The Christmas season--and the cries of persecution by attempts at "holiday" neutrality--seems to start earlier and earlier every year...

"I had been seeking to find a way to bring serious single Catholics together for a long time. Contributing to the growth of Ave Maria Singles through the Ave Maria Foundation was my opportunity to do that. I look forward to seeing it grow in great numbers all around the world with many marriages, children and holy Catholic families established." - Tom Monaghan, Founder of Domino's Pizza

"Ave maria Singles"  isn't an 'official' Opus Dei Catholic Singles site, but take a look at who the site lists in it's "Prominent Catholics Appreciate the Ave Maria Singles Website!" page - one of Opus Dei's top leaders in the US [ see article by Frank Cocozzelli ] , Rev. C. John McCloskey, enthusiastically plugs the new service:

"This service is providing an ideal setting for serious Catholics to search for... and find their spouse for life. Together with their children they will build 'the civilization of love and truth' in the next millennium."

Attached to McCloskey's endorsement we find :"He [ McCloskey ] has personally advised many of his spiritual directees to join. (6) have met their spouse here."In other words, McCloskey's recommendation could be characterized as : "Top US OPus Dei Leader Recommends New Singles Service". Fair enough.

So who is the Rev. John McCloskey ? Well, Talk To Action contributor Frank Cocozzelli, in The Catholic Right Part Three: Rev. John McCloskey, the Face of an Opus Dei Agenda., provides some background:

A review of some of Rev. McCloskey's statements reflects a very reactionary view of the world. In a book review of one of his converts, CNBC supply-side economic analyst Lawrence Kudlow, McCloskey simplistically divided all Americans as "...two Americas. One group in America is made up of Bible Christians and faithful Catholics who possess standards and convictions based on the natural law, the Bible, and the teaching authority of the Catholic Church and strive to live accordingly." Then, in language reminiscent of Inquisitors past, he characterized "The other group in America, whatever its religious affiliation" as not believing "... in a normative moral truth or in a God to whom they are accountable in this life and in the next according to their actions here," ultimately describing them as "...culture of death."

This is a very troubling statement from a man who is often a panelist on many reputable television political roundtables and who maintains power within the Church. He was until recently the director of the Opus Dei-run the Catholic Information Center of Washington, D. C.

Back to "Ave Maria Singles" - the service's website states:

It is the goal of Ave Maria Singles to be an instrument of Jesus Christ used to bring hope to single Catholics who are serious about their faith, loyal to the Pope and Magisterium, and seek to meet their future spouse who shares their convictions.

We have had over 200 [ note : the current total is up to 481 ] successful marriages thus far, a powerful testimony to God's power at work through this site as an instrument of His Holy Spirit.

Now, there is much to mock in religion - mainly hypocritical behavior of religious leaders - but Monaghan's new service does an admirable job of presenting a minimal target to those given to taking pot shots at faith. I haven't read all of the dozens and dozens of written testimonials listed on the site, but as far as I can tell you won't find any hint of salacious material in the hundreds of rather lengthy firsthand testimonials on "AveMaria Singles" although if you find long, earnest, narratives involving long distance courtship via letters and email, occasional family chaperoned meetings involving mutual prayer side by side in church, and happy vignettes of marriage proposals amidst festooned rose petals somehow titillating, well this is for you. "Ave Maria Singles" couples seem not to date at all, and they most certainly do not "swing" - before tying the knot at any rate : they court. Indeed, the quirkiest thing about the site is the fact that it showcases so many  testimonials that the list takes a while to download even with a high speed internet connection - an avalanche of beaming, normative couples sailing into nuptial bliss.

Although it is hard to say, I'd say that many of the members of the service ( over 10,000 ) are probably not Opus Dei members and that Dei is simply exerting a diffuse ideological influence over members of this singles flock ( maybe there's more - stay tuned ).

This new service is not noteworthy for its quirkiness but for its demurely modest, polished mainstream gloss. Ideology, as always, of course does skulk in the background, given that many accuse Opus Dei of being a cult ( see Talk To Action writer rank Coccozzeli's series on the Catholic Right and Opus Dei. It is certainly worth pointing out that Dominos Pizza baron Monaghan bankrolls a whole portfolio of projects aimed at reshaping American society and Catholicism per his particular beliefs - indeed, he is financing the development of an entire ultra orthodox Catholic mid-sized town in Florida ( link : story by Media Matters ) that will be hermeticaly sealed against smut, porn, birth control, and other allegedy pernicious cultural influences. Monaghan also funds the development of two Catholic Law Centers, a university,  a Catholic unversity, a Catholic radio station, an investment fund, and   also is alleged to be associated with a Catholic authoritarian "shepherding" cult called the "Word of God" ( see Tom Monaghan's Pizza Pilgrimage, by Jeff Huber and Jerry Soucy, from  ePluribus Media )

