Observations, courtesey of the New York Times
If I ever write a murder mystery, I'm setting it in China. Why, do you ask? Well, one of the classic requirements of the muder mystery is that the police be utterly incompetent boobs. Otherwise, there'd be nothing for the detective to do. That requirement is filled in spades in everyone's second-favorite People's Republic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/21/international/asia/21confess.html
I'd always imagined that the Chinese police force basically acted more like the government enforcers rather than law-keepers, and were crazily corrupt lackeys who served their masters by beating on anyone deemed an enemy of the state... or an enemy of whichever businessman or bureaucrat was paid up on their bribes. Sadly, while that element is touched upon, it seems more like they're just mind-numbingly stupid in actuality. That's okay for the beat cops, but you'd hope that you'd at least get a stylishly evil detective who says "Of course you're innocent. I just don't care." Instead, it seems we have people who could not find their own rear end with a flashlight, and aren't even particularly good about being corruptly self-interested (one participant bragged about how they were executing an innocent man. To a reporter.). A sample quote:
For example, last May, She Xianglin, a 39-year-old former security guard in Hubei Province, was released from jail after serving 11 years when his wife, whom he was convicted of murdering, returned for a visit.
In other news:
One issue I've been somewhat interested in has been the decline in the supply of ministers. After all, I've only recently gotten a replacement minister back at my home church in Southern NJ (who is a pretty cool guy, I might add), and am still suffering under a rotating array of guest speakers & preachers at the English service of my new local church. Still, as much as the crunch has hit the Presbyterian church, it ain't nothing like it's been for the Catholics. The average age of the Catholic priest is 57(!!); and there are as many Catholic priests in the US as there are Presbyterians. Oh, except there are ten times as many Catholics as there are Presbyterians. Can you say huuuuuuuge parishes? That, and lots of importing from Latin America & Africa. The number of priests in each year's seminary crop is insanely pathetic; a nation that once sustained a vibrant network of Catholic seminaries now graduates some stupidly low amount like 200 priests per year. There are currently less than 300 ordained priests under the age of 30. The sad thing is, the US is doing great compared to, say, France, where they have these beautiful churches locked up due to no priests & no parishioners. Anyway, the priestly shortage is something I expected that the new Pope might take up; before the succesor was announced, I thought that issues such as priesthood for women might be broached, probably the single best thing that the RCC could do to correct the problem (the second-best thing being removing the celibacy requirement, natch, but that isn't going to happen any time soon).
Well, it seems Il Papa Benedict has taken a different tack: restricting the number of elegible priests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/international/europe/21cnd-vatican.html
It seems that now homosexual priests- as in, priests who are innately homosexual but agree to chastity- are now no longer welcome. This is big, because a whole lot of their current crop of priests are gays who figure that since they might as well be priests since they have to be chaste anyway according to church law. I've seen some estimates that at least half of the attendees of the more homosexual-friendly seminaries are probably gay, at least in the States.
I don't care if you think homosexuality is a sin; this policy is unchristian, a term I do not use lightly. In Christian theology, all humans are prone to sin; the question is if they give in to their darker natures and do so. Leaving aside the question if sexual relations for priests are a sin are not (I & most Protestants think it's ridiculous, but am willing to grant a difference of opinion on the matter), punishing people for a predilection they have is ridiculous. It'd be like banning kleptomaniacs from the priesthood since they're more likely to steal things. Nowhere in the Bible does it ever say homosexuals are bad; there are merely a few passages that decry homosexual acts. For that matter, I'm still not seeing why this problem shouldn't extend to straight priests as well: since they also aren't allowed to have sexual relations, and most people are predisposed to have 'em, shouldn't that disqualify them? We demand only Eunuch priests, free from the temptations of flesh!
Mike Sullivan, of Catholics United for the Faith, a conservative advocacy group, said his group would favor a ban because putting a homosexual in an all-male seminary environment subjects that person to too much temptation, and increases his likelihood for failure.
"It's not appropriate to put an alcoholic in a bar either," he said.
