NYGaribaldi's blog

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

Bruce Wilson and Ruth have reported here at Talk to Action about Alaskan Governor and GOP Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin's ties to the Wasila Assemblies of God Church, a congregation involved with the Latter Rain (aka the New Apostolic Reformation) - an international network that views Catholicism as one of several "corrupt religious systems."

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-nine

The Catholic League's Bill Donohue has truly outdone himself.

The Catholic Right ideologue who mocked evolution (even though it is embraced by the Vatican); attacked reason (although it forms the foundation of Catholic theology) and criticized as anti-Catholic a PBS documentary on the Inquisition (which was made in cooperation with the Vatican!), now he says we have to watch out for witchcraft!

In a September 25, 2008 Catholic League press release, Donohue proclaimed:

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

In these days of Bishops using Communion as a political weapon, one Catholic Archbishop, John C. Favalora of Miami, has demurred from using his pulpit as a vehicle for the religious right.

In a statement issued on September 12, 2008, His Eminence declared, "We are not party bosses." But perhaps, more astonishing was his revelation that the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is trying to provoke an Internal Revenue Service challenge that would go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Favalora stands out as a courageous leader by refusing to to let the religious right control the content of South Florida Sunday sermons and by disclosing that the Alliance Defense Fund is brazenly approaching Catholic bishops to join them in their mass law breaking scheme. The archbishop explains in no uncertain terms what ADF is trying to provoke:

Originally posted at Talk to Action,

In discussing GOP Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin's religious beliefs on Monday night's edition of Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann crossed a line. Instead of simply reporting on how the Alaskan governor's religious beliefs affect her politics, the cable host mocked them.

Towards the close of the September 8, 2008 edition of Countdown Olberrmann, began discussing Governor Palin's Pentecostal Church. He was justified in explaining the congregation's practice of "praying away" homosexuality - an issue ripe for review. However, the cable news host just couldn't leave well enough alone:

Oh, no, I'm not going to say it.  For the record, the governor has not made any public statement about the pray away the gay movement, nor yet about the report tonight from the former pastor there and a fellow parishioner that worshipers not only believe in the rapture and that Governor Palin has spoken of Alaska as being a refuge for that supposed lifting up of those true believers, but also that they speak in tongues, in other words, in word or sounds neither they or anybody else understand, kind of like Fox News. (italics added)

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-eight

Is Governor Sarah Palin really "a natural choice" for Catholics as Fidelis's Brian Burch suggests? The answer is obviously, "No."

As I discussed in my last post in this series, the Catholic Right is doing everything it can to disparage Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Joe Biden - a Catholic who attends Mass regularly - by painting him as a someone out of sync on social issues important to his co-religionists. Now, these same folks are attempting to portray Palin, the self-styled pit-bull/hockey mom, evangelical/former Catholic, as a better Catholic than Biden.

Let the scrutiny begin!

One of the foremost issues where Senator McCain's running mate and the Vatican parts ways is the Iraq war.  Not so long ago Palin told a group of ministry students that our invasion of Iraq is "a task from God," but Pope Benedict believes that "nothing positive comes from Iraq."

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-seven

Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama choice of Delaware Senator Joe Biden has set off a barrage of invective from the Catholic Right. Why is that?

It effectively exposes the Astorturf nature of their movement.

Joe Biden, the Senior U.S. Senator from Delaware and Democratic Party nominee for Vice President, is a Catholic who attends Mass every Sunday. He is a public servant whose faith informs and influences his politics. He is pro-labor and supportive of the role of government in addressing economic inequities that result from the arbitrary use of power. By and large, he is a liberal whose policy positions generally echo Catholic principles of distributive justice.

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-six

Michael Novak, George Weigel and other Catholic neoconservatives have been spinning a yarn for the last twenty-five years that their brand of laissez-faire capitalism is the brand sanctioned by the Vatican. It has been around so long and become so ubiquitous and because it has been largely left unanswered, their narrative has almost become urban legend.

But there is an answer to this nonsense. The lifelong body of work of 20th century economist Monsignor John A. Ryan simultaneously refutes the mendacious claims of the Novakian theocons and makes a strong case for contemporary liberal economics.

Ryan's story and treatises help us reveal that these nefarious characters have hijacked Catholic theology in order to pursue a very non-religious economic agenda based upon an "I've got mine and the hell with you" attitude. Monsignor Ryan is the very tonic to help cure the plague of Catholic Right revisionist history.

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

Two seemingly unrelated recent events have something important in common. The dust-up between the University of Minnesota's P.Z. Myers and the Catholic League's Bill Donohue and the terrible shooting at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee each surface the dangers of highly charged rhetoric.

First, the Myers-Donohue flap.

That is what the AP reported about Jim D. Adkisson, the man accused of killing two people and wounding six others during a children's musical at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church Sunday morning.

As the AP further reported:

A four-page letter found in Adkisson's SUV indicated he picked the church for the attack because, the Knoxville police chief said, "he hated the liberal movement" of the congregation.

As well as this:

Adkisson "stated that he had targeted the church because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country," investigator Steve Still wrote.
Adkisson was a loner who hates "blacks, gays and anyone different from him," longtime acquaintance Carol Smallwood of Alice, Texas, told the Knoxville News Sentinel.

As the horror of this incident sinks in, I’m reminded I again recall the speech Robert F,, Kennedy gave in Cleveland, Ohio the day after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Entitled “The Meaningless Menace of Violence,” it carried a somber message that sadly, is still relevant today: