O Adonai - Sarah Cattley

 

St Martins Voices

Commissioned by the Church of England for Advent 2025

O Adonai, and leader of the house of Israel, who appeared in the bush to Moses in a flame of fire, and gave him the law in Sinai, come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

I've gone from the conventional 20th century academic attitude of looking askance at Christians using the messianic verses of the Jewish Scripture (most generally the Jewish interpretation of those found in the Septuagint, this time of year generally Isaiah and the Psalms), interpreting those as referring to the life and mission of Jesus and the Living Jesus who Christians believe in. . .  I've gone from being slightly scandalized by that use of the Jewish Scriptures to thinking why shouldn't Christians use those ancient prophecies they believe were fulfilled in Jesus. 

The earliest Christians and many who came after, especially in the early days were Jews who believed that Jesus was the fulfillment of those prophesies, that other Jews and gentiles didn't agree with that belief is no reason for them to not  have believed what we still do.  Who decided that those who believed the Jewish Scriptures were Scripture suddenly lost the use of them?   And why do they get to decide that any more than those who did believe in Jesus?  I don't have any problem with those who don't believe it having access to those Scriptures to support their belief, they have a right to have it.  Why should I give up my access because someone else doesn't like it? 

We Know Susie Wiles Is A Stinking Liar

a privileged,  white supremacist, asshole and lifelong Republican operative (to put all of the previous description into two words) or she wouldn't have the CV she had even before she signed onto the Trump campaign.  His criminality, his crimes against humanity, against democracy and even against the U.S. Constitution would ensure that anyone who who chose to be part of Trump II would be all those things and far worse.   

She's clearly playing some kind of sleazy game,  her talking to Chris Whipple that many times for that many months knowing full well that he's recording and can reproduce what you say when you lie about having not said it means that she's got some scheme going - no doubt part of that is to try to deny she's been thick as thieves with the crimes of the Trump II crime spree.   And I'm sure she figured there was something in it for her,  NO ONE GETS INVOLVED WITH TRUMP WITHOUT EXPECTING TO GET RICH OFF OF IT.   One thing that is certain is that she wouldn't be doing all of this, from the time she signed on till this morning when she issued her absurd tweet about the accomplishments of Trump II.   Though someone like her,  a privileged white supremacist asshole with her life history would probably think that they've done great things.   It's not all cynical self-service,  there are those who love evil, hatred, cruelty,  she must at least like it if not love it or some sense of decency would have kept her from signing onto Trump II.   ANYONE WHO IS A LIFE LONG REPUBLICAN AFTER 1964 has to be a white supremacist, racist who favors suppressing the vote of Black People, other People of Color and for the exact same reason that the delegations from the hard-slave states,  and  most of them were, adopted the 3/5th provision, to give the white supremacists more power in the government through stealing representation from those they intended would never be able to vote.    And make no mistake about it,  the Republican Party has been dedicated to white supremacy since the Goldwater campaign that year.   The year that the Dixiecrats left to join onto the Goldwater bandwagon when Johnson tried to turn the United States into a real democracy. 

I would like to know what the timing of the article was based in,  did they agree that it would come out now or was that Whipple's and his editor's timing.   Before I heard about the eleven months of incubation I figured she was trying to be the first rat down the ratline before the Epstein file drop (I'm not holding my breath or waiting up nights that that's coming on Friday) because she must know that if those get out Trump will be about as popular as Epstein is and she might never wipe that shit off of her.  Nor should she.  No one who has been part of Trump II and the Republican-fascists who put him back into office, the Roberts Court should be defined by their work to crown him King Donald which they actually did.   And the entire body of corporate whore house whores who participated in that or belatedly contributed to it should ever escape that.   Nor should any media organization who were a part of it,  from the New York Times down to CNN to the sub-FOX Lies sub bottom feeders.    

Susie Wiles is just part of the foam on the top of the cesspool that is America in the age of Trump.  Long ago I remember the Wampanoag Elder Slow Turtle, when someone asked him why his tribe didn't just join in the "melting pot" he noted that's what always rises to the top of a melting pot.  Scum.   She's scum or she wouldn't be where she is now.  Her and the media figures who figure there's something respectable about her. 

There may be some such thing as a decent Republican but they'd have had to be ex and now anti-Republicans by now.  I believe in the possibility of redemption but not while remaining in such an evil association.   The Republican Party is beyond redemption.  

O wisdom - Phillip Moore

 

St Martin's Voices 

Commissioned By the Church of England for Advent 2025

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Trump Is Selling Pardons To Serial White Collar Criminals And They're Reoffending

BLOOMBERG ISN'T coming right out and saying that Trump is pardoning the rich and criminal for money but anyone who can follow just this one example of those who have bought them from him who believes he isn't selling pardons, probably through his son-in-law as well as through others, is too stupid to be handling their own money.   And this crook is going to buy himself another one. 

This is why we need the most serious of Constitutional change around both the second and third articles - especially the Roberts Court creation of a Republican-fascist presidential monarchy and around the pardon power.    I don't blame Biden for pardoning his son considering the clear fact that he was being railroaded by Republicans and the corrupt judiciary but no president should ever have the kind of pardon power that the idiot framers gave the presidents. 

The Roberts Court, proven to be the most corrupt Court in American history,  has to be the last straw in Constitutional change in that body.   Central to that reform has to be the explicit abolition of the Marbury power grab that Court has operated under since 1803 and which has led to the worst Court decisions starting with the Dred Scott decision,  the first time in history the Court dared to use that power for overturning an important and duly adopted federal law.   The Roberts Court attacks on Democracy are all done under the same stolen power and for the same reason that the Taney Court issued that atrocity.  

Little Movie To Celebrate Zamenhof Day

I DON'T DO ENOUGH to promote Esperanto on this blog so I thought I should today, since it's Zamenhof day,  a day when traditionally one gifts books in Esperanto to others.  Clearly, I can't do that tonight but I can share a recent art work in the language, one of the recent films in the 7th Good Film Festival of short Esperanto movies.  

Saluton, Belulino! - Hi, Pretty Girl!

[For those who don't speak Eo.  Two dudes stopped at a traffic light hit on the pretty young woman in the car next to theirs.   She has come prepared and starts flipping through messages written on a pad of paper,  asking if they have five bucks because she's soiled her pants and needs to buy new panties.   I think you can figure out the rest of it, yourself.]

Callie Johnson wrote and directed  this Esperanto film for the American Good Film Festival.The auteur who is also 2/3rds of the cast makes movies with the idea that Women should be paid for their time when guys annoy them.   I loved this one. 

I Hate The Movies But I Had Enormous Respect For Rob Reiner

I can't claim to have seen a lot of his work as a director but I was aware that he didn't just repeat the same kind of thing over and over again.  

Of course what I was most aware of was his political activism which, rare for a Hollywood guy, had real integrity and courage in it.    And from what I'd heard of his recent interviews, he was at the height of his intellectual powers and his integrity was intact.     

When I heard that he and his wife had been murdered the first thing I thought was that they'd been murdered by a Republican-fascist.   As of now it doesn't seem like that was it but we'll see.   

Update:  No, I'm not posting your comment because, and this will come as a surprise,  this isn't about you.

For Anyone Who Doubted My Claim That John Roberts' Is An Historically Racist Court

HERE'S A LEARNED and historically informed view of how the racist-Republicanism of the six Republican-fascists on the present day Supreme Court has ideological commitments that extend back to Jim Crow and farther back into the antebellum period.  It is especially detailed on the decades old ideological commitment of John Roberts that have direct ties to the Taney Court and earlier. 

I Needed This

LISTENING TO OLBERMANN this morning,  I heard that Whorey Beiss using the widder Kirk to get her own smarmy pudgy puss on the screen couldn't do any better in the NYC market than getting seasonal auto-place ads by Chia Pet to pay for it.   Back when I had a TV,  way back when my now middle age nieces and nephews were children,  I used to joke that I didn't know it was the Christmas season till I heard "chi-chi-chi chia."  They were sophisticated enough to appreciate the sarcasm of it,  if Whorey had that level of sophistication,  she'd never try it again.   But she will. 

I hope by this time next year I can fondly remember that as the sign that Bari's rot reached its tipping point and it brought the ruin of CBS News with her into the hell awaiting all of the Republican fascist in corporate oligarchic propaganda.  Her and all of the other billionaire bought media whores.   

