God's judgment

Christian converts in Asia grow up in a different environment than Christians in the West. People pray to ancestors, and consult mediums in temples. There is much more a belief in spirits. Every year, during the Hungry Ghosts Month, food and joss sticks (incense) are left out, and "hell money" is burnt, to appease the ghosts.

As such, the notions of prophecy resonate differently in Asia, and presumably Africa, than in the West. Here, I see prophecy as the denunciation of social injustice. We must turn from our exploitative ways, or face God's judgment. Back home, people are more likely to see prophecy as foretelling the future. Asian Christians, and I believe African Christians, are more likely to beliefve the signs and wonders stuff in the Bible. They are more likely to believe it when people like Pat Robertson say that God will send judgment on Orlando for flying gay pride flags, quoted here:

After Orlando … city officials voted in 1998 to fly rainbow flags from city lampposts during the annual Gay Days event at Disney World, Robertson issued the city a warning: “I don’t think I’d be waving those flags in God’s face if I were you. … [A] condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. It’ll bring about terrorist bombs, it’ll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor.”

Additionally, Pat Robertson prayed publicly in 1985 that Hurricane Bonnie would not hit his headquarters along Virginia Beach ... I believe that Bonnie didn't hit his headquarters, but the hurricanes caused millions of dollars of damage worth to the state. Could Pat not have prayed for the hurricane to dissipate completely?

How do we attribute the cause of natural disasters? Often we hear people claiming that they're God's judgment on gays, like Robertson and this British CoE bishop. Now, the latter also did say that global warming was God's judgment on the West for their exploitation of the poor in the Global South. I have to say, that claim does make me a bit happier.

The problem remains, though, how are we supposed to tell? There is much injustice going on in the world. When you think about it, how are we supposed to logically attribute the causes of natural disasters? Don't natural disasters harm the innocent, as well as the allegedly guilty? Some say that the use of cluster bombs should be outlawed because they cause indiscriminate destruction. Would we want to associate with a God who destroys indiscriminately? Global warming harms members of various Green parties in the West, who are committed to environmentalism. Shouldn't God look favorably on them?

Personally, I maintain that we will all be judged for our inequities. I don't make any claims on the nature of that judgment. It may occur in the life to come, in our own lifetimes, in those of our descendants. I don't know.

I do know what God said through Micah: Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly with God.

When Catholic Hospitals Don't Act "Catholic" - Nancy Scola

When Catholic Hospitals Don't Act "Catholic"
When I was out in Chicago last week digging into the union drive by Resurrection Health Care employees, I was struck by how very often conversations I had came back to the theme of "but these are supposed to be Catholic hospitals!" So I wrote a diary about it on Street Prophets, which is sort of the religious-flavored version of Daily Kos:

The kink in the system now is that it seems as if RHC isn't holding up its end of the deal. And I mean that in both a moral sense and a legal one. Approval of some of its mergers were contingent upon the continuation of care for the poor. Yet Resurrection acknowledged in 2004 that it had cut charity care by at least one-third. Illinois' Lieutenant Governor has accused RHC of failing to care for some poor while charging others exorbitant rates, and called on Cardinal George, the new archbishop of Chicago, to get RHC to live up to their mission. There has been one class action suit and then another, accusing Resurrection of overcharging or otherwise failing to care for the poor.

And at the same time, we have RHC employees growing fed up with the quality of care and conditions at their workplaces, and trying for years to form a union. RHC refuses to meet with them. Here again, seems like there's a great deal of daylight between how RHC is behaving and how Catholic teaching calls them to act. How's that? As much as health care is part of the church's ministry, union organizing is part of the church's teachings.

I'm still trying to think through whether it's okay (from an activist perspective) to be more upset with Resurrection than one might otherwise would be, just because they set themselves up as a Catholic organization. Anyway, there it is. (Have I mentioned here that I'm working with the AFL-CIO on the legislative push around the Employee Free Choice Act? Hmm, well, I am. And that's why I was in Chicago.)

Britain's floods are God's judgment on church's homophobia

The floods that have devastated large sections of Great Britain are God's judgment on the immorality and intolerance of senior Church of England bishops.

"This is a strong and definite judgment because the church has been arrogant in going its own way," a bishop said. "We are reaping the consequences of our moral degradation, as well as the environmental damage that we have caused."

The bishop said that people should heed the stories of the Bible, which described the downfall of Sodom as a result of its inhospitality, and the attempt of its men to rape strangers who they should have protected.

He expressed his sympathy for those who have been hit by the weather, but said that the problem with "environmental judgment is that it is indiscriminate".

The West is also being punished for the way that it has exploited poorer nations in its pursuit of economic gain. "It has set up dominant economic structures that are built on greed and that keep other nations in a situation of dependence. The principle of God's judgment on nations that have exploited other nations is all there in the Bible," he said.

He urged people to respond to the latest floods by turning away from a lifestyle of greed to instead live thinking of the consequences of their actions.

Asia-Pacific has much to fear from climate change

I've tagged this article under race as well as climate change. In my experience, Asian-Americans tend not to be as politically active as other US racial/ethnic minorities. Asian countries are not as involved on the global stage. Asian culture does tend to be less confrontational and less preachy. Less positively, Asians can at their worst be selfish and materialistic, and the (not completely true) perception that environmental preservation may have to come at the expense of economic development has probably hindered us from speaking out. But the countries in the Asia-Pacific region have a vested interest in preventing climate change ... and they will have to speak up. Or die.


KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Rising temperatures are expected to have a huge impact on people's health in the Asia-Pacific region, causing more of everything from food poisoning to malaria, scientists said Monday.

Delegates at a conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, painted a bleak future for the health of those living in the world's most populous region if steps are not taken now to address climate change.

Scientists said droughts will lower crop yields and raise malnutrition in some areas, dust storms and wildfires will boost respiratory illnesses, and flooding from severe storms will increase drownings, injuries and disease.

"We have now reached a critical stage at which global warming has already seriously impacted the lives and health of the people," said Shigeru Omi, director of the World Health Organization's Western Pacific region.

"This problem will pose an even greater threat to mankind in coming decades if we fail to act now," he said.

Conference delegates, including officials from 16 countries, said it is important for policy-makers to understand the link between greenhouse gas emissions and health.

They called on countries to devote more resources to address health issues already plaguing the region to help lessen the blow as the effects of climate change become more dire. Tax incentives and pricing policies were suggested as a way to get companies and consumers to become more environmentally friendly.

Moving toward energy-efficient technologies and greener buildings -- especially in large, rapidly developing countries such as India and China -- can also make a difference.

"The problem is the management of rapid growth on the one hand and environmental protection on the other," said Carlos Corvalan, coordinator of WHO's Interventions for Healthy Environments unit in Geneva. "The easy way out is fast development that pollutes and we worry about it later. But countries need to realize that there's going to be a cost somewhere -- either you pay it now or you pay it in the future."

The Asia-Pacific already is feeling the effects of global warming, with climate change directly or indirectly linked to some 77,000 deaths each year in the region -- about half the global total of deaths blamed on climate change -- according to WHO.

That figure does not include deaths linked to urban air pollution, which kills more than 400,000 people annually in China alone. Last month, China passed the United States to become the largest greenhouse gas emitter, according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Omi noted that heat-related deaths in Shanghai, China, had jumped three times above the norm in 1998 when a massive summer heat wave drove temperatures to about 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

Singapore has seen a correlation between rising temperatures and the number of dengue fever cases, with mean annual temperatures climbing from 26.9 C (80.4 F) in 1978 to 28.4 C (83.1 F) 20 years later. Dengue fever cases jumped 10-fold during that time, he said.

Malaria has recently reached Bhutan and new areas in Papua New Guinea for the first time. In the past, mosquitoes that spread the disease were unable to breed in the cooler climates there, but warmer temperatures have helped vector-borne diseases to flourish.

The meeting comes two months after the third in a series of major climate change reports was released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N. network of 2,000 scientists.

The four-day workshop in Malaysia lays the groundwork for a ministerial-level meeting on the topic next month in Bangkok, Thailand.

A chapter of the IPCC report devoted to health says food and water supplies will be hit by global warming in some areas, with the poorest countries in Asia and Africa expected to suffer the most.

It said increasing temperatures could lead to the growth of more harmful algae that can sicken people who eat shellfish and reef fish. People living in low-lying coastal areas will also face more storms, flooding and saltwater intrusion into fresh groundwater that is vital for drinking.

ACLU: Hospital Mergers and the Curtailment of Reproductive Health Services

In a 1995 article, the American Civil Liberties Union details the fact that although Catholic hospitals often do very good work in the community, they are also subject to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, which is one of the world's biggest enemies of women's reproductive rights and women's health. In the past, some Catholic hospitals would provide services that were technically proscribed, but the Catholic bishops had started cracking down on these services at the time this article was published.

And yes, I am interning at a Catholic hospital system.


Women's health care in the United States is at serious risk due to a declining number of reproductive health care providers. The most recent data indicate that 84% of U.S. counties have no abortion provider at all. While other reproductive health facilities are not as scarce, the violence directed at "women's health clinics," as well as other factors, has contributed to a shortage of services in general. In this context, the growing number of religiously controlled hospital mergers, joint ventures and affiliations is cause for alarm because it has curtailed reproductive services. These business relationships often require non-sectarian health care facilities to observe religious prohibitions against providing certain reproductive services. Although religiously controlled mergers may be motivated by economic considerations, and not necessarily the desire to curtail reproductive services, their impact on the availability of necessary health care is serious and far-reaching.

Religiously controlled hospitals comprise a significant percentage of all health care providers in the United States.

Many Americans depend on religiously controlled facilities for their health care. The Catholic health care system alone is the largest single private sector health care provider in the United States. It includes more than 600 hospitals, 200 health care centers, and 1,500 specialized care facilities, such as drug treatment centers. Catholic hospitals serve approximately 50 million patients a year.

Many religiously controlled hospitals do not provide basic reproductive health services.

Most religiously controlled hospitals do not provide services proscribed by their religious doctrine. For example, Catholic health care facilities, usually operated by religious orders, are subject to the control of the Roman Catholic Church. They are prohibited by church doctrine from providing a variety of basic reproductive health services: abortion, sterilization, contraceptive services and supplies, most forms of assisted reproduction, comprehensive AIDS prevention and condom distribution, and "morning-after" pills for rape victims (which prevent implantation of a fertilized egg). In 1971 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Doctrine codified these prohibitions as a set of incontrovertible rules in the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Facilities. The Directives were updated in 1994, but the prohibitions remained. In recent years, American Bishops have been pushed to enforce doctrinal restrictions, and even hospitals that have disregarded some directives in the past have found or may find themselves subject to tighter control by the Bishops.

Patients are often not informed of policies that deny women reproductive health services.

Patients at religiously controlled hospitals often have no idea that they may be denied essential health services. Emergency patients or others who request prohibited procedures face serious physical and psychological risks