But at the moment, I'm here not to criticize Monaghan at all but to - sort of -  praise his strategic vision

Tom Monaghan is committed to building institutions will advance his ideology and that is notable

Monaghan puts his money where his mouth is, and there most certainly is an agenda to his new "Ave Maria Singles" project : it concerns the concentration of ideological traits. Ave Maria couples of like mind will marry and raise families - and their offspring will carry the shared ideology forward. It is a sort of ideological inbreeding designed to  preserve and concentrat desired traits. What might an analogue of this, from the left, look like ? Imagine a "progressive dating service" which required its members to sign a declaration that they supported abortion rights, access to contraception, and same sex marriage.

So, is ideological inbreeding bad ? Well, yes and no depending on one's perspective but in this case Monaghan is encouraging the concentration Opus Dei - friendly religious ideology -  lest that ideological stock get watered down as Catholics pair off with athiests or even dreaded Unitarians.

But here's my main point: Monaghan has his beliefs. He puts money behind them. There's one thing the religious and Christian right most certainly get : they support their own.

Lately, in possibly the most popular posts (based on our traffic usage) ever in the history of Talk2Action, we've focused on some rather disturbing links between Rick Warren (publisher of the book "The Purpose Driven Life" and promoter of a megachurch-growth empire) and publishers of a particularly disturbing strategy RPG involving the literal killings of non-dominionists based off the "Left Behind" novels.

The thing that is most surprising to me in all of this is that people find it surprising--as it is, Rick Warren has close connections with an Assemblies of God preacher and megachurch promoter by the name of David Yonggi Cho.

Who is Cho, what is his part in the development of "spiritual warfare" theology as promoted in the "Left Behind" books, what is his association with Warren, and why should you be gravely concerned about all this?

Read on and find out.

Can you find the hidden clues in this famous painting and uncover the infamous Waldo?


I've always been a voracious reader, as far back as I can remember I felt a powerful need to read. My Mom was a tireless reader of popular novels and mysteries and my Dad was a "Great Books" reader so I grew up in the presence of books and their availability probably had a lot to do with my love of reading.

When I was five and six years old I lived half a city block from a branch library and my grandfather would take me in hand to check out a book every week or so. I remember reading the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam at the age of nine and devouring everything I found interesting in my elementary school library. I read everything, books, newspapers, cereal boxes, reading became my escape, reading became almost obsessive.

A plan to keep dominionists in power is outlined recently by Ralph Barker on the website ChristianWorldviewNetwork.com

The more canny of the self-apointed "defense of traditional marriage"  crowd on the Chrstian right - who eschew apocalyptic prophecies that same sex marriage will certainly bring about the end of the world, the downfall of Western civilization*, ginguvitis, and so on - hedged their bets on the impact of same-sex marriage on Massachusets : they asserted that the concept of marriage would suffer damage and that, as a consequence, people would take to marrying their pets, farm animals, or animate objects such as cars, rocks, trees, or who knows what. The Christian right has used fearmongering over same sex marriage issue as a potent weapon in the "culture wars" - including attacks on the mainline Protestant Christian denominations - and has been loathe to admit the biological basis of same sex attraction, claiming instead that therapy, re-socialization, and various bizzare methods that have little or no connection to scientific research on human sexuality can get out "the gay" ( Activist Mike Airhart covers bizzare, ridiculous, and appalling aspects of the "Ex-Gay" movement at Ex gay Watch ) .

Last November 2005, The Daily Show sent roving reporter Ed Helms to assess the impact of same sex marriage on Massachusetts ( see video, hosted by Crooks and Liars) : Now, over two years have passed since the legal right of marriage was extended to same sex couples living in the Bay State. How is Massachusetts doing ? And, how are states which have seen fit to pass state constitutional amendments banning same sex marriage doing ? Oddly, few have thought to ask.

* "Barring a miracle, the family as it has been known for more than five millennia will crumble, presaging the fall of Western civilization itself.... For more than 40 years, the homosexual activist movement has sought to implement a master plan that has had as its centerpiece the utter destruction of the family." -  Dr. James Dobson of Focus on The Family, in a July 2004 letter to supporters

Hi, I am working on a book called AMERICAN THEOCRACY UNPACKED, which is a skeptical but not unsympathetic look at Kevin Phillips's AMERICAN THEOCRACY. I am looking for readers interested in joining my pre-release review panel.

