progressive involvement

Quote of the Day

“I’m not Francis of Assisi and I do not have his strength and his holiness. But I am the Bishop of Rome and Pope of the Catholic world. The first thing I decided was to appoint a group of eight cardinals to be my advisers. Not courtiers but wise people who share my own feelings. This is the beginning of a Church with an organization that is not just top-down but also horizontal.”

Pope Francis

Quote of the Day

Lutherans aren't Presbyterians or Methodists, praise the Lord, and they share a great deal with Anglican and Roman Catholic traditions in terms of liturgy and ethos. Which is why traditionalists are, on average, less loopy than the happy-clappy types who now dominate the increasingly dumbed-down Christian marketplace. 

Otagosh, from New Zealand

Quote of the Day

”I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it.  If you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll even empty his pockets for you.”

President Lyndon Johnson

Quote of the Day

The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only in the geographical sense but also to go to the existential peripheries: those of the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and of religious indifference, of thought, of all misery.

Cardinal Bergoglio, in a Havana, Cuba address shortly before his election as Pope. 

Quote of the Day

“I love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And mother. And God.”

Johnny Cash

Quote of the Day

What intelligent person can imagine that there was a first “day,” then a second and a third “day”—evening and morning—without the sun, the moon, and the stars? And that the first “day”—if it makes sense to call it such—existed even without a sky?

Who is foolish enough to believe that, like a human gardener, God planted a garden in Eden in the East and placed in it a tree of life, visible and physical, so that by biting into its fruit one would obtain life? And that by eating from another tree, one would come to know good and evil? And when it is said that God walked in the garden in the evening and that Adam hid himself behind a tree, I cannot imagine that anyone will doubt that these details point symbolically to spiritual meanings, by using an historical narrative which did not literally happen. Origen (185-254 AD) “De Principiis“ 4.1.6

Quote of the Day

"There are two entities in the faith: The Church, and the damned old men. We are The Church, and when we finally run out of damned old men, we will still be here."

Nun acquaintance of Jack McKee

Quote of the Day

A management consultant is someone who parachutes into some crisis situation, or even some perfectly normal situation, and tells people twice his age with 10 times his expertise what they’re doing wrong. 

Michael Kinsley, today at Bloomberg, enroute to making a different point.

Quote of the Day

"In politics, bad gets worse."  

Haley Barbour

Quote of the Day

The Hill:  At a St. Petersburg, FL rally, (President) Obama noted that (Bill) Clinton "made the case as only he can."

"After he spoke, somebody sent out a tweet that said "you should appoint him 'secretary of explaining stuff.' I like that!"

"I have to admit, it didn't say 'stuff'.  I cleaned that up," Obama added.