Are Gay Rights Rules Limiting Religious Freedom?

The headline at the New York Times web site is: Bishops Say Rules on Gay Parents Limit Freedom of Religion.

But the telling line in the story is: "Catholic Charities affiliates received a total of nearly $2.9 billion a year from the government in 2010, about 62 percent of its annual revenue of $4.67 billion.  Only 3 percent came from churches in the diocese (the rest came from in-kind contributions, investments, program fees and community donations)."

First off, only 3%!  But lets put that in context, that is still $140,100,000.  If you give everything you can, everything you have, then another comes along and gives ten times as much, that does not diminish what you have done.  What we don't know is how that 140 million compares to the rest of the churches budget.  That would be the truly telling number.

A Prayer by Oscar Romero

A few weeks ago, Professor Schiltz who I had for contracts, read the prayer below at the start of class.  That got me looking for more information about the person the prayer was attributed to.  Oscar Romero was assassinated in 1980 due to his support of the poor and down-trodden amidst the civil war in El Salvador.  His views were characterized as supporting communism, and the assassination was quite possibly carried out by U.S. trained para-military forces apposing communism.  One can read more about Romero at this site maintained by U.S. Catholic and at Wikipedia.

While reading about Romero I discovered that he may not have written the prayer that follows, but regardless of who wrote the prayer, I love the humility and frankness with which the author writes.

I think the prayer can be especially powerful for those in the midst of starting a new thing, or those looking to create systemic change in the way the world around them operates.

A Prayer by Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

Networked Blogs

A little test run here with networkedblogs.  I want to see if this blog post gets automatically posted to facebook. If you use networked blogs, how do you like it?