john paul Posts

Well the Department of Justice must be a Quaker Ranter reader because they followed yesterday's advice and confiscated the private papers of actress Anne Hathaway, ex-girlfriend, board member and business partner of con man Raffaello Follieri.

But yet again her publicity machine rolls on. Most news outlets are calling the papers her "diaries" in oblique reference to her appearance in the 2001's "Princess Diaries" movie. One tongue-in-cheek headline read "The FBI knows whether Anne Hathaway dots her 'I's with hearts." Financial papers, photos, documents, etc., are reduced to "diaries". Boy oh boy. I wonder if the celebrity blogs will start describing the D.A. as a "fire breathing dragon." Poor little Anne bilking millions of dollars from investors, how was she to know?

The NY Daily News article says the papers included photos of Follieri with the Clintons, Pope John Paul II and John and Cindy McCain. Down here in South Jersey we can't help but wonder whether a few chummy shots of the Italian con man with pal Bishop Joseph Galante. Such pictures certainly exist somewhere, whether in Anne's collection or in the photo shoebox of some South Jersey priest. I would love to see them.

Please read Galante and Follieri: the Bishop and the Con Man, which lays out the details mentioned in this post.

The Diocese of Camden is in frantic spin control mode after yesterday's revelations that Bishop Galante personally received $400,000 from high flying Eurotrash con man Raffaelo Follieri for the sale of a beach house the Bishop had been unable to unload. Follieri's the guy who's been trying to buy up Catholic church properties across the country while making out with his Hollywood girlfriend on San Tropez beaches and partying it up with Bill Clinton's sleezy billionaire buddies.

It seems like a pretty clear cut case. Galante had his hand in Follieri's cookie jar. Sold his beach house to the guy who stood to profit most from the Bishop's plan to sell off half of South Jersey's churches. Oldest story in the book. Give him the cell next to Follieri's and they can reminisce about the good old days (NSFW).

I've been wondering just how the Diocese would try to spin this story as it waits for federal investigators to come knocking at the door. And today the official Spokesperson in Charge of Fairy Tales called up all the papers. Ladies and gentlemen, we present you with:

The Andrew Walton Idiot Defense

Turns out someone at the Vatican called someone at the Diocesan offices back in 2004 telling them to sell to Follieri. That's it. No one can remember who made the call. No one can remember who took the call. For all we know Follieri filled his mouth with cotton balls and did his best Marlon Brando imitation from the pay phone across the street.

The Archdioceses in Boston, New York, Newark and elsewhere told Follieri they had enough bridges thank you very much, but poor Grandpa Joe was confused and started lending him priests and giving him the keys to the beach house.

How could anyone imagine that Follieri was a crook? He seemed like any other Mother Teresa choir boy with his $10,000 suits, New York penthouse, heroin habit, convicted mob associates, San Tropez weekends and expensively-maintained Hollywood girlfriend. "Nobody was aware of problems with Mr. Follieri or his company at that time." Yeah right. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. And I'm the widow of the late John Paul II, recently deceased President of the Vatican, with frozen assets in Nigeria I'd like your help in securing. Please email me back at your earliest convenience Andy Walton, I know you won't be disappointed.

John Paul Stephens has asked if I could help compile a list of online tributes to our Tom Fox, the fallen Christian Peacemaker for FreetheCaptivesNow.org'sTom Fox Memorials page. I've started a list, now up on QuakerQuaker.org, that I'll keep up for a few months. Any readers who know of something that should be included should either email me at martink-at-nonviolence-dot-org or tag it "for:martin_kelley" in Del.icio.us. Thanks. Here's my list so far:

See also:

• FreetheCaptivesNow.org
• Christian Peacemaker Watch over at Quakerquaker.org
• My posts on the Christian Peacemaker witness
• A really nice page on Tom over at Electronic Iraq

Quaker Storytelling as Religious Ed: how do you teach a religion that can't be defined?

Howard Brinton's Quaker Journals: Varieties of Religious Experience Among Friends

My wife has now finished the first trimester of her pregnancy so we can let people know that our little Theo's going to be a big brother this fall. That means it's time to think of baby names.