Whilst purges at colleges and seminaries being hijacked by dominionists are nothing new (one of the saddest examples of this being the hijacking of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville), hearing of academic purges at institutions originally set up as dominionist is rather surprising.

Yet this is exactly what JewsOnFirst is reporting--that apparently fully one third of the faculty and staff at Patrick Henry College has left due to further restrictions on academic freedom.  

And, as I'll note, Patrick Henry College was never the most academically free institution of higher education in the first place. (Now updated with more info below.)

In Armageddon for the Religious Right? - They've climbed to the top of Mount Power. But from here on out, it may be all downhill for America's ayatollahs., Creative Loafing and and Mother Jones writer John Sugg chronicles Evangelical motion towards a reassertion of the Social Gospel tradition and recognition that many leaders of the Christian right have seriously distorted scientfic issues for political gain.

Global warming and other issues that relate to our stewardship of the planet seem finally to have struck a chord among evangelical Christians.

The ministers, academics and lay activists who, along with Hunter, signed the global warming statement encompassed a wide range of beliefs, including 39 evangelical colleges, the Salvation Army and a cross-section of major denominations and churches. As innocuous and as Christian as such a statement sounds, it was a pointed rebuke of the leadership of the religious right and the Republican Party. Up until the declaration, political preachers had dismissed environmental concerns. In many cases, after all, their power relies heavily on claiming the Second Coming is coming soon: Why worry about Mother Earth when you, Tim LaHaye, Ralph Reed and a few others are about to be raptured up to heaven? Such blitheness fits well with the corporate wing of the GOP, which places profits above prophesies of peak oil and environmental disaster from global warming.

A religious schism among evangelicals began. Those who refused to sign the global warming statement included America's foremost ayatollahs: Jerry Falwell; the Rev. D. James Kennedy of the mammoth Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in South Florida; James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family; the Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention; Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University; Donald Wildmon, chairman of the American Family Association; and the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition.

"There's no surprise at who didn't sign," said Jim Jewel of Atlanta, spokesman for the evangelical environmentalists. "What we did was signal that the evangelical movement has a new cause, beyond just abortion and gay marriage, to human rights. Evangelicals had been depicted as one voice. This let people know we have more than one voice."

In today's religious terms, that's almost heretical. But it's a heresy that hit home with people such as Tim Wise.

The environment isn't the only wedge issue that is chipping at the GOP religious base. Although Republicans and the religious right have stridently opposed stem-cell research -- asserting that using the cells equates with murder -- three of four Americans support lifting bans on the procedure that could find a cure to Alzheimer's and other illnesses. More significantly, 62 percent of fundamentalists and almost 80 percent of moderate and liberal Christians favor stem-cell research, according to a poll by the Civil Society Institute.

Another interesting aspect of Sugg's piece concerns the suggestion thart certain issues are not in flux :  gay marriage and abortion.

Just a quick kudos to the TTA team for 2 aspects of the homepage I think are very helpful, and that I wanted to remind my fellow TTA readers about:

1. The yellow-framed "Site Sections" links in the homepage's left column, and
   
2. The search field, near the upper right-hand corner of the homepage, with its drop-down menu of topic selections.

I have been writing a small series so far on one of the dirtier and less-well-known secrets of dominionism--that of religiously motivated child abuse within the dominionist community:

Death by "chastening rod"
Take action: stop sale of baby-beating books!
Another sad case of dominionist child abuse
A followup re the Pearls' dominionist child abuse
Kid beaten by minister for reporting abuse

It is a subject I have a particular interest in, largely because I myself am a survivor of religiously motivated child abuse; it's also an issue that is becoming of increasing concern by groups such as Stop The Rod (which includes excerpts from a number of "chastening manuals" aimed at the dominionist community, and which was originally founded by a Christian homeschooler mom who was gravely concerned about the promotion of these manuals in "Christian homeschool" support groups).

As it turns out, it's no longer survivors (like me) and concerned moms (like the person who runs Stop The Rod) who are speaking out.  Salon Magazine is now publishing an article on one of the more infamous offenders--Michael and Debi Pearl--and on religiously motivated child abuse in general.

   

Cross posted at DKos

Who is Brian P. Tierney, and why does he want to own the Philadelphia Inquirer? NY Times business section attempts to fill us in.

Mr. Tierney, who will be the chief executive, has been involved in Republican politics, served as a corporate spokesman for Sunoco and has represented the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

"Involved in Republican politics?" Sounds harmless enough. I'm sure if Tierney had been once on the GOP payroll, had defended abuser priests, and ran a church funded marketing campaign targeting 3 million pro-life Catholics for Bush, they'd let us know. 3 million pro-life Catholics for Bush. Follow me below the jump and we'll do some novenas together.