Two Words*

 'WHORY BEISS"  

* or "The New Pig Latin" 

Maga Finds Out Racism is Expensive in Trump's Economy

I'VE BEEN LISTENING TO REESE WATERS more and more.   And now he's saying something I finally realized a couple of years back,  America's racists,  the white supremacists are one of the most expensive minority groups going back to even before the Revolutionary War,  second only to the super-rich,  the millionaires and billionaires.   Together,  they have the potential to destroy the country like they almost did in the 1860s, the Great Depression,  and innumerable lesser disasters.   With Trump and, especially the white supremacist-oligarcic fascist Roberts Court selling everything to the billionaires foreign as well as domestic,  they could shatter everything. 

Every Democrat I've Heard On The Issue Have Said If Bill Clinton Is Guilty Of Child Rape That He Should Be Punished

to the maximum extent even as it's now clear,  Trump was involved in it and will continue to get away with it.  I said when Clinton was president if he did such things they should lock him up and throw away the key.  I still say that.   I say it now that the man who was my Senator who I voted for several times,  George Mitchell has appeared in the Epstein material.  If he were alive I'd say it about Bill Richardson or any number of others of my party. I have never heard a Republican say the same about Trump or other Republicans and I've heard loads of them on the topic.    And not just Clinton but ANYONE who was part of the Epstein-Maxwell child raping and trafficking racket should be punished to the maximum extent possible AND IT'S NOW CLEAR THAT TRUMP WAS IN AS THICK AS ANYONE.  

This is answering hate mail, by the way. 

I say that acknowledging that some of those named may be innocent of crimes.  I have written that I doubted one of the famous men who appears in Epstein world,  Noam Chomsky did anything he could be blackmailed for because I'm almost as certain as can be that one of the beneficiaries of the Epstein-Maxwell blackmail compromat was the Israeli government and that it's as certain that American spies and thugs were also in on it and Chomsky's public writing and speaking has not wavered in its criticism of the Israeli and American governments.   But if I'm wrong about that I would want Chomsky to be tried and punished as much as I want any of the men and adult women involved in Epstein's and Maxwell's crimes to go down for them.   I do find it amazing that Chomsky, who is so diligent in his researches into the crimes of politicians and others doesn't seem to have twigged onto the fact that Epstein was a massively corrupt person.   And, though he has said his relationship to Epstein is no one's business,  I reject that because he has made himself a public figure on the basis of virtue and morality and a major figure on the intellectual left.  HE OWES IT TO THOSE WHOSE TRUST HE HAS CULTIVATED TO EXPLAIN HIMSELF, FULLY.   

Other than a handful of House Republicans, and  very belatedly in most of those cases,  it's been Democrats who have been pushing for the crimes of the rich, mostly white man pedophile rape circle to be exposed. 

And that's only in this case,  I think it's clear, especially with the known involvement of at least Baron Trump with the Tate bros. similar effort and Trump and his regime doing for them what Acosta and the Bush II regime did for Epstein, that such elite rape gangs are not limited to Epstein.   As certainly as the identity of those famous white men in the small number of photos and e-mails so far released all slant rich, white, straight and privileged,  there are more of these operations in the United States and elsewhere.   I've always said the rich were a criminal class in themselves as well as white supremacists and male supremacists.   And there has been NOTHING in the news or in research to refute that idea.   I will add that Republicans, as the party that services those criminal classes, can also be fairly included as a criminal class.  Democrats who participate in such things are a blight on my party and I want them out of it,  Republicans, if they kicked those guys and those who facilitate their crimes out,  there wouldn't be much of a Republican Party left. 

I heard an historian I respect both-siding on political corruption on a state level the other day and I left a comment asking them to name the Democratically dominated states which had done things such as were done in Ohio, Texas, Mississippi, . . .  and have not yet received a list.   I couldn't make one and I defy anyone else to come up with one.   What is so notable and, in a way, admirable about those in the Indiana Senate rejecting Trump's corrupt gerrymander bid is that it is nearly unique as a small measure of integrity in a Republican dominated state.   I would love to see Republicans build on that but I'm not waiting up nights and I'd certainly not hold my breath for it.   I'd like any of you who troll me to give such a list with particular items of corrupt action - don't bother with what they're doing in California which was done entirely to counter the Trump-Texas-etc.  gerrymandering effort.   They'd never have done it without that provocation.   I would bet you that those states which in the past tried to take redistricting out of partisan hands were either exclusively or nearly exclusively in the hands of Democrats when that was done.   Only Democrats would be saps enough to adopt such reforms when their opponents are as crooked as they can be. 