Fallen Baby Names List Name Rank: 1900 Rank: 2003 Drop Name Rank: 1900 Rank: 2003 Drop 1 Herbert 32 962 930 1 Edna 17 986 969 2 Herman 45 974 929 2 Louise 24 977 953 3 Floyd 50 964 914 3 Beatrice 44 982 938 4 J 35 920 885 4 Bertha 26 963 937 5 Fred 19 876 857 5 Gladys 15 945 930 6 Earl 27 882 855 6 Lucille 49 954 905 7 Clarence 18 717 699 7 Dorothy 7 846 839 8 Howard 30 721 691 8 Hazel 20 681 661 9 Alfred 33 683 650 9 Edith 25 683 658 10 Ralph 23 660 637 10 Frances 16 580 564 11 Elmer 36 654 618 11 Irene 21 581 560 12 Harold 15 595 580 12 Marie 8 496 488 13 Ernest 26 599 573 13 Martha 31 487 456 14 Eugene 49 578 529 14 Alice 10 426 416 15 Leonard 48 571 523 15 Helen 2 389 387 16 Harry 13 517 504 16 Ruth 5 350 345 17 Francis 37 509 472 17 Rose 14 358 344 18 Willie 28 454 426 18 Annie 28 339 311 19 Roy 24 433 409 19 Clara 23 295 272 20 Walter 11 356 345 20 Esther 30 297 267 21 Arthur 14 353 339 21 Josephine 33 260 227 22 Carl 20 357 337 22 Eva 39 215 176 23 Lawrence 34 344 310 23 Ruby 42 197 155 24 Albert 16 311 295 24 Margaret 3 130 127 25 Joe 38 321 283 25 Catherine 19 106 87 26 Theodore 42 313 271 26 Laura 50 122 72 27 Louis 21 278 257 27 Mary 1 61 60 28 Leo 44 288 244 28 Evelyn 34 89 55 29 Frank 8 228 220 29 Anna 4 21 17 30 Raymond 22 188 166 30 Elizabeth 6 9 3 31 George 4 137 133 31 Mildred 9 n/a 0 32 Edward 9 128 119 32 Florence 11 n/a 0 33 Paul 17 124 107 33 Ethel 12 n/a 0 34 Henry 10 116 106 34 Lillian 13 n/a 0 35 Peter 46 148 102 35 Gertrude 22 n/a 0 36 Kenneth 47 109 62 36 Mabel 27 n/a 0 37 Richard 25 86 61 37 Bessie 32 n/a 0 38 Charles 6 59 53 38 Elsie 35 n/a 0 39 Robert 7 35 28 39 Pearl 36 n/a 0 40 Thomas 12 36 24 40 Agnes 37 n/a 0 41 John 1 17 16 41 Thelma 38 n/a 0 42 James 3 18 15 42 Myrtle 40 n/a 0 43 William 2 11 9 43 Ida 41 n/a 0 44 Jack 41 46 5 44 Minnie 43 n/a 0 45 Joseph 5 6 1 45 Viola 47 n/a 0 46 Samuel 31 23 -8 46 Nellie 48 n/a 0 47 David 29 14 -15 47 Grace 18 13 -5 48 Anthony 43 10 -33 48 Julia 45 33 -12 49 Andrew 40 5 -35 49 Emma 29 2 -27 50 Michael 39 2 -37 50 Sarah 46 12 -34

Most new parents want to give their child unique names and want to steer clear of the most over-used names. Yet if you tell your friends you're naming your boy Jacob or Joshua, they'll all cheer you on. If your little girl goes by Emily, Emma or Madison, they'll think that's darling. Yet those are the top three boy and girl names for 2003.

They are tens of thousands of kids getting these top names every year. All of the kids with these names are going to be getting nicknames to differentiate them from one another: just hope your little angel isn't the one that gets tagged "The Ugly Emily" or "The Stupid Joshua" by their third grade classmates!

There are definite trends in names. Certain names tend to sound fresh and daring even when they're overused and trite. The only way to train your ear away from such trends is to methodically study the data (the New York Times had a fasincating article on all this when we were pondering Theo's name, Where Have All the Lisas Gone?).

Fortunately the U.S. Social Security Administration provides a list of the most popular baby names by year, going back to the turn of the twentieth century. Using this, my wife and I were able to choose "Theodore" for our first child's name; born in 2003, he name is the 313th most popular boy's name and dropping. Yet it's a known name and there have been great twentieth century folks who have answered to it (e.g., Dr. Suess, Theodore Geisel).

How is a parent to choose? One recent afternoon I cut and pasted the top fifty boy and girl names of the first decade of the Twentieth Century. I looked up their current status (the 2003 data) to see what movement has occured in their placement. The old names are still known but some have fallen far out of use. Herbert, for example, was the 32nd most popular boy's name in the first decade of the Twentieth Century, but now ranks a dismal 930! If you want a name everyone knows but no one is giving their kid, Herbert's your choice for boy's and Edna's your choice for girls.

Now these fallen names probably sound awkward. But that's the point: they run counter to the trends. I'll admit that some deserve their reduced status; I cannot imagine saddling a little girl with "Edna." But in the list are some gems which have been unduly demoted by the trend-setters.

