I'm shuttering Journey to Vatican III today. It was a bit of a tough decision for me, because the blog has been a way to research Catholic issues and I've "met" Catholics from around the world who e-mailed me after reading blog items.

But I'm closing it down for two reasons:

1) We've had layoffs and staffers leave this month as part of a downsizing effort. So we all have more on our work plates. I just have so much blog time each day and decided to focus it all on our collaborative editorial page blog, A Matter of Opinion. So check that one out now and again. And when issues of religion meet issues of public policy, I'll comment there.

2) The blog world is relatively new in journalism. It's reached critical mass just in the past two to three years. Part of the reality of this medium, as our blog industry expert Frank Sennett has pointed out in Blogspotter, is that blogs come and go. People get tired of writing them, and reading them, and move on.
Unlike traditional print media, such as newspapers and magazines, there aren't huge start-up and stopping costs to blogs.

So good-bye to this blog. Thanks for all the readership over the years. Catch you on the Opinion virtual world.

The last Catholicism for a New Millennium lecture for the Fall will be this Thursday, November 29, at 7:30 at the Gonzaga Law School. John Perry SJ, from the University of Manitoba speaking on “Torture: Religious Ethics and National Security”

Until recently torture was chiefly associated with foreign juntas or other notorious human rights abusers. In the “War on Terror” this has changed dramatically. Reviewing the history and the practice of torture and the arguments used to justify it, John Perry takes us into the minds of the torturers and their victims. Ultimately he shows why torture is different from other acts of war and why it is fundamentally immoral: “not only because it violates the dignity we owe to the human person, but also because it directly or indirectly degrades any society that would tolerate it.”

(This post is being simulblogged at Matter of Opinion. Go there if you do know some of the pioneers mentioned below. Almost all of them are well-known to people in regional Catholic Land.)

Our editorial today was about the just-opened Hospice House in Spokane and the need for society to ease out of denial about death and dying.

Johnny Cox was one of the speakers. During the tour, he reminisced about the origins of Hospice in Spokane. He said 30 years ago, a dozen or so people brainstormed what Hospice care would look like in Spokane. It was a very new concept in the United States then. He said he was part of the the original group that also included Barb and Craig Savage, Marge Humphrey, Mary Fairhurst (now deceased mother of Washington Supreme Court Justice Mary Fairhurst) and Leonard Salladay. Amazing human beings. And if no one thanked them back then, here's a thank you now. Their pioneering work led to awe-inspiring places, as I saw at the Hospice House dedication Friday.

The women and men wore business suits and trench coats. It was noon, a Friday, the ending hours of a busy workweek. They gathered in the parking lot for the dedication of the new Hospice House, but their minds were on other matters: calls to return, deadlines to meet, weekend plans to organize.
And then the dedication began. The mood shifted from busy mind to open heart where stirred these lines from Emily Dickinson:
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me.
Hospice House, 367 E. Seventh Ave., is a 12-bed facility decorated in the soothing tones of the most welcoming homes. Each room features large picture windows, allowing light to stream in. In this newest addition in this lower South Hill neighborhood, women and men will die, attended by family – if they have family – and by kind strangers if they do not.

(S-R photo by Brian Plonka)

From the Associated Press:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A Roman Catholic religious order has agreed to pay $50 million to dozens of Alaska Natives who were victims of sexual abuse by Jesuit priests, their lawyer said Sunday.
The settlement with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus is the largest one yet against a Catholic religious order, said Anchorage lawyer Ken Roosa.
However, the superior of the Oregon Province called the announcement premature. The Oregon-based province covers Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.
The settlement announcement is premature because some issues need to be finalized, said the Very Rev. John Whitney, provincial superior of the Oregon Province.

"When those issues are resolved we will be available for a more complete discussion of the matter," Whitney said in a statement. He described the settlement announcement as "premature and detrimental."

I didn't write in this blog for more than a week, because work has been both sad and stressful since Nov. 1 when layoffs were announced. At least 25 of my colleagues will be gone by the end of this month, some voluntarily, some not. Many left very soon after Nov. 1.

I have been through some tough things in my personal life, but this past two weeks was by far the toughest work experience of my almost 30-year journalism career. And I know every person here felt much sadness, stress, frustration and anger.

