Harry's Place

The New York Times reports:

The Vatican has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying that an investigation found that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.”

The Vatican’s assessment, issued on Wednesday, said that members of the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.” During the debate over the health care overhaul in 2010, American bishops came out in opposition to the health plan, but dozens of sisters, many of whom belong to the Leadership Conference, signed a statement supporting it — support that provided crucial cover for the Obama administration in the battle over health care.

The conference is an umbrella organization of women’s religious communities, and claims 1,500 members who represent 80 percent of the Catholic sisters in the United States. It was formed in 1956 at the Vatican’s request, and answers to the Vatican, said Sister Annmarie Sanders, the group’s communications director.

Word of the Vatican’s action took the group completely by surprise, Sister Sanders said. She said that the group’s leaders were in Rome on Wednesday for what they thought was a routine annual visit to the Vatican when they were informed of the outcome of the investigation, which began in 2008.

“I’m stunned,” said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby founded by sisters. Her group was also cited in the Vatican document, along with the Leadership Conference, for focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping “silent” on abortion and same-sex marriage.

“I would imagine that it was our health care letter that made them mad,” Sister Campbell said. “We haven’t violated any teaching, we have just been raising questions and interpreting politics.”

The verdict on the nuns group was issued by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is now led by an American, Cardinal William Levada, formerly the archbishop of San Francisco. He appointed Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to lead the process of reforming the sisters’ conference, with assistance from Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki and Bishop Leonard Blair, who was in charge of the investigation of the group.

They have been given up to five years to revise the group’s statutes, approve of every speaker at the group’s public programs and replace a handbook the group used to facilitate dialogue on matters that the Vatican said should be settled doctrine. They are also supposed to review the Leadership Conference’s links with Network and another organization, the Resource Center for Religious Life.

Ken Livingstone in the Jewish News today (today being Yom HaShoah in Israel):

And asked directly if, as he has continually used al-Qaradawi’s stance against al-Qaeda in the Sheikh’s defence, he equally opposes his stance on attacks in Israel, he said: “Yes. I have never said I agree with everything he says. And I want to see an end to all the violence and I want a peaceful, negotiated settlement that ensures the Israelis and Palestinians forge a future based on an equal footing.”

Ken Livingstone had a message for Israel in 2009. He told Stop the War:

“Don’t complain when young men launch a rocket when that’s all you’ve left them the right to do”

What could possibly explain Livingstone’s latest words to the Jewish News?

By the way, this is Qaradawi on Israel:

“Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the Jews people who would punish them for their corruption…The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them…Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.”

Following on from today’s other posts about the Guardian, here is a letter (from Niels Engelsted) which was recently deemed worthy of publication:

“As no doubt Israeli politics have much to do with preserving and protecting Jewish identity, and as this identity historically was defined by the ghetto wall, one cannot help think that it is the ghetto wall that all this protective wall-building in Israel is meant to rebuild”.

This amounts to nothing more than a thoroughly nasty racist jibe, offensive at any time, but particularly appalling during Holocaust Memorial Week. It has now been withdrawn, following complaints.  The Guardian has noted that it falls foul of its own editorial guidelines.  I wonder whether anyone has considered just what factors might have led to a Guardian staff member deciding that this letter should be published in the first place.

Hat tip: CiFWatch

The Pew Research Center conducted a poll earlier this month that found President Obama leading Mitt Romney by 49 percent to 45 percent in this year’s presidential election (other polls have had it closer).

But among one group of voters, Obama’s lead was an astounding 70 percent to 25 percent. No, it wasn’t National Public Radio listeners or latte drinkers or Volvo drivers. It was women age 18 to 29.

Among all women, Obama leads by 53 percent to 40 percent, while men favor Romney by 50 percent to 44 percent.

No single reason accounts for this. For several decades now, Democrats have had a distinct advantage over Republicans when it comes to female voters. Some commentators, rather simplistically, have called the Democrats “the mommy party” because of their supposed stronger emphasis on nurturing, and the Republicans “the daddy party” because of their alleged stronger commitment to security.

Among young women, it probably didn’t help the Republicans when they stumbled this year into making not just abortion, but contraception, an issue.

Sarah Palin’s “mama grizzlies” shtick doesn’t seem to be winning over this demographic either.

The bad news in the poll for a Democrat like me is Obama’s weak performance among low-income white voters, especially men. A stronger economy would drive up his support among these voters, but probably not by much. I suppose the perceived cultural (and to some extent, racial) differences between Obama and these voters are still deeply felt. On the other hand, Romney doesn’t exactly come across as an icon of the working class.