We've been very happy with "Theodore," the 26th most fallen name of the Twentieth Century. He's officially named after his great-great uncle. The social security datebase assured us that the name was safe from trendiness.

So what will the new baby be named? Check in soon!! The due date is the end of August.

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Update: drumroll please.... Our new son's name is Francis.

In Fall 2005 I led a six-week Quakerism 101 course at Medford (NJ) Monthly Meeting. It went very well. Medford has a lot of involved, weighty Friends (some of them past yearly meeting clerks!) and I think they appreciated a fresh take on an introductory course. The core question: how might we teach Quakerism today?

Colleen Carroll's book The New Faithful is an attempt to examine the religious phenomenon of Christian theological "orthodoxy" among current twenty and thirty-somethings. We purchased this book out of a sense of longing to hear the stories of fellow young Christians sympathetic to the issues we face. We opened The New Faithful eager to hear the voice of someone in our age bracket crying from the rooftops. But her book is hardly unproblematic: she weakened the book when she decided to make it a Republican-Party calling card...

Now reading with Julie. The author is Colleen Carroll, a journalist in her late twenties. Another "Emergent Church" book, it focuses on Catholic renewal. Discovered via Orthodox Twenty-Somethings, a review in TheOoze.

Review/Thoughts By Julie & Martin

Colleen Carroll's book The New Faithful is an attempt to examine the religious phenomenon of Christian theological "orthodoxy" among current twenty and thirty-somethings. Her goal is to consider two groups: the young evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic devout. Considering that this demographic is virtually invisible to the religious and social establishments dominated predominantly by white, upper middle class/upper class Baby Boomers, Carroll's book represents a welcome and refreshing endeavor.

We purchased this book because we longing to hear stories of fellow young Christians sympathetic to the issues we face as two theologically conservative, post-liberal twenty/thirty-somethings. In an age dedicated to progress, openness, post-modernism, subjectivism, and, of course, metaphor, we're often written off as reactionaries, as if simply believing something too much is a form of violence or bigotry. We find we often have a lot more in common with those of other faiths who also take care to root themselves in their tradition.

We opened The New Faithful eager to hear the voice of someone in our age bracket crying from the rooftops, "There IS objective truth, and there are young people who believe his name is Jesus!" In this sense, Carroll's book has served as a reassurance that this demographic does, in fact, exist. But her book is hardly unproblematic.

The book started off great: Carroll's writing style not only held our attention but was also insightful. We identified with much of what she was relating. So much so, in fact, that we found ourselves underling paragraph after paragraph:

These young adults are not perpetual seekers. They are committed to a religious world view that grounds their lives and shapes their morality. They are not lukewarm believers or passionate dissenters. When they are embracing a faith tradition or deepening their commitment to it, they want to do so wholeheartedly or not at all. When they are attracted to tradition in worship or in spirituality, they want to understand the underlying reality of that tradition and use it to transform their lives. That sense of commitment and total acceptance of orthodoxy sets them apart from many of their peers and fellow believers who share their affection for the trappings of religious tradition but reject its theological and moral roots. p. 11

Not far into the book, however, an annoying tendency soon became manifest. It appeared as if Carroll has a rule of not talking to anyone who isn�t an Ivy League graduate with Tom Cruise looks and a stock broker past. A remarkable number of interviewees were described as having movie star features. They were from elite colleges. They were the trend-setters of the future.

At the first repetition of this formula, we thought she had probably written the book too fast and gotten careless with a repeated assertion. At the second repetition we grumbled that she needed a good copyeditor. By the third time, we concluded she just had major class insecurities and needed to spend a little one-on-one time with therapist.

Finally, we began to suspect something else was at work. Many of these interviewees worked, lived, and worshipped in the Washinton DC area. Carroll's focus on the uniqueness of her subjects as persons with innate leadership potential began to feel more and more like a promotion for a Future Leaders of America banquet. As we read on, it became more than obvious that she was writing this book for a particular audience. What we originally took to be sloppy journalism appeared more and more to be political talking-points. The first rule of interviews is to repeat the same points over and over so that the journalists will transmit the message you want. Why was a professional journalist writing on Gen-X relgious movements sounding so much like a politician?

Halfway through the book we finally decided to google "Colleen Carroll," found her website and learned that our suspicions were confirmed. After the book came out she was invited to a number of speaking engagements sponsored by conservative Repubican Party politicians. She was well-received and before long got one of the most coveted jobs a twenty-something reporter could hope for: speechwriter to the President himself, George W. Bush.

