Merry Christmas

***On Christmas morning the Herald gives us a story of holiday cheer spread by a pair of East Boston cops. The duo (in the photo from bostonherald.com) turn a domestic call into an attempt to make one little girl's Christmas a little brighter.

***The Globe has reporter Joseph Kahn's year-end review of news and pop culture in verse.

***Salon.com wonders whether "It's A Wonderful Life" is the scariest movie ever.

***The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik took a look at a recent spate of books exploring the historical Jesus earlier this year.

Appeals denied, vigils continue

Six years after the archdiocese announced the closing of 66 parishes, Boston.com looks at the vigils maintained at seven of the churches, including East Boston's Mount Carmel, with a story and video today. The three-minute video is all about Mount Carmel and features local leaders of the occupation.

Image courtesy EastBoston.com.

Gumption at the Times

I saw this week's East Boston Times a short while ago and I need to give praise where it's due. In the Eastie Watch column there is a logically argued defense of the Lower Manhattan community center -- dubbed by the media as the Ground Zero Mosque. The piece took me by surprise, and I want to publicly laud the paper and the writer, which I believe to be John Lynds.

Not only is the thinking in the article open-minded and forward-thinking, but just the fact that the Times waded into this issue when it certainly didn't have to shows courage that is to be commended. I would think that a significant number of the paper's readers will be angered by the sentiments expressed, and the Times must have recognized that and went ahead with it anyway. That's the kind of gumption one desires in an journalistic endeavor.

New home for Excel

Word is that Excel Academy has purchased the old St. Mary's Star of the Sea school building from the Archdiocese of Boston. One source put the price at $1.8 million.

Excel is a charter middle school that opened in the fall of 2003 at 1150 Saratoga Street, while St. Mary's was shut down by the archdiocese in 2008 after 120 years. There have been a number of media reports in recent years touting Excel's successes, and it's been clear for a while that the school was searching for a new home.

The St. Mary's church, across Moore Street from the school, was infamously sold in November of 2006, with the archdiocese only getting $850,000 for the property. Several weeks later, new owner Michael Indresano sold the property to the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God for $2.65 million. That misstep has never been thoroughly explained.

Photo from wbztv.com

Update (7/1): A story on Page 3 of the June 30 East Boston Times starts out:

Word on the street is that Excel Academy Charter School of East Boston has purchased the building that formerly housed St. Mary’s Star of the Sea School on Moore Street from the Boston Archdiocese for a reported $1.8 million...

I don't care that their lead sounds quite similar to the opening of my blog post and I don't care if they never refer to my blog by name, but how does a story passing as legitimate journalism actually say, "Word on the street is..." Seriously, what kind of source is that?!

Sacred Heart Festival

The annual Sacred Heart Festival will be held this Friday and Saturday just behind the church, which is located at corner of Brooks and Paris streets. Details are available here at EastBoston.com.

Photo from rc.net.

More Church idiocy

A Catholic nun was excommunicated after giving her approval for doctors to save a mother's life. Sister Margaret McBride, a hospital administrator in Phoenix, consented to the termination of a 27-year-old woman's pregnancy in November as a last resort, and the woman recovered. In return, Bishop Thomas Olmsted levied the penalty against McBride.

Total number of priests excommunicated as a result of the Church sex scandal: 0.

Curiouser and curiouser

Three bishops resigned this week for their roles in clergy abuse cases -- one for sexually abusing a boy, one for beating youngsters at a Catholic home for children, and the third for covering up cases of sexual abuse.

Meanwhile, the National Catholic Reporter has a disturbing story about a cardinal who had "intervened, against the wishes of a U.S. bishop, on behalf of an American abuser priest" who'd "sexually abused dozens of minor boys." The story goes on to say:

Moreover, [Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos] implicated the late John Paul II in that decision. "After consulting the pope ... I wrote a letter to the bishop congratulating him as a model of a father who does not hand over his sons," [Castrillon was quoted as saying]."

Also, at least one US lawsuit has named Benedict XVI as a defendant for the Church's negligence in protecting children who were sexually abused. In a response that said the suit is "without merit," the Vatican also invoked the pope's "diplomatic immunity from prosecution in other countries." It's funny how legal principles suddenly matter to the Vatican ... oh wait ... it isn't funny at all.