Another factor is the decline in the percentage of workers who are members of labor unions. According to a poll for the AFL-CIO, Obama in 2008 beat John McCain “among white men who are union members by 18 percentage points, while losing white male votes overall by 16 points.” This helps explain the efforts of many Republicans to essentially create a union-free America.

Update: Phil writes in the comments:

I don’t quite know how to explain this but there seems a directly inverse situation in the UK on the gender chasm – certainly in London.

According to the latest poll, Livingstone has a 16 point deficit among women, yet leads among men.

Any ideas how to explain this? Couldn’t have anything to do with embracing misogynistic Islamist preachers, could it?

How about this for a powerful image? President Barack Obama sat on the bus where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat nearly 60 years ago in a landmark episode of the US civil rights movement.

Obama stopped to see the bus during a visit to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan yesterday. He was on his way to a campaign fundraiser, but it is stirring none the less. Read more »

In the Guardian’s op ed by Raed Salah, the following footnote has been added:

In the thread below, there has been some discussion about statements that Raed Salah allegedly made. The Comment editor Becky Gardiner has commented, setting out the judgement here and here. Raed Salah has also replied here.

This is what Becky Gardiner says:

Sprindew asks:

Are you guilty of inciting anti-semitism or not? Because the judge in your deportation case said you are

I have read the judgement. On the blood libel point it is complex, so bear with me.

First the judge notes the context:

the sermon was given on a somewhat turbulent day when [Salah] had been refused permission to pray at one of the holy sites of his religion

Having been barred from entering the al-Aqsa mosque, Salah gave a speech, or sermon, in the street outside.

In it he said:

We have never allowed ourselves to knead the bread for the breaking fo fasting during the blessed month of Ramadan with the blood of the children. And if someone wants a wider explanation, then he should ask what used to happen to some of the children of Europe, when their blood used to be mixed in the dough of the holy bread.

Unlike the version relied on by the home secretary, the speech did not contain a reference to “Jewish holy bread”. Salah denies that he was referring to the blood libel; in Salah’s article he did originally have this paragraph explaining this passage, which I cut:

I don’t believe in the “blood libel” against Jews and I reject it in its entirety. What I was really referring to in my sermon was the killing of innocents in the name of religion, including children, from the time of the Inquisition to as recently as Bosnia and elsewhere in Europe whose governments support Israel’s action.

The judge did not accept Salah’s explanation, saying he found it “wholly unpersuasive”. He said the speech “would offend and distress” Jews. However, he also noted that the sermon as a whole “was against the actions of the state of Israel” rather than Jews as such.

To conclude, the judge said that:

“…there is no reliable evidence of [Salah] using words carrying a reference to the blood libel save in the single passage in a sermon delivered five years ago. … The absence of other evidence is striking … [Salah] is a prominent public figure and a prolific speaker. … his speeches are of interest to the authorties in Israel. … We think it can be fairly said that the evidence before us is not a sample, or ‘the tip of the iceberg’: it is simply all the evidence there is.”

And later:

“the matters raised by the Secretary of State are not a fair portrayal of [Salah's] views or words as a whole; they are in essence confined to words on one day, that are not shown to have caused any difficulty at the time or since. There is no evidence that the danger percieved by [Theresa May] is perceived by any of the other countries where [Salah] has been, nor, save for the very tardy indictment, is there any evidence that even Israel sees the danger [she] sees.”

Raed Salah’s amanuensis adds in his name:

After a 10-month legal battle, I have now been cleared on “all grounds” by a senior immigration tribunal judge, who ruled that May’s decision to deport me was “entirely unnecessary” and that she had been “misled”. The evidence she relied on (which had been given to her by the Community Security Trust, a British charity, and included a poem of mine about oppression which been doctored to make it appear anti-Jewish) was not, he concluded, a fair portrayal of my views. The judge said the one short passage in a speech that May used as evidence that I had repeated the so-called “blood libel” [the medieval accusation that Jews use the blood of Christian children to make bread] “was not a sample [of my views], or ‘the tip of the iceberg’: it is simply all the evidence there is.” In reality, I wasn’t referring to any such thing. I reject any and every form of racism, including anti-Semitism. I don’t believe in the “blood libel” against Jews and I reject it in its entirety. What I was really referring to in my sermon was the killing of innocents in the name of religion, including children, from the time of the Inquisition to as recently as Bosnia and elsewhere in Europe whose governments support Israel’s action. In fact, what May has neglected to consider in respect of the speech is that I also said in the speech ‘we are not malicious and we will not be malicious, thus we will also protect the honour of the Jewish synagogues.’ I have no doubt that, despite this, Israel’s cheerleaders in Britain will continue to smear my character. This is the price every Palestinian leader and campaigner is forced to pay.

