du fütterst mich lächelnd
mit geronnenen klumpen
unzergangener zeit
derweil
über meinem dachfirst
die acht winde jagen
als müssten sie
den erdball
in bewegung halten
am morgen am abend in der nacht
erinnert mich pfauengeschrei
wie mein herz klänge
hätt ich es nicht neulich
während du schliefst
unter meinem artischockenstrauch
begraben

[Nein, das Lied zum Tage ist NICHT "Da berühren sich Himmel und Erde" .... ]





[Man sollte vielleicht dazu erwähnen, dass Corona nicht nur eine Biermarke ist, sondern auch das italienische Wort für Rosenkranz]

Wie versprochen im Wechsel jetzt:

Hier spricht Alois Wolf in seiner Videobotschaft eine inspirierende Einladung - ganz besonders an alle Christen aus den neuen Bundesländern und auch Nichtchristen - aus, den neuen Aufbruch zu wagen.

Nachdem ich jetzt enorm viel Ermutigung auf Facebook erfahren habe, denke ich, dass ich die gesunde Mischung weiter mache: Eine Passage aus dem Brief von Kardinal Dolan - abwechselnd dazu eine Einladung zum Katholikentag vom ZdK.

>>When the President announced on January 20th that the choking mandates from HHS would remain, not only we bishops and our Catholic faithful, but people of every faith, or none at all, rallied in protest. The worry that we had expressed -- that such government control was contrary to our deepest political values -- was eloquently articulated by constitutional scholars and leaders of every creed. On February 10th, the President announced that the insurance providers would have to pay the bill, instead of the Church’s schools, hospitals, clinics, or vast network of charitable outreach having to do so. He considered this “concession” adequate. Did this help? We wondered if it would, and you will recall that the Conference announced at first that, while withholding final judgment, we would certainly give the President’s proposal close scrutiny. Well, we did -- and as you know, we are as worried as ever. For one, there was not even a nod to the deeper concerns about trespassing upon religious freedom, or of modifying the HHS’ attempt to define the how and who of our ministry. Two, since a big part of our ministries are “self-insured,” we still ask how this protects us. We’ll still have to pay and, in addition to that, we’ll still have to maintain in our policies practices which our Church has consistently taught are grave wrongs in which we cannot participate. And what about forcing individual believers to pay for what violates their religious freedom and conscience? We can’t abandon the hard working person of faith who has a right to religious freedom. And three, there was still no resolution about the handcuffs placed upon renowned Catholic charitable agencies, both national and international, and their exclusion from contracts just because they will not refer victims of human trafficking, immigrants and refugees, and the hungry of the world, for abortions, sterilization, or contraception. In many ways, the announcement of February 10 solved little and complicated a lot. We now have more questions than answers, more confusion than clarity. So the important question arises: What to do now? How can we bishops best respond, especially united in our common pastoral ministry as an Episcopal Conference? For one, under the ongoing leadership of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Bishop Blaire and Bishop Lori we will continue our strong efforts of advocacy and education. In the coming weeks the Conference will continue to provide you, among other things, with catechetical resources on the significance of religious freedom to the Church and the Church’s teaching on it from a doctrinal and moral perspective. We are developing liturgical aids to encourage prayer in our efforts and plans on how we can continue to voice our public and strong opposition to this infringement on our freedom. And the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, that has served 2 the Conference so well in its short lifespan, will continue its extraordinary work in service to this important cause. Two, we will ardently continue to seek a rescinding of the suffocating mandates that require us to violate our moral convictions, or at least insist upon a much wider latitude to the exemptions so that churches can be free of the new, rigidly narrow definition of church, minister and ministry that would prevent us from helping those in need, educating children and healing the sick, no matter their religion. In this regard, the President invited us to “work out the wrinkles.” We have accepted that invitation. Unfortunately, this seems to be stalled: the White House Press Secretary, for instance, informed the nation that the mandates are a fait accompli (and, embarrassingly for him, commented that we bishops have always opposed Health Care anyway, a charge that is scurrilous and insulting, not to mention flat out wrong. Bishop Blaire did a fine job of setting the record straight.) The White House already notified Congress that the dreaded mandates are now published in the Federal Registry “without change.” The Secretary of HHS is widely quoted as saying, “Religious insurance companies don’t really design the plans they sell based on their own religious tenets.” That doesn’t bode well for their getting a truly acceptable “accommodation.” At a recent meeting between staff of the bishops’ conference and the White House staff, our staff members asked directly whether the broader concerns of religious freedom—that is, revisiting the straight-jacketing mandates, or broadening the maligned exemption—are all off the table. They were informed that they are. So much for “working out the wrinkles.” Instead, they advised the bishops’ conference that we should listen to the “enlightened” voices of accommodation, such as the recent, hardly surprising yet terribly unfortunate editorial in America.
The White House seems to think we bishops simply do not know or understand Catholic teaching and so, taking a cue from its own definition of religious freedom, now has nominated its own handpicked official Catholic teachers.<<

[Der letzte Absatz kommt mir doch irgendwie sehr bekannt vor.]

dass dieses Blog gerade zu international wird, ist hoch. Zu viel Englischsprachiges, zu viel Kirchenkampf in den USA, zu viele Bischöfe und Kardinäle mit coj .., hm, courage, wollte ich sagen, zu viel Einsatz gegen Abtreibung und Kindsmord, gegen ein politisches System, das kaltlächelnd die Religionsfreiheit für Christen beschneidet, während es sich bei Angehörigen anderer Religionen vielmals für die Strapazen entschuldigt.

