recent of which occurred in May, entrails-readers up and down the Amtrak corridor still scrutinize the guest lists. Invariably, they find hints about who the White House is courting (Chris Dodd, Anthony Kennedy) and who it may be shunning (no Lindsey Graham?). To this day, there’s still nothing like a state dinner sighting to shore up a hobbled official (Janet Napolitano), announce the arrival of an up-and-coming constituency (Univision anchor Jorge Ramos), or vouch for a wise man’s access (Mack McLarty ”¦ ?). The Salahis may be tacky, but fools they were not.

Coming as it did near the climax of the financial-reform fight, the May dinner held particular interest for a certain class of status-conscious gossip: Wall Street executives. Read one way, the guest list functioned as a crude, if not terribly surprising, guide to the administration’s financial-sector allegiances. Topping the list was Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS Americas, a longtime Obama fundraiser and confidant. Wolf was joined by James Gorman of Morgan Stanley, a firm with strong relationships at Treasury and the White House, and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, whose bravery as a reformer Valerie Jarrett recently touted. Conversely, with his firm now shorthand for Wall Street double-dealing, no one should have been shocked to find Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein on the wrong side of the rope line.

But there was one invite decision that did seem vaguely curious: the omission of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon….if anyone should be attending a state dinner these days, it’s Dimon, whom The New York Times once dubbed “President Obama’s favorite banker.” And yet, as the months have passed, Dimon’s frustration over the direction of administration policy has become palpable.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wonderful stuff–watch it all.

Marriage is no more than a pledge. To put “we” before “I”, and face the future as a three-legged race conjoined by a tie called wedlock. How you run the race is up to you. But one fact never varies. To exalt a relationship, call it a marriage, invites couples to ponder what they’re doing together. The value of this is obvious, isn’t it?

This ancient ritual works psychological magic too. For men, more than women, research finds, the very public step of re-labelling a partner “a spouse” alters your feelings towards them and your self-image. And married couples must also think hard before changing their mind, given the costs of splitting….

…there’s the vast evidence that married couples are richer, healthier, and their children thrive. Not just because happy, healthy people marry. To say ‘we’ is more important than ‘I’ has practical power.

Read the whole thing.

That we have reached this stage in our common life is a sign that as a Communion we have failed and are failing to present “a true sign of hope in a world of bitter conflict and rivalry”. Although the removal of provinces from representative ecumenical and faith and order functions is now a necessity this does not entail ”“ as the Archbishop has repeatedly stated ”“ an ending of all relationships. The issues of sexuality that have triggered this conflict will not go away and they continue to be live issues in many provinces of the Communion. The Continuing Indaba Project is one means of seeking to keep conversations going on various issues and to deepen mission relationships even in the midst of the differentiation now being implemented at other levels of the Communion and it would appear, from the letter, that other possible patterns of ongoing conversation are being discussed.

For almost a decade the actions of the American church and groups within it and the responses to these by other provinces have often dominated the life of the Instruments as well as damaging our united mission. The decision to confirm and consecrate Mary Glasspool was a clear signal that the American church is unwilling to heed the pleas of the wider Communion and desist from such divisive actions….

The Archbishop’s letter is perhaps in part an attempt to defuse the current difficulties by acknowledging that there is a fundamentally different vision of faith and order in TEC and releasing key Communion institutions ”“ the Instruments, faith and order and ecumenical bodies ”“ from being caught up in the tensions and conflicts that result from this reality. By removing those responsible for breaches of the moratoria from these bodies, they may be better able to focus on their task as Instruments of communion and the church’s mission. Alongside this, the tensions and disagreements over issues related to the moratoria may now be able to be addressed in other contexts which are less symbolically significant and where the issues that continue to divide us can be addressed without being distorted by the recent history of difficult meetings of the Instruments since at least 2003. As noted above, this will likely require carrying the logic of these decisions through into the Instruments, Standing Committee and covenant process. However, painful as it will be, if this is what is being done then it is possible that the Pentecost letter will ultimately be seen as having set a path which will assist the Communion’s renewal in the Spirit.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Two second-half goals gave Mexico their first ever victory over France to leave El Tri well-placed to make the last 16 and the 2006 runners-up on the verge of elimination.

Mexico were the brighter of the two throughout but were unable to take any of their chances until just after the hour, when substitute Javier Hernandez broke the offside trap and rounded keeper Hugo Lloris before slotting home.

Another Mexican substitute, the 37-year-old Cuauhtemoc Blanco, sealed the victory from the penalty spot after a third replacement, Pablo Barrera, had been felled in the box.

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A new booklet aims to explain the purpose and importance of the papal trip and the Church’s contributions to society for those who are only aware of “current controversies”.

The head of Catholics in England and Wales, The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, said that the four-day tour in September will be a “very significant moment” for the country particularly in straitened economic times.

The Archbishop of Westminster said: “People that I speak to recognise that as a society we are entering into a period, maybe a prolonged period, which is going to be difficult. In times of difficulty, we need all the inner resources that we can muster and the resource of religious faith is a crucially important one for giving society stability and generosity, especially in times of financial constraint.

Read the whole thing.

A landmark federal trial that could lead to a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry ended Wednesday with competing views about the traditional role of marriage and whether the battle represented the latest frontier of the nation’s civil rights struggle.

Two stalwarts of Washington’s conservative legal community argued before Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, but this time on opposite sides.

Walker is being asked to decide whether California voters violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of due process and equal protection when they passed a referendum in November 2008 to amend the state constitution, defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Washington lawyer Charles J. Cooper, arguing on behalf of Proposition 8 backers, told Walker that it is “crucial to the public interest” to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. It is “fundamental to the very existence and survival of the human race” that society promote marriage to ensure that procreative relations are in “enduring, stable unions,” with a goal that children be raised by both parents.

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Bank of America Corp. and other banks are preparing new fees on basic banking services as they try to replace revenue lost to regulatory rules, in a push that is expected to spell an end to free checking accounts for many Americans.

Free checking accounts, which have been widely available for more than a decade, have been a boon to middle-class consumers and attracted low-income customers to the banking system for the first time.

Customers will likely be required to pay new monthly maintenance fees on the most basic accounts that don’t generate a lot of activity. To avoid a fee, customers will have to maintain certain account balances or frequently use other banking services, such as credit and debit cards, automated teller machines and online accounts.

“If you put $1,000 in a checking account and don’t do anything with it, it will be hard to get that for free,” says Sherief Meleis, a managing director at Novantas LLC, a consulting firm that advises banks.

Ugh–read it all.

St. Andrew’s Church, 300 Whedbee St., once served hundreds of parishioners. Now it might serve a much smaller congregation.

The city has scheduled a neighborhood meeting at 6 p.m. June 24 at the church on the corner of East Olive and Whedbee streets to discuss a proposal from Boulder developer Robert King to convert the church into four semi-high-end apartments.

St. Andrew’s disbanded in late 2008 when the congregation divided on theological differences, and a portion of the congregation left the church.

The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado decided to sell, putting the 7,434-square-foot property on the market about 18 months ago for $520,000.

The church is now listed on the Sperry VanNess website at $465,000, and Realtor Jared Goodman said it is under contract for about 7 percent less.

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