So, that’s the Guardian’s position.

On Holocaust Memorial Day.

There is a whole bunch of evidence, unused in the trial and unquestioned, that shows the nature of Raed Salah. Becky Gardiner is very much aware of it herself, because I know that “a senior Guardian figure” took it to her, in an attempt to get her to publish just ONE piece explaining why liberals and progressives ought not to back Raed Salah.

Articles were written. They were submitted by a number of people to the Guardian. They weren’t even acknowledged.

Becky Gardiner’s view, I’m afraid to say, was that Comment is Free should not offer a platform to those who wanted to oppose Raed Salah’s incitement and racism. She saw opposition to Zionism as a sort of Manichean struggle, in which she was on the side of the angels.

The “senior Guardian figure” was quite surprised. But obviously, he did nothing about it because, you know, we mustn’t make a fuss.

This is the year in which antisemitism became a mainstream “progressive” cause. Fancy joining the fightback?

From here.

The page has 25,000 followers and describes itself as:

#occupywallstreet
Community Page about Occupy Tampa

Update.

By way of contrast, this:

This is a cross post by Marc Goldberg

On this day of memorial I desperately wanted to write something beautiful in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, but the Holocaust was not beautiful, the Holocaust was death.

I tried instead to say something educational but the Holocaust was not school, the Holocaust was death.

I cannot begin to imagine the pain and suffering endured by those who suffered in death camps, concentration camps, slave labour camps, in ghettos, transit camps. The fear endured by Jew living in Europe when living as a Jew in Europe was a death sentence, when friends turned into enemies and the mere act of being alive was, in itself a crime.

So I shall not try to write something beautiful nor something educational I shall simply say never again shall we allow ourselves to be marched like lambs to the slaughter, never again shall we be powerless in the face of our enemies, never again shall we allow the world to grow deaf to our cries and never again shall we need to crawl on our knees to others in our hour of need.

With our backs to the sea and rifles in hand we say never again…and we mean it.

I’m sure we were all delighted when Ken Livingstone announced that he’d (almost?) given his doctor “an orgasm” when the results of his recent medical exam revealed how fighting fit he was.

However, there’s an interesting story in City A.M. this morning, which I suppose may as well be the basis for today’s virtual afray over the London Mayoral candidate.

It turns out that the doctor who ejaculated such enthusiasm for Ken’s health was a private consultant.

Yes, Ken Livingstone, the “ordinary Londoner” who champions the NHS and who rails againts “privatisation” actually uses a private healthcare provider himself. State-provided medicine is for mugs, er, “ordinary people”, obviously, not those in receipt of large dividends.

“The people of our capital city deserve top quality care and demand our health care should not be broken up, sold off or be privatised by the back door,” Livingstone emoted recently on a petition he created. Meanwhile he’s visiting his own private doctor, perhaps via the back door.

Who can forget Independent columnist Owen Jones trotting out this rubbish:

If Ken loses, it will be a victory for a right-wing machine, its appetite whetted and ready to shred the next target. Ministers will undoubtedly respond as they did with the passing of the NHS privatisation Bill: pounding the Cabinet table with their fists.

Indeed. That must be why Ken’s office were, it seems, very reluctant to use the word “private” and instead referring to the ex-Mayor’s arrangement as using an “external provider”.

So, you’re a poisonous antisemite who admits to peddling dangerous blood libels against Jews. You have something on your mind. Where would you go to get it published? Who would you give a column?

The Guardian, of course. Who else?

Well, to be fair, maybe the New Statesman would be worth a try.

This is what the Court had to say about Salah’s antisemitic incitement:

The appellant is clearly aware of the blood libel against Jews. If his intention had been to draw an analogy between events of the Spanish Inquisition and actions of the Israeli state he could have said so in clearer terms that did not require over ten paragraphs of explanation for his true meaning to be made clear. If he had meant to refer to Christians using the blood of others to make bread, which he seems to consider less offensive than referring to Jews doing so, then he could have inserted the word “Christian” into the text of his the sermon as he does in paragraph 175 of his explanation. Allusion to historical examples of children being killed in religious conflict does not require reference to their blood being used to make “holy bread”. The truth of the matter is that the conjunction of the concepts of ‘children’s blood’ and ‘holy bread’ is bound to be seen as a reference to the blood libel unless it is immediately and comprehensively explained to be something else altogether.

UPDATE:

Here’s an article the Guardian didn’t publish. And would never publish.

John Ware on Raed Salah

Why wouldn’t the Guardian publish a piece like this? Simple. It is a promoter of vicious Jew-hatred.

Update: The comments thread, which was hijacked by a couple of nasty and unenlightening commenters, has been closed, and those commenters have been banned.