The people who were laid off wrestle with all the emotions associated with death and dying: denial, depression, bargaining and some hope that acceptance and understanding will follow.

Those of us who remain have all taken on additional duties. We are working more hours than ever. And many, many have experienced sleepless nights. People's eyes looked red and swollen to me everywhere I looked in the newsroom. Journalists tend to be stoic, private people. But I sensed the aftermath of tears all around.

I have been grateful, in the midst of this despair, for the occasions of grace as we Catholics call them. These were the times over the past two weeks when people provided great comfort.

Friends sent advice that really helped. One friend, who has been through recovery for alcoholism said, "Take each day. And have meaningful conversations with others."

Another friend who has been through a lot in her personal life wrote: "Walk, pray, slow down, breathe. Someone once told me when you feel like you are drowning, don't flail - 'float.'"

The mood here for me fluctuated between the despair expressed in the William Butler Yeats' poem Sailing to Byzantium.

And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is

And the hope against hope expressed by religious revolutionary Martin Luther who said that if he knew the world would end tomorrow: "I would plant a tree in my garden."

I'm in a garden planting mood this week, no matter what the world will be doing.

(Kathy Plonka photo/S-R)

John Allen's weekly column in National Catholic Reporter had an interesting analysis of the pope's relationship with Latin American bishops. Liberation theology is always a sticking point.

When Benedict XVI and Duarte met Oct. 29, they faced the prospect that Paraguay's next government could be formed by Fernando Lugo, a Catholic bishop who's tendered his resignation but who is officially still on the books. Known as Paraguay's "red bishop" for his commitment to liberation theology, Lugo has been ordered by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops, not to run for public office in national elections set for April, an order Lugo has defied. Polls currently show him in the lead, and at least one of his brother bishops is on board: Bishop Mario Melanio Medina Salinas of the San Juan Bautista de las Misiones diocese has said that he would vote for Lugo "100 times" if that were possible.

My life goes in cycles when I'm around groups of people or in social situations when no one -- but me, usually -- is asking any questions.

I'm still baffled by how educated, articulate, interesting adults can get away with asking no questions of others. Most just talk about themselves.

There are a few theories why. This topic is an obsession with me, by the way.

1) They are shy.
2) They were taught it's impolite.
3) They don't give a darn.
4) They are so self-obsessed, they don't even realize they are not asking questions.

My ruminating on this led me to another question: Did Jesus ask questions? Answer: Absolutely. I found many Web sites that listed them and lifted the samples below from this one. Click here.

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul?

“Who touched me?"

This is not an original thought I'm presenting here. I heard it Monday morning on MSNBC when a Catholic commentator said he wished the Catholic clergy had been so open and accepting responsibility of the sex-abuse scandal in the church as Oprah has been about the sex-abuse scandal in her South African school.
As CBS/AP reported:

Oprah Winfrey said Monday she was not responsible for hiring at her school for disadvantaged South African girls but that the screening process was inadequate and "the buck always stops with me."

Though some of the clergy leaders adopted a buck-always-stops-with-me stance when church sex abuse became known, many adopted the blame-the-media excuse. Or blame the victim.

They can all take a clue from Oprah if it happens again. The buck needs to stop with the leaders. No excuses.

(AP photo)

From the Ministry Institute at Mater Dei

When did you last take time to reflect on God’s presence in your life? Is your life in perfect balance or do you feel like you’re juggling family, work, church, play, “good causes,” and God is getting lost in the shuffle? How can scripture, tradition and culture help us look at our life experiences and see God’s love embracing us?

Here are some opportunities for you to slow down, take a deep breath, and remember that God is always walking with us, if we will just recognize God’s Spirit at work in our lives.

God’s Presence in our Life Journey – November 10 – Sr. Mary Garvin

Advent, Mary and Silence (with Taize prayer) – December 8 – Shonna Bartlett

Where: The Ministry Institute, 405 E. Sinto

When: Saturday, 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M.

Cost: $20 – includes lunch
Contact for details:
Shonna Bartlett, 509-323-6012 or 1-800-986-9585 x6012
405 E. Sinto Avenue
Spokane, WA 99202
bartletts@gonzaga.edu

As I've blogged here in years past, we always got the day after Halloween off. As young kids, we thought it might be to recover from the fun of the night before and have a day to barter candy from siblings. We thought this even though the nuns told us again and again the reason we had it off was because it was a feast day (and the mandatory Mass was a reminder it wasn't just a fun, fun day.)

