November 2005

The South Bend Common Council has denied a zoning change to the Catholic Worker community there. WNDU-TV:

“We are looking forward to finding another house that’s properly zoned and continuing our work,” said [Margie] Pfeil. “We are hopeful that we can get a good price on our house and invest our money elsewhere.”
[…]
Starting Tuesday the Catholic Workers plan to move their five guests and three staff members south two streets to a house that the diocese gave to the organization years ago.

South Bend Tribune:

A last-minute effort to prolong the Catholic Worker house issue failed in a 5-4 vote. This was followed by an emotional 7-2 vote to deny the group’s overall rezoning petition.
[…]
There are no plans to pursue a lawsuit against the city, [Mike] Griffin said.

“Many have said we have a good case,” Griffin said. “But it’s also a Christian tradition at times to simply shake the dust from your sandals and move on.”

Dorothy Day was an American anarchist, pacifist, and devout Roman Catholic. She dedicated her life to serving the poor of Manhattan, eating and living with them. She refused to pay federal taxes, to accept government aid, and to be complicit in injustice. From time to time, her stands landed her in jail.

Her great accomplishment was to integrate these usually unrelated things into the seamless whole that was her daily life. With Peter Maurin, she founded the newspaper The Catholic Worker, which gave its name to what we call the Catholic Worker movement.

Each Catholic Worker community is independent and unique, but all take inspiration from the model she developed.

Dorothy died twenty-five years ago today. In accordance with her wishes, her family correspondence and diaries, held in the Marquette University Archives, will now be unsealed and available to researchers.

Today: social service siting, Mason Court, wild animals, Catholic ninjas.
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Let’s eat

Thanksgiving is one day when America not only makes a point of feeding the hungry, but feeding them in style.

There was a big crowd at St. John’s Free Meal for Thanksgiving Breakfast. Lots of hugs and smiles.

The St. John’s High School football team stopped by with a donation. (Later that day, they beat St. Peter-Marian 28-7.)

The breakfast conversation was sparkling, as always.

Mike: Why are they showing “Night of the Living Dead” on Thanksgiving?

Bruce: The dead gotta eat too, Mike!
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St Francis House, the Catholic Worker house of hospitality in Oxford, England, celebrated its first anniversary since their rebirth on Sunday 2nd October: reports Strangers and Pilgrims, their newsletter. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a good article from Mother Jones about how some otherwise politically conservative Catholics are getting involved in anti-capital punishment activism. I think there’s a tendency amongst leftists to think of the Church as being far too conservative and a tendency among right-wingers to think of the Church as being far too liberal. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week the press reacted to a memo from Bazelon that said the recommendations of the (Worcester) Mayor’s Task Force on social service siting might violate federal law. (This even made it into a Daily Kos diary, which allows you to vote on whether “The Task Force on Social Services are Fucks.”)

Worcester Magazine ran a disappointing editorial on this issue. It began:

The inflammatory issue of social service siting received a kick recently when a Washington, D.C.-based agency weighed in on local politics, saying that a recent city report potentially discriminates against people with disabilities.

The national legal advocate for people with mental disabilities [Bazelon] issued its statement at the behest of a Cambridge-based social service agency, defending the position that such agencies have a constitutional right to locate programs wherever they choose. We realize that these people have to protect their turf, but the recommendations of the Mayor’s Task Force on Social Service Siting were eminently reasonable — and voluntary in nature. This response fans a fire that really doesn’t need additional fuel. Their position may well be supported by the courts in many instances, but it doesn’t advance the laudable and civilized objective of staying out of the courts in the first place.

(Bazelon argues that the recommendations are not voluntary in a footnote.)

The editorial doesn’t mention the charges again till the final sentence:

This recent salvo from Washington represents a half step in the wrong direction.

It’s odd that this editorial defending the Task Force report from the Bazelon memo never engages the charges in the memo.
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Clark University students yesterday installed 2,000 crosses and other faith symbols on the main quad to remember the 2,082 GIs who lost their lives in Iraq and to call for a swift withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Photo: Emma Klein. More at Worcester Indymedia.

Other items:
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Here’s an interesting article on Slate about the declining popularity of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Personally, it’s been maybe 6 years since my last confession. Read the rest of this entry »

Reusable bag titan Rajiv Badlani points out that because you can’t convince every shopper to use cloth shopping bags, there will always be some plastic bags out there. He plans to recycle these into textiles.

You can do something similar at home, with shopping bags or the plastic bags they put your newspaper in on rainy days. All you have to do is cut the bags into ribbons, twist the ribbons into a sort of yarn, and then knit or crochet the yarn into whatever you like. This is an inexpensive way to make holiday gifts for the environmentalists on your list.
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