Saturday Night Radio Drama - Louis Macniece - The Dark Tower (two productions)

The Dark Tower 2017

The Dark Tower 1946

I hadn't known about this radio play in verse by Louis Macniece for which Benjamin Britten was commissioned to write the music just after Peter Grimes made him famous before doing that research into the composer over the last two weeks.   The notes for the new production say:

Louis MacNeice's iconic verse drama, widely acknowledged to be the finest of his many works for radio and one of the most critically acclaimed radio plays of the 20th century. The play is inspired by the mythical quest in Robert Browning's mysterious poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", but includes strong autobiographical and even satirical elements. At its core is original music by Benjamin Britten, to whom MacNeice dedicated the published script.

Here are the credits for the original production:

 

Role       Contributor

Writer  Louis MacNeice

Producer Louis MacNeice

Composer Benjamin Britten

Roland Cyril Cusack

The Mother Olga Lindo

The Tutor Mark Dignam

Sylvie Lucille Lisle

Sergeant Trumpeter Harry Hutchinson

Gavin Frank Partington

Blind Peter Ivor Barnard

The Soak Robert Farquharson

The Stentor Laidman Browne

The Steward Howard Marion

Crawford Neaera Vera Maxime

The Priest Alexander Sarner

And for the 2017 production:

Performer BBC Concert Orchestra

Roland Harry Lloyd

Gavin Matthew Tennyson

Sergeant-Trumpeter Jude Akuwudike

Mother Lucy Robinson

Tutor/Steward Adrian Scarborough

Soak Jonjo O'Neill

Blind Peter Nicholas Murchie

Sylvie Manjinder Virk

Priest/Officer/Stentor Sam Dale

Neaera Hannah Genesius

Barmaid/Clock Voice Georgie Glen

Young Roland William Gidney

Director Robin Brooks

Producer Fiona McAlpine

You may recall that I have recently had my sister's 14-month old puppy at my place.

What you may not know is that the first two weeks of December here in Maine have been decidedly colder than average and we've had a snow cover for a while now.   Put those things together and you'll understand that I've been bringing the dog out on a leash, sometimes in the early morning hours.   I don't know if the puppy taught my 17 year old cat or the cat taught the puppy that while I might be able to ignore one of them if they wake me up at 2:30 AM,  I can't ignore both of them and the consequences of not bringing the pup out is more than I would probably be willing to risk.   So I've been out many nights in the bitter cold sometimes with the wind ripping through my clothes as I wait for the puppy to find exactly the right spot and moment to take a dump.    And in the meantime she has to push her fluffy muzzle into the snow to find the mice she imagines are there and to pull me around   to check out every leaf she sees in the pale moonlight as well as every place she'd found suitable over the past week.   

One of the unanticipated consequences is that my ever louder repetitions of her name to call her distracted attention to the business at hand has reminded me in rhythm and sound of Dave Saville trying to get Alvin the chipmunk's attention so his trio of chipmunks can sing the song.   And once that similarity occurs to you,  the whole repertoire of chipmunk songs I imbibed unintentionally as I heard them on the scratchy old AM tube radios of the late 1950s and early 1960s replays.   I swear I hear them as clearly as possible with static,  over and over again as my eyes roll even shut and I try to fall back asleep.   

I'm sparing you a youtube.  I've probably said too much, already.  

So, it's been that kind of run up to Christmas.   It's too bad the puppy doesn't have that memory because she would love to chase chipmunks.   I'm told she goes wild when she sees animals on TV,  I don't own one so she missed that experience while she was with me. 