Halloween and the two days after were a favorite time of the year and remain so as an adult, but for very different reasons.

On All Saints' Day (tomorrow) and All Souls Day (Friday) I think of family members who have passed away and friends who have died. And I age, this list grows longer.

I believe the people we love who have died before us can be a wonderful help and resource, even if you don't believe in an afterlife.

I have no hesitation calling upon them for help, in silent prayer, the person best suited for the job. Before a public speech, for instance, I might invoke help from my dad who was a ham like me.

Whether those prayers are heard or not, well, maybe someday I'll find out. Maybe not!

But even people who don't believe that somewhere the spirit or the energy of our loved ones remain can invoke the example of the person who died. What would mom do? What would dad do? What would my mentor do?

Their example lives on, always. And is there to be remembered and emulated. Available to all, regardless of beliefs.

Monk and mystic Thomas Merton wrote these words in his 1949 book Seeds of Contemplation. See any parallels to today's world?

I have learned that an age in which politicians talk about peace is an age in which everybody expects war: the great men of the earth would not talk of peace so much if they did not secretly believe it possible, with one more war, to annihilate their enemies forever. Always, "after just one more war" it will dawn, the new era of love: but first everybody who is hated must be eliminated. For hate, you see, is the mother of their kind of love.

Unfortunately the love that is to be born out of hate will never be born. Hatred is sterile; it breeds nothing but the image of its own empty fury, its own nothingness. Love cannot come of emptiness. It is full of reality. Hatred destroys the real being of man in fighting the fiction which it calls "the enemy." For man is concrete and alive, but "the enemy" is a subjective abstraction. A society that kills real men in order to deliver itself from the phantasm of a paranoid delusion is already possessed by the demon of destructiveness because it has made itself incapable of love. It refuses, a priori, to love. It is dedicated not to concrete relations of man with man, but only to abstractions about politics, economics, psychology, and even, sometimes, religion.

Beliefnet has a cute cover story today reviewing 10 religious Halloween candies, representing a variety of faith traditions. (These are actual candies, mostly available through religious Web sites.)

There's kosher Star of David Chocolate Pops.

We found this confection--available in white-on-dark and blue-on-white chocolate--creamy and very sweet, but high on the trans fats and low on chocolate flavoring.

And a Chocolate Buddha.

This hollow gourmet chocolate candy is a meal-like treat that several can share. The company's site says they make the Buddha (and all their edible deities) the day you order him--and he tastes it. "Put him on your altar, melt him for hot chocolate, relish him!" Indeed.

And Noah's Ark Gummi Animals

Standard gummi fare in a variety of flavors, not too tart, not too sweet. We presume we should eat the animals in pairs.

Check out the rest.

Just discovered a wonderful Web site which I should have uncovered long ago. It's the Woodstock Theological Center which describes itself as "an independent nonprofit institute at Georgetown University that engages in theological and ethical reflection on topics of social, economic, business, scientific, cultural, religious, and political importance."

In a recent paper about young adult Catholics, it had the best breakdown I've seen so far on the ages of American Catholics.

There’s the oldest generation, which we call the preVatican II generation. It
consists of people who were born in 1940 or before. When we did our latest survey in 2005, these people were about 65 or older. That group
represented about 17 percent of the total U.S. Catholic population that is 18 years of age and above.

Then there’s a Vatican II generation which more or less corresponds with what we would call the baby boomers. We have used the dates of 1941-1960
as the beginning and the end of the Vatican II generation. When we did our research in 2005, those people were roughly between 45 and about
64 or 65. That group represents about one third
of the total U.S. Catholic population.

Then there’s the postVatican II generation. That group was born 1961 up to (most people would say) around 1982 or so. In our research, we used
the cutoff date of 1978 – so roughly, people born between ‘61 and ‘78. They were between 27 and 44 years old at the time, and about 40 percent of the U.S. Catholic population.

Then the last group has been called the millennials – it’s the youngest
generation of all. They were born from 1979 on. But because we survey only people who are 18 years of age and above, we’ll focus on the
millennials who were born between ‘79 and roughly 1987. That means the people surveyed were at the time between 19 and 26 years of age. (They are) about nine or 10 percent of the American Catholic population.