Glad to hear it. From what I understand, church attendance is slanted towards females these days, so that sounds like a tempting environment to me. No more priests visiting the woman's church club, I take it?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/21/international/asia/21confess.html
I'd always imagined that the Chinese police force basically acted more like the government enforcers rather than law-keepers, and were crazily corrupt lackeys who served their masters by beating on anyone deemed an enemy of the state... or an enemy of whichever businessman or bureaucrat was paid up on their bribes. Sadly, while that element is touched upon, it seems more like they're just mind-numbingly stupid in actuality. That's okay for the beat cops, but you'd hope that you'd at least get a stylishly evil detective who says "Of course you're innocent. I just don't care." Instead, it seems we have people who could not find their own rear end with a flashlight, and aren't even particularly good about being corruptly self-interested (one participant bragged about how they were executing an innocent man. To a reporter.). A sample quote:
For example, last May, She Xianglin, a 39-year-old former security guard in Hubei Province, was released from jail after serving 11 years when his wife, whom he was convicted of murdering, returned for a visit.
In other news:
One issue I've been somewhat interested in has been the decline in the supply of ministers. After all, I've only recently gotten a replacement minister back at my home church in Southern NJ (who is a pretty cool guy, I might add), and am still suffering under a rotating array of guest speakers & preachers at the English service of my new local church. Still, as much as the crunch has hit the Presbyterian church, it ain't nothing like it's been for the Catholics. The average age of the Catholic priest is 57(!!); and there are as many Catholic priests in the US as there are Presbyterians. Oh, except there are ten times as many Catholics as there are Presbyterians. Can you say huuuuuuuge parishes? That, and lots of importing from Latin America & Africa. The number of priests in each year's seminary crop is insanely pathetic; a nation that once sustained a vibrant network of Catholic seminaries now graduates some stupidly low amount like 200 priests per year. There are currently less than 300 ordained priests under the age of 30. The sad thing is, the US is doing great compared to, say, France, where they have these beautiful churches locked up due to no priests & no parishioners. Anyway, the priestly shortage is something I expected that the new Pope might take up; before the succesor was announced, I thought that issues such as priesthood for women might be broached, probably the single best thing that the RCC could do to correct the problem (the second-best thing being removing the celibacy requirement, natch, but that isn't going to happen any time soon).
Well, it seems Il Papa Benedict has taken a different tack: restricting the number of elegible priests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/international/europe/21cnd-vatican.html
It seems that now homosexual priests- as in, priests who are innately homosexual but agree to chastity- are now no longer welcome. This is big, because a whole lot of their current crop of priests are gays who figure that since they might as well be priests since they have to be chaste anyway according to church law. I've seen some estimates that at least half of the attendees of the more homosexual-friendly seminaries are probably gay, at least in the States.
I don't care if you think homosexuality is a sin; this policy is unchristian, a term I do not use lightly. In Christian theology, all humans are prone to sin; the question is if they give in to their darker natures and do so. Leaving aside the question if sexual relations for priests are a sin are not (I & most Protestants think it's ridiculous, but am willing to grant a difference of opinion on the matter), punishing people for a predilection they have is ridiculous. It'd be like banning kleptomaniacs from the priesthood since they're more likely to steal things. Nowhere in the Bible does it ever say homosexuals are bad; there are merely a few passages that decry homosexual acts. For that matter, I'm still not seeing why this problem shouldn't extend to straight priests as well: since they also aren't allowed to have sexual relations, and most people are predisposed to have 'em, shouldn't that disqualify them? We demand only Eunuch priests, free from the temptations of flesh!
Mike Sullivan, of Catholics United for the Faith, a conservative advocacy group, said his group would favor a ban because putting a homosexual in an all-male seminary environment subjects that person to too much temptation, and increases his likelihood for failure.
"It's not appropriate to put an alcoholic in a bar either," he said.
Glad to hear it. From what I understand, church attendance is slanted towards females these days, so that sounds like a tempting environment to me. No more priests visiting the woman's church club, I take it?