A certain amount of congratulations are in order: this is quite a feather-in-the-cap for an ambitious journalist. Unfortunately though, she weakened the book when she decided to make it a Republican-Party calling card. More than that, the book itself is a compromise. Carroll cannot be trusted because her scholarship is not real. She not only began with a premise and sought out to prove it; she intentionally rejected any phenomena that failed to serve her agenda.

While the book brilliantly critiques Baby Boomer liberals, it gives Boomer conservatives a free pass. There's nothing in this book that would upset a politically powerful, middle-aged conservative like Attorney General John Ashcroft. Just the opposite: this is a cooing love song promising that his spiritual and political offspring are resurging: good-looking, trend-setting, righteous conservatives are taking back the college campuses from the peace and justice Catholics at the Newman Center. Nor does the book take on the incestuous amplification and group-think inherent in many religious institutions. Sadly, Carroll steers clear of any issue that might divide the old conservatives from the new ones.

The book could have been more. When Carroll writes about the problems of Baby Boomer liberal othodoxy in contemporary religious life, she's fantastic. She has good observations and writes with wit and humor. As we're both politically liberal (or perhaps more accurately, post-liberal), we enjoyed this tremendously and would love to recommend this as a book that attempts to correct what we see as the over-reach and thoughtlessness that's overcome religious liberalism in the past few generations. But this audience would most likely see the uncritical conservative political agenda and dismiss Carroll's entire thesis. (Julie would actually still recommend the book, with the caveats she lists at the end of this review.)

It's instructive to compare this book to Robert Webber's The Younger Evangelicals (see my bookstore review here) which contrasts the three twentieth-century generations, showing that the new conservatism is often a knowing and sophisticated reappropriation of religious practices or attitudes that have been lost or de-emphasized. Webber's twenty-somethings don't fit neatly into old left/right, conservative/liberal political stereotypes, but instead bring a new perspectives on faithfulness, issue advocacy and self-identity.

How we longed to see Carroll turn her observant gaze on examples that flew in the face of picture-perfect, white, upper-middle class, Christian traditionalists. The voice of a sincere, devout gay Catholic who was traditionalist in everything but his sexual orientation, for example. Or some D.C.-area activist who took his cue from Pope John Paul II and was outspokenly anti-war and critical of Presidential appeals to Christians to support the Iraq War. Or someone who worked on the street to build ties of understandings between Christians and Muslims as a way to defuse the "War on Terror" rhetoric. We could list dozens of examples like these, of individuals who are theologically conservative, but not necessarily politically conservative. It is apparent to us, as witnesses to this on a daily basis, that all too often theological liberals feel that they must also be politically liberal, and vice versa. This is not always the case. This is a major issue for many young Christians, and a divisive issue generationally. But Carroll wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole--it's simply too controversial. And besides, it would be too messy, it would spoil her neat and tidy thesis.

We're still only two-thirds of the way through the book. We've read reviews that it picks up again later. She's on EWTN tonight (March 11) & we're really looking forward to seeing it. Despite our reservations, we really like a lot of what she's saying. It's just that we wish she had said so much more. She tries so hard not to alienate politicaly-conservative Boomers that she backs off a lot of important issues just as she's about to say something interesting. It's fine if she's a Republican, but why does she consistently insist that the conservative religious orthodoxy has to line up so perfectly with the conservative political powers that be?

More to come as we continue reading the book....

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Note: Julie would recommend the book, but with serious reservations. Her reason: There are NO other books that she considers worthwhile out there that are attempting to describe this phenomena. Her reservations: 1. Carroll's scholarship is awful. No, it's actually painful it's so bad. She doesn't even quote studies themselves. She was obviously too lazy to read the actual studies so instead read, for example, Time Magazine's synopsis of a study and so instead quoted that. She also quotes highly questionable sources. Also, her sample is not at all adequate. This leads to point #2: Carroll seems to have race and class issues and they stick out like a sore thumb in the book. It would've been cool to hear from a few African-American Catholics and the struggles they face in the Church, for example. And hey, what about some homely people too?! Not all of us Catholic traditionalists look like fashion models. And 3. Carroll, in my humble opinion, compromised the very endeavor she undertook because, while The New Faithful is really an extended opinion piece, she tried to make it look as if it was academically responsible (or at least quasi-scholarly), and it is not. The point: take The New Faithful with a grain of salt. Realize that yes, likely the phenomenon of Christian orthodoxy among the young is probably legitimate, but that her picture of it is not. She makes good points, it is an interesting read, and it may be foundational for future writers on this topic. For that, Julie would like to thank Colleen Carroll for being so perceptive and for taking the time to write the book.