As part of Gonzaga’s year-long discussion of “food” issues, Catholicism for a New Millennium will present Professor Mark Graham’s talk on “Theology, Ethics & Agriculture” at 7:30 on November 1 in the Globe Room in Cataldo (across from St. Aloysius Church)

Dr. Graham, a Catholic moral theologian and the author of “Sustainable Agriculture: A Christian Ethic of Gratitude” (Pilgrim Press: 2005), examines how contemporary trends in American agriculture threaten sustainability and suggests how a Christian theological ethic can help us face those threats and develop an alternative vision and future.

For more information, contact Tim Clancy, (509) 323-6701 or e-mail clancy@gonzaga.edu

(Photo by Jed Conklin/The Spokesman-Review)

My Aunt Martha died recently and this past weekend, my cousins held her memorial service in West Seattle.

Aunt Martha and Uncle Armand fascinated me as a child, because they were atheists and to a Catholic Spokane girl of the 1960s, that was quite exotic. They would argue politics and religion with my parents at the kitchen table.

They settled into Providence Mount St. Vincent in West Seattle a couple of years ago.

It's part of Providence Health System, a Catholic-based institution. Mount St. Vincent is filled with Catholic statuary and imagery, plus Mass is said there every morning and the Rosary is there every afternoon.

My aunt loved it there. My uncle remains there and loves it, too, though he assured us no one has converted him. (Nor has anyone tried).

My relatives have experienced what I like best about most of the charitable organizations associated with the Catholic Church. They are open to all, regardless of color or creed.

Another interesting note: One of my uncle's caregivers is a woman from The Gambia. She is Muslim. The Mount's Web site says that its employees represent 27 different countries of origin.

Older age is going to be the great leveler and the great teacher of tolerance, I believe. In the last days of our lives all that will matter is the care we are given, and compassionate care transcends categories, color and creed.

Do you have a similar example from the experiences of older people in your life? Respond at A Matter of Opinion where this post will be simulblogged.

(Photo from Providence Mount St. Vincent Web site)

Father Dan's Jubilee homily contained some great Jesuit history. And now the big challenge facing the Jesuits is lower numbers than the society once had. Interesting side note: California politico Jerry Brown was a year ahead of Father in the Society. He left in his fourth year.

From Father Dan's homily:

New challenges face (us as) Jesuits.
The “long black line” is not as long as it once was. There is more grey hair (if there is any at all) among its members. In my own ordination class, 24 men began the first year of Theology and 12 were ordained. Others have left since then.

I recently glanced through a California Province Catalogue that was published when I was in special studies (the early 1970s). In a single year California had 27 people take a leave-of-absence, and 28 leave the Society. That is loosing 55 people in one year!

The ranks thinned rather quickly. As we all know, it is not easy to see so many people whom you know and love leave the Society.
As we look to the future, we see that with fewer numbers we need to change our tactics and our approach. No longer do we think of high schools staffed mainly by Jesuits. Only a token number of us are in university classrooms.

This year at USF we have 6-7 members of the Society who teach courses as their main task. Yet this fewer number of men can work to the advantage of spreading the Gospel.Our student bodies are at all-time highs. Through our corporate presence and collaboration with our non-Jesuit colleagues, we are reaching more people than we ever have before. The same holds true for the rest of the Church.

From Britain's newspaper The Telegraph:

From Mother Theresa in a cinammon bun, to the Virgin Mary on a toasted cheese sandwich - images resembling religious icons are regularly spotted in unlikely places.

Now this fiery figure - photographed in a bonfire in Poland - is being hailed as Pope John Paul II making an appearance from beyond the grave.

Dressed in robes, slightly hunched and his right hand raised in blessing, the image appeared during a ceremony to mark the second anniversary of the pontiff's death.

The photograph has since been shown repeatedly on Italian television, and a religious website displaying the image crashed as thousands logged on to see it for themselves.

The bonfire was lit during a service on April 2, at Beskid Zywiecki - near the Holy Father's birthplace in Wadowice, southern Poland.

Hundreds attended the ceremony and Polish cameraman Gregorz Lukasik captured the image on his new camera.

(Telegraph.com photo)

Blog reader Kipling L. McVay was in search of information about Mary Magdalene and her condemnation by Pope Gregory. (See post below.)