Walking the walk

Earlier today I ran into four guys with beards and shaved heads wearing garments that look like sackcloth and are tied at the waist with rope. They are members of a Catholic religious order called Franciscans of Primitive Observance, and they live here in East Boston.

The group, which came to the neighborhood about a year ago, practices lots of prayer and works with the poor. One brother explained to me that they don't start programs themselves, but help out others. They also take the poverty pledge rather seriously, asking others for food and hitchhiking when they need to get somewhere.

Besides the apartment on Paris Street, there are other FPO communities in Lawrence, Vermont and Nicaragua. They are a small order that apparently began in New Bedford in 1995 and currently has just 16 members. They seem like friendly guys, so if you see them in the neighborhood you may want to greet them.

'God wants us to stay'

Our friends at EastBoston.com pointed us to a wonderful video at the WBUR web site that includes snippets of interviews with parishioners at Mount Carmel Church in East Boston, one of five churches occupied by residents since the parishes were shut down by the Archdiocese of Boston more than five years ago. The text of the story focuses on a similarly closed parish in Scituate, but click on the video to see Mount Carmel and some familiar faces.

Serving with spirit

Several hundred people are gathered at the Boys & Girls Club gym (formerly Savio Hall) in East Boston this morning for a volleyball tournament sponsored by Catholic churches in the Greater Boston area. About a dozen teams of women and girls are on hand for the event. In the photo, the Everett team celebrates after taking a set off a squad from Cambridge.

Weekend festival

The Sacred Heart Festival takes place this weekend, with music, food and games on the schedule. This is the third year for this event, which is held behind Sacred Heart church, located on Brooks Street between Paris and Morris streets.

The festival runs Friday from 6 to 11 p.m. and Saturday from 4 to 11 p.m. "Disco Diva" Evelyn Champagne King is the featured musical guest on Saturday evening. There will also be picnic games, a watermelon eating contest, henna artists and a big 50/50 raffle.

Money raised by the festival goes to youth programming at the parish.

Demonstration planned in Eastie

The lunatics from Westboro Baptist Church bring their disgusting little hate-filled circus to our community on Friday, demonstrating outside East Boston High School for 45 minutes beginning at 7 a.m. They are the people who go to the funerals of soldiers to hold signs that proclaim god's hatred for the deceased.

The Kansas-based group came out to Massachusetts this week to demonstrate at Reading High School, whose students are performing The Laramie Project, about Matthew Shepherd, the 21-year-old who was murdered because of his sexual orientation. The WBC has also been at a high school in Cambridge, Hanscom Air Base and Lexington High School, where residents of that community greeted them with silence.

I'm not sure if a counterdemonstration is planned, but you have to wonder if ignoring such people might be the best way to make them go away.

Update (3/22): Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham writes about the WBC visit.

Damnable words

The pope's remarks upon arriving in Africa are going to cause people to suffer and die. Benedict XVI said that the use of condoms "increases the problem" of AIDS, an untrue and irresponsible thing to say on a continent where the disease is virtually an epidemic. An editorial in The New York Times goes easy on the pope, but one activist was more to the point: "...his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans."

Christians should vote blue

Just after the disappointing presidential election of 2004, I had a piece published on the op-ed page of the Portland Press Herald, the daily paper of Maine's largest city, where I had just moved. I argued that citizens with Christian values were going against those principles if they voted Republican. I believe that the same is true today, so here is a link to that column.

Portuguese Feast this weekend

I received an email about this weekend’s Portuguese Feast at Sacred Heart Church:

"It is a continuation of traditional feasts that reach back for centuries in Portugal and into early last century in East Boston. Saturday is most popular with folks as festivities include a ceremonial “Blessing of the Pensons,” DJ and Portuguese Folk Dancers. We also have food and drinks available, while complimentary red wine and sweet bread flow pretty liberally.

On Sunday we process from our club location on Putnam Street, with all of the girls dressed in white carrying the symbolic crowns and flowers, followed by a Portuguese band and the club membership. The route takes us down Chelsea Street, through Day Square, winding up to Saratoga Street and down Brooks Street to Sacred Heart. The 10 a.m. Mass will culminate in a blessing of the crown and an offering of sweet bread to members of the congregation. Immediately following, we will process once again but will wind up back at church hall, where we will have dinner. I have provided the schedule below and hope to see you and lots of new folks there!