The old cat is  still waking me up most nights.  Unfortunately she's well beyond mousing because it's been a really good year for mice and my live traps have caught dozens of them, I release them as soon as I get up.  I don't know why they're coming here, every bit of food I've got is safely sealed up in glass jars and closed coolers so they're not finding anything to eat.   I feel extremely guilty about having to set them free in the snowy landscape, though my brother points out the ones he catches are dead.   They can't tell me which they'd prefer.  

So what's the point of this?   It's just an animal and ear worm post with a seasonal slant.  That's all. 

Magnificat del 5º Tono - Hernando Franco (1532 - 1585)

 

Cappella Cervantina - Director: Horacio Franco

Hernando Franco was one of the foremost composers in Mexico in the 16th century.   St. Juan Diego probably knew nothing of him but it's almost certain that Franco knew of Juan Diego and his Marian visitation.   It's the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe and a day of remembrance of the victims and survivors of the American genocide against Native Americans. 

Almost Mid Advent - St. Francis Bergoglio Changed A Lot More About Christmas Than People Realized And Women Have Led The Way

Lighting The Way To Christmas With Laudato Si  from last year when Good Pope Francis was still with us. 

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The Cosmic Advent Wreath

Elizabeth Davis rsm explores with us the meaning of the Cosmic Advent Wreath, grounded in “deep incarnation” and the way to create our own to mark the passage of the four weeks of Advent:

The Vimeo is a little sluggish on my computer but that could just be my underpowered computer.  

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I don't think it's any accident that it's Women who seem to be leading the way to this new dimension of Advent and Christmas.   A lot of the Cosmic Christ Christology in my experience comes from the theology of Elizabeth A. Johnson.  And I really like how the order of Roman Catholic Womenpriests don't reject what is good in the official RC Church even as they are excommunicated by the guys.   Why should they acknowledge that?    Here's what got me started on this.

Based on the Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si’, The Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland partnered with other Sisters of Mercy around the world in re-imagining our Advent journey.  They then offered us the Cosmic Advent Wreath, an adaptation of the traditional Advent Wreath which is used in many homes and churches. 

Rooted in “deep incarnation” the Cosmic Advent Wreath invites us into a radically different relationship with the world, a relationship where everything and everyone matters.  It brings Pope Francis’s encyclical letter Laudato Si’ to life in a new way.

Greens, fabric, or sand are options on which to set the wreath.  Candles  may be arranged in a circle, a spiral, or arc, and a variety of objects may be used between and among the candles: greens, rocks, shells, berries, whatever stirs your imagination and creativity. Diverse colours for the candles (blue, amber, red, green, white) invite us to embrace a new level of shared consciousness born of science and religion.  You may choose to tie coloured ribbons around white candles to reflect and celebrate the four major births of the cosmos that have brought us to this moment in history, and the final coming together of all in divine love.

Week 1:  Birth of the Universe. We pray with God’s incarnation in the creation of the cosmos (blue candle). 

“God’s first 'idea' was to become manifest – to pour out divine, infinite visible forms.  The 'First Flaring Forth' (Big Bang) is now our scientific name for the first idea; and 'Christ' is our theological name.  Both are about LOVE and BEAUTY exploding outward in all directions.” (Richard Rohr)

“God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.  And God saw that the light was good.” (Genesis 1:3-4)

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established… (Psalm 8:3)

Week 2:  Birth of the Solar system.  We pray with God’s incarnation in the creation of the Solar System (amber candle). 

“This vast ocean of our solar system is like a womb, that has unfolded over some five billion years to become galaxies and stars, palms and pelicans, the music of Bach and each of us alive today.” (Brian Swimme)

“O God, you established the luminaries and the sun; you have fixed the bounds of earth; you have made summer and winter.” (Psalm 74:16-17)

“ I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and Earth.” Genesis 9:13)

Week 3:  Birth of Jesus, the Christ.  We pray with the incarnation in the person of Jesus the Christ (red candle).

Christ and Jesus are not exactly the same. In Jesus, God’s presence became more obvious and believable in the world. “By his incarnation (the Christ) inserted himself not just into our humanity, but into the Universe which supports humanity. The presence of the incarnate Word … shines at the heart of all things.” (Teilhard de Chardin)

 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” (John 1:1,14)

“Christ is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on Earth were created.” (Col. 1:15-16)

Week 4:  My Birth into the whole Cosmic Body of the Universe.  We pray with God’s incarnation in each being – human and other that human (green candle). 