Another blog reader, Jim Dunn, sent this information along. Thanks Jim!

I too tried to find some information on the Vatican correcting Pope Gregory's statement concerning Mary Magdalene's character in church history. As far as I could find through my research, there was discussion during Vatican ll but no formal apology or even an official statement correcting Pope Gregory's sermon which cast Mary Magdalene as a prostitute and sinner.

Instead, in 1969, the Vatican simply corrected the error by quietly altering the reading on her feast day as part of a general reform of the church calendar regarding the way many saints were to be remembered.

The Vatican changed the reading from Luke (7:36-39) which Gregory used to refer to Mary Magdalene as a sinner to the gospel of John (20:1-2 &11-12). That is how the Vatican quietly admitted the error initiated by Gregory's sermon. The change, of course, moved MM from a sinner to a figure central to Jesus's resurrection story.

When Jesuit Dan Kendall was a novitiate in 1957 in California, the young men worked the seminary's vineyards.

Here's a description from a typical day in a novitiate's life, written by Father Dan to his parents in an Oct. 6, 1957 letter.

We rise at 5:30 a.m. After that is a half hour meditation, mass, breakfast, scullery, rosary, Stations of the Cross, spiritual reading and an exhortation. This is all over by 9:45.

Then we go to the fields. At noon we have lunch. Lunch is followed by a siesta, spiritual reading, and a meditation.

We start picking again about 2 p.m. At 5:30 p.m. we start home. Dinner is at 6:30 followed by scullery, spiritual reading, examination of conscience, and litanies. After litanies we all retire. That is at 8:30 p.m.

Took a long weekend to fly to San Francisco to celebrate Jesuit Dan Kendall's 50th year as a Jesuit.

He teaches at University of San Francisco and is a prolific author of books on theology. And he's very generous about sharing glory. Because of him, I was able to co-author two books on marriage for Paulist Press.

Father Dan also celebrated earlier in the summer with 20 fellow Jesuits, all celebrating Jubilees this year.

This weekend celebration, however, was for him alone. About 80 of us -- friends and family -- descended upon San Francisco and enjoyed much food, drink, conversation and a very moving Mass on Sunday, with a wonderful homily by Father Dan.

In posts this week, I hope to quote from that homily and also post part of a letter Father Dan kept sent home after he entered the Sacred Heart Novitiate in California in the summer of 1957.

As we celebrated, I was struck with two things.

1)We celebrate marriages that have lasted 50 years or more, because they seem so rare in our culture. But staying in the priesthood for 50 years is an even rarer accomplishment.

2) Dan has presided at about three dozen marriages throughout his priesthood. He has listened to brides and grooms describe how overwhelming it is at the receptions when everyone is gathered in your honor but it's hard to get around and talk with everyone. And it passes so quickly. At the end of the weekend, Dan understood exactly how that feels....

(Tony Wadden photos)

Just got this e-mail inviting me to something that would really be great to attend, if I lived in Washington D.C.

Here's what's happening tomorrow at 12:30 at The National Press Club there.

It will be announced that 138 Muslim clerics, theologians and academics delivered a letter to Pope Benedict XVI and 25 other Christian leaders highlighting the theological synergies of the two faiths. In an historic display of unity, Muslim leaders have made an important announcement promoting inter-faith understanding and cooperation.
This unprecedented initiative falls on the one year anniversary of the open letter issued by Muslim clerics to Pope Benedict XVI in response to his remarks at the Regensburg University. Muslim leaders are calling Christians to formally recognize historical and theological ties between the two faiths to build towards future collaboration.
Members of the media are invited to this rare opportunity to learn more about this initiative.

One of things I enjoy most about this blog is getting e-mails from all over the country and sometimes from all over the world.

I got this recent one from a man in search of Vatican writings on Mary Magdalene.
He gave me permission to post his e-mail, in the hope someone out there in blogland can help him.