Deshalb eine kleine Video-Werbeeinblendung vom deutschen Zentralkomittee der Katholiken mit einer herzlichen Einladung zum Katholikentag 2012 in Mannheim: "Einen neuen Aufbruch wagen!"

ist ein gemeinschaftlich betriebenes Projekt - dort schreibt auch "American Papist" Thomas Peters, den ich im Mai vor einem Jahr anlässlich des Blogger-Meetings im Vatikan auch schon persönlich treffen konnte. Das Blog ist sehr empfehlenswert, wenn man sich schnell einen Überblick über den aktuellen Stand Una sancta vs. Obamacare machen möchte.
Von heute ist ein superber Artikel von Emily Simpson darin, ein Artikel von der Sorte, wie man sie selbst gerne schreiben würde (wenn man nicht mit Siebziger-Jahre-Parolen sozialisiert worden wäre und ein paar Dinge schneller kapiert hätte, statt erst mit Vierzig.)

Emily Simpson ärgert sich über einen Kommentar - und aus diesem Ärger heraus entfaltet sie eine der inspiriertesten und intelligentesten Artikel über Weiblichkeit und "Mutterschaft", den ich seit langem gelesen habe. Und nein, sie begeht gerade nicht den Fehler einer biologischen Engführung der Sache, sondern das ist ja genau das, was sie dem Kommentator ankreidet.

>>To start with, it’s great if Catholic women, married or unmarried, want to become scientists, professors, attorneys, etc. Three cheers for intelligent women doing the work God calls them to do. Likewise, all women should carefully and prayerfully discern the primary vocation to which they believe they’re called. Three cheers for women who heroically answer the call to consecrated life and wed themselves to Jesus.

But (and this is such a big “but” that I’m tempted to use all caps), answering a call to the consecrated life does not mean a woman is opting out on motherhood. She’s not. Motherhood is never merely a biological choice, something women can do or not do, like going to college or taking a vacation to France. Rather, motherhood is a call written on each and every woman’s heart. It’s also a call that has to be answered—always in spirit, sometimes in body—if we ever want to become the women God made us to be.

Here’s the deal. As Catholics we believe that the body expresses the person. As such, a woman’s physical body, which is designed to bear, nourish, and nurture life, is a sign of a soul that is called to do the same. The physical design speaks to the spiritual call, to the need for women to cultivate our interior disposition to love everyone and everything with a mother’s love, tending to the lost, the wounded, and the forgotten, while nourishing and nurturing all who cross our path with wisdom, compassion, and attention.

Motherhood truly is women’s genius. Motherhood is women’s call. And our broken, battered, bleeding world needs us ever so desperately to answer that call. It’s crying out for us. It’s longing for women, all women, to be who we’re called to be and to show the culture the face of God as only women can.

And that is what Planned Parenthood and its fellow travelers have set themselves dead against.

They don’t want women to understand the truth about our nature. They don’t want us to think of our fertility as the physical expression of a spiritual reality, an integral part of who we are, and a sign of who we’re called to be. Whether they know it or not, they don’t want us to be women at all.<<
Weiterlesen hier.

As pastors and shepherds, each of us would prefer to spend our energy engaged in and promoting the works of mercy to which the Church is dedicated: healing the sick, teaching our youth, and helping the poor. Yet, precisely because we are pastors and shepherds, we recognize that each of the ministries entrusted to us by Jesus is now in jeopardy due to this bureaucratic intrusion into the internal life of the church. You and I both know well that we were doing those extensive and noble works rather well without these radical new constrictive and forbidding mandates. Our Church has a long tradition of effective partnership with government and the wider community in the service of the sick, our children, our elders, and the poor at home and abroad, and we sure hope to continue it.

Of course, we maintained from the start that this is not a “Catholic” fight alone. I like to quote as often as possible a nurse who emailed me, “I’m not so much mad about all this as a Catholic, but as an American.” And as we recall, a Baptist minister, Governor Mike Huckabee, observed, “In this matter, we’re all Catholics.” No doubt you have heard numerous statements just like these. We are grateful to know so many of our fellow Americans, especially our friends in the ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, stand together in this important moment in our country. They know that this is not just about sterilization, abortifacients, and chemical contraception. It’s about religious freedom, the sacred right of any Church to define its own teaching and ministry.