Saturday 9/6:

5:00 Holy Ghost Feast Begins

7:00 Blessing of the Pensons

8:00 Traditional Portuguese Folk Performance by Folklorica de Alto Minho Dancers

11:00 Saturday Evenings activities wrap up

Sunday 9/7:

9:30 Procession leaves 196 Putnam St .

10:00 Procession Arrives at Sacred Heart Church and Mass Begins

10:50 Procession Departs Sacred Heart Church

11:30 Procession Returns to Sacred Heart Church

12:00 Dinner Begins in Church Hall

All Feast activities, aside from the procession, will be held at Sacred Heart Church.”

Return of Mount Carmel?

The East Boston Times reports this week that the Archdiocese of Boston is moving toward reopening Mount Carmel Church, the East Boston parish that has been shut down since the fall of 2004. Apparently parishioners, who have been occupying the church since the closing, have been negotiating quietly with the cardinal's people for some time.

Mount Carmel, at the corner of Gove and Frankfort streets, was one of the centers of the neighborhood's Italian American community for much of the 20th Century. Most of the people who I knew growing up were baptized there, as I was, even as families spread out to live in other parts of the neighborhood.

Whether an agreement is fully reached and to what degree the parish will return to its former self remain to be seen.

Knowing "the other"

During Sunday afternoon's torrential thunderstorms I sought shelter at several points in my journey from the Government Center T stop to a cafe in the North End. Crazy as it seems, it took me 90 minutes or so to cover that distance, as it was pouring most of that time and I had my laptop with me, which I couldn't allow to get wet.

At one point I was next to a young man with funky eyeglasses who is visiting Boston for a few days and attends college in Oregon. He is a Saudi, and we had a nice conversation for 15 minutes about the perceptions that each of our peoples has about the other. Having been in the US now for nearly two years, the young man -- whose name I never got -- said that he has had a couple of negative comments directed toward him, but the overwhelming majority of Americans have been friendly and he has a positive view of the US.

It was good to hear his thoughts, but what, I think, is important to note as well is that he didn't have those opinions before he got here. The picture in his head growing up in Saudi Arabia was based on what he'd heard from people and seen in the media, and it wasn't all positive. Knowledge, truth and real-world experience have made all the difference. Whether one grows up in the Muslim world or China or El Salvador or Peoria -- ignorance, lies and xenophobia breed hatred.

I read a story years ago about the Troubles in Northern Ireland where a reporter walked into a grammar school -- I can't remember if it was Catholic or Protestant -- and inside the building it said: "If you were born where they were born and you were taught what they were taught you would believe what they believe." Think about it. If, in the long years and decades of history, one of your forefathers or foremothers had taken a turn in one of their travels, you could be a Muslim living in, perhaps, the Middle East. What would you think of America then?

Another ideological attack

To those who might consider allowing Republicans in any shape or form to keep their hands on the levers of power, take a look at this Boston Globe editorial: "A new attack on birth control."

The current administration has proposed new regulations that would limit the flow of birth control information to patients at hospitals and clinics across America. They can implement these rules without the approval of Congress.

John McCain is going to need religious conservatives to get elected, and if he wins in November he will need to pay them back by enacting some policies that force their anti-Enlightenment beliefs on others. These ideologues must be stopped.

Fr. McLaughlin dead at 74

Fr. Bernard McLaughlin, pastor at Holy Redeemer in East Boston from 1983 to 1995, passed away yesterday after a long illness.

Fr. McLaughlin was quite active in the community while serving here, and under his leadership the Crossroads Family Shelter was founded. After leaving Eastie he was transfered to a parish in Canton, from where he criticized the archdiocese during the clergy abuse scandal and called for the resignation of Cardinal Law.

He had a stroke in 2006, which forced his retirement. He was 74.

Festival on tap for weekend

The annual Sacred Heart Festival will take place this weekend and will feature music, food, games and activities for kids. Scheduled to perform are Tiny Tavares, Harold Melvin's Blue Notes, Franco Ingraiti, J. K. M. Rico, ZUMIX, and dancers from local dance studios.

The festival takes place Friday from 5 to 11 p.m. and Saturday from 12 noon to 11 p.m. Sacred Heart is located at the intersection of Marion and Brooks streets in East Boston.