Here's the e-mail:

By chance do you have a cite where I can copy the findings concerning (Mary Magdalene) at Vatican II or elsewhere?
The closest I have gotten is an article about Mary Magdalene. (Pinksky, Mark I., “Something about Mary Magdalene,” reprinted from the Orlando Sentinel, Atlanta, Georgia: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 6, 2004, p. 1-B.) In the article, Father Charlie Mitchell, Pastor, St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church, Altamonte Springs, Florida, is quoted as saying that in 1969 the Vatican recanted Pope Gregory's statement/writing.
The problem I have is that Vatican II opened under Pope John XXIII in 1962 and it closed under Pope Paul VI in 1965. Maybe the finding was published in 1969. I've left a message for Fr. Mitchell but haven't heard back from him. Also, I can't find anything on web sites? Could you help me in finding where the Church may have recanted Pope Gregory's statement about Mary Magdalene?
Thanks much,
Kipling L. McVay
Judge, Cherokee County Probate Court
90 North Street, Suite 340
Canton, GA 30114
678-493-6160 Fax: 678-493-6170
E-mail: Klmrss@aol.com

If you can assist Judge McVay on this, contact him directly.

(Monica Bellucci played Mary Magdalene in Newmarket Film Group's The Passion of the Christ)

This past weekend was my 30th Gonzaga University reunion. It wasn't well-attended, perhaps because they switched the reunion weekend from the traditional June to October.

We are in our early 50s now, the class of 1977. Some of our classmates have died. Some have experienced soul-shattering tragedies and setbacks.

People joked about getting older and fatter and we talked about the things we worried about in our college years. And how they now seem so minor in the scheme of things.

All of the reunions were in the same room and so we had a chance to observe the 10 and 20 year reunion folks and the ones older than us, too. Each decade has its own patterns.

I was so struck with the way our physical beauty diminishes and changes with the years, but this allows the interior to emerge. It's lovely to behold. No one cared, really, what anyone did for a living. They asked, but they soon moved on to deeper concerns. Are you healthy? Is you family well? What do you hope for next in your life?

Reunions can be occasions of grace. Trust me on that. And if you're not a habitual reunion-goer, as I am, give one a chance. Let me know what happens when you do.

If you've never been to the Bishop’s Poor Man’s Meal, treat yourself. Treat is an odd word, I know. But the experience is enlightening about Spokane's inner city homeless and people who live in the low-income apartments near the House of Charity. The food is good, too. Believe it.

Here's some more information from Catholic Charities:

The 22nd annual Bishop’s Poor Man’s Meal will be held Sunday, October 7 from Noon to 2 p.m. at the House of Charity, 32 West Pacific Avenue, Spokane. Tickets are $10 per person and may be purchased at the door. The meal will consist of soup, rolls, and dessert, prepared by House of Charity Cook, Cally DeWitt. Tours of the shelter will be available. Bishop William Skylstad and Mayor Dennis Hession will co-host the event, which this year will include special recognition for the grocery stores and restaurants that have been donating food to the homeless shelter for decades. In 2006, the House of Charity served 66,735 free, hot meals with a annual food budget of just $8,100, thanks to community donors.

(Spokesman-Review File Photo)

I often say that if I ever leave the Catholic Church, I'd join St. Mark's Lutheran Church on Spokane's South Side. They have all the things I sometimes complain about not having in the Catholic Church -- married priests, women priests and people who really sing during services.

I know some people in the church and the energy there is amazing. It also has a lot of younger families than the typical Lutheran congregation. The church has just purchased some more property adjacent to its E. 27th Ave. location.

Anyway, one of my Lutheran friends pointed out Pastor Richard Finch's message to the congregation in the church's Oct. 2007 St. Mark's Messenger. Read it all or here are some excerpts.

We have eleven ordained people in this congregation. Once we had eighteen.

Each year I nearly have a heart attack before
the Blessing of the Animals service.

If you are interested in the mix of politics with
religion, you should read this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for biography: “The Most Famous Man in America: The Life of Henry Ward Beecher.” Tell
me if you do.

When I was little I wanted to grow up to be an
elevator operator.

I don’t like to get preachy in these columns. I
think I do that enough already.

St. Mark’s was the first group in town to produce
the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar.” It
was back in the early 70’s. Cool, huh?

I once read the Bible from cover to cover. I
don’t plan to do it again.

Luther was not a biblical literalist. He wanted
to throw out the books of Ruth and James. Read
them and find out why.

I am a political news junkie.

Most church musicians prefer that you do
NOT applaud after their musical offering. They do
not see it as a performance. Children’s choir excluded,
of course.

"Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary
use words." —St. Francis of Assisi
-- Pastor Finch

(Photo from St. Mark's Web site.)