“We have the power to create a new world, and we have the power to destroy this one. How we choose depends on how we grasp this moment as the kiss of God, impelling us to stand up and speak.” (Illia Delio, OSF)

“For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139:13-14)

 “Ask the animals and they will teach you; the birds of the air and they will tell you; asked the plants of earth and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.” (Job 12:7-8)

Christmas Eve:  All is One.  We pray with the coming together of all as One in Divine Love (white). 

“In union with all creatures, we journey through this land seeking God, for ‘if the world has a beginning and if it has been created, we must inquire who gave it this beginning, and who was its Creator.’ Let us sing as we go. May our struggles and our concerns for this planet never take away the joy of our hope.” (Laudato Si’, 244)

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have gazed upon and touched with our own hands—this is the Word of life.”  (1 John 1:1)

Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

In him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, things visible and invisible.

All things were created through him; all were created for him. 

He is before all else that is. In him all things hold together.

In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

and through him, to reconcile everything to himself,

whether on earth or in heaven,

making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:15-20)

It's A Little Early But The Snow Has Me Feeling Christmassy - Patrick Cornelius - Christmas Gift

 

Christmas Gift by Patrick Cornelius. Live at the Jazz Gallery 2011, featuring Miles Okazaki, Aaron Goldberg, Peter Slavov, Obed Calvaire. CD Release concert for "Maybe Steps" on Posi-Tone Records.

Tom Cotton Is A Lying, Racist, Bloodthirsty Bastard And Probably More Dangerous Than VD Vance

 

Tom Cotton, who the goddamned NYT thinks is worth having on its op-ed page to lie, has presidential ambitions and he could probably get the Republican-fascist nomination and he'd, then, have the support of the entire media, including the Putch Sulzberger run Times.  

I'm listening less and less to the MSNBC kind of lawyers because they get caught up in the bull shit of legalese and their profession and miss the truth.   Allison Gill is one of those I listen to, instead. 

Randy Rainbow And, Well, I'll Call Them The Randrew Sisters Have A New Christmas Song Out

 

The Gospel Is Radical - I'll Risk Violating CR To Post Nearly All Of This

I loved this article and what it reports. 

Calling it a "politically divisive display," the Boston Archdiocese has asked a local suburban parish to remove a Nativity scene that substitutes images of the Holy Family with a sign criticizing the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.

"ICE was here," reads the large sign that accompanies an empty manger outside St. Susanna Church in Dedham, Massachusetts, referring to immigration raids conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

"The Holy Family is safe in The Sanctuary of our Church," the sign adds. "If you see ICE, please call LUCE," referring to an immigrant assistance network in Massachusetts.

Reported last week by local and national media, the Nativity scene at St. Susanna's prompted strong online reactions. ICE acting director Tod Lyons told Fox News Digital that the scene was "abhorrent" and that it added to a "dangerous narrative" that he said has resulted in a 1,150% increase in assaults on ICE officers.

Hundreds of people from across the country also flooded the parish Facebook group page with angry comments while parishioners defended the provocative manger display. 

A large sign says, "ICE WAS HERE". "The Holy Family is safe in The Sanctuary of our Church," a smaller sign adds. "If you see ICE, please call LUCE," referring to an immigrant assistance network in Massachusetts.

"It sure seems like it's hard to have a conversation with people," Fr. Stephen Josoma, the pastor of St. Susanna Church, told National Catholic Reporter. Josoma said the parish office received numerous calls where people started cursing as soon as he picked up the phone.

"It's not a conversation," Josoma said. "You say 'Have a nice day' and hang up. You can't do much more than that."

Josoma spoke with NCR a day before a spokesman for the Boston Archdiocese said that the parish manger scene should be removed and the manger restored "to its proper sacred purpose."

"The people of God have the right to expect that, when they come to church, they will encounter genuine opportunities for prayer and Catholic worship — not divisive political messaging," Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said in response to NCR's inquiry.

Donilon said in an email that the Catholic Church's canonical norms "prohibit the use of sacred objects for any purpose other than the devotion of God's people," adding that those objects include images of the Christ Child, which Donilon said "are to be used solely to foster faith and devotion."

Donilon added that St. Susanna Church "neither requested nor received permission" from the archdiocese to "depart from this canonical norm or to place a politically divisive display outside the church."

In a prepared statement provided Dec. 8 to NCR, Josoma and members of St. Susanna's parish council said they were waiting for "an opportunity of dialogue and clarity" with Boston Archbishop Richard Henning before reaching any final decisions regarding the Nativity scene.

 They defended the parish Nativity as "faithful to the Gospel and Catholic teaching" and a "prophetic reflection that challenges the faithful to find new paths to bring the Good News announced that first Christmas to all of God's people."

They also pointed out that the Vatican itself displays different themed Nativity scenes each year highlighting social issues to contemporary life. 

"Some of these have also been controversial (like one focused on the plight of refugees in 2016) all moving beyond static traditional figures and designed to evoke emotion and dialogue," the statement said, adding that it was the parish's hope to similarly evoke dialogue around an issue that is at the heart of contemporary life.

"That some do not agree with our message does not render our display sacrilegious or is the St. Susana Church is one of several churches that have changed their traditional Nativity displays this year to highlight immigration concerns. One church in Illinois depicts Roman soldiers wearing ICE vests, the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph donning gas masks and the Christ Child’s hands bound with zip ties.

In his interview with NCR, Josoma said the Gospel is clear about treating immigrants with respect. He noted the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' recent "special message" where the bishops expressed their solidarity with migrants amid the federal government's immigration crackdown.

"And we've had the privilege of assisting 10 refugee families to resettle in the area since 2018," said Josoma, who added that those families originated from Burundi, Afghanistan, Honduras, Guatemala and Myanmar. 

Josoma said that his parish's Pax Christi Peace and Justice Group has used the parish manger scene in previous years to also highlight issues pertaining to migration, gun violence and climate change.

"Every year we try to hold up a mirror to the world and say, 'If the Incarnation took place this year, what would that look like?'" said Josoma, who added that the idea is to reflect the celebration of Christmas and the Incarnation with the reality of "the world around us."

Our mother was a member of Pax Christi,  she'd have wanted her parish to do something like this if she were alive today.   I'm posting this in honor of her memory with a significant anniversary coming up. 

Peter Ticktin, A Lawyer For The Criminal Tina Peters

who was convicted and is in prison on state charges for her breaking elections law in that state, is going to try to get Trump to illegally pardon her so as to get the inevitable case.either brought by her when Colorado doesn't let her out of prison or by the state when the feds try to spring her so the corrupt Republican-fascist majority on the Roberts Court will overturn federalism in that detail to benefit one of Trump's fascist thugs.  THE WORST THING ABOUT THIS IS THAT WHAT SHOULD BE ABSOLUTELY OUT OF THE QUESTION CANNOT BE RULED OUT AS HOW THAT CORRUPT COURT WILL COME DOWN ON THIS.   According to this account,  Ticktin has called for her being broke out of prison by Trump goons, in clear violation of the law.   If Colorado can allow such a lawyer to keep his law license,  that discredits its entire legal system and exposes them to being as corrupt in that as any of the worst states, such as Florida in that regard.   I'm hoping Colorado will prove to be better than that. 

I might be wrong about that sentence above in all-caps,  what's the worst is that such a corrupt Court should have the power to do what they're doing in so many cases,  overturning the law to favor the worst president in American history - and there's no question about that - because they're Republicans and fascists,  white supremacists who are putting that white supremacist wet-dream of a white supremacist, millionaire and billionaire oligach in the position where he is destroying everything with the impunity they've given him.   No Supreme Court should be allowed to get away with such a thing, no more than the Taney Court should have been when it overturned federalism in the Dred Scott decision.  That Lincoln's decision to ignore the Taney Court during the war should have set the model for what came after,  the Marbury usurpation of power should have been abolished then,  it must be now.   If we go through another civil war and the pro-democracy side wins without cutting the damned Supreme Court down to a size compatible with democracy,  the pro-democracy side will  have ultimately lost, as it now is clear,  the last civil war and the subsequent civil rights struggle of the last century was won by the slavers through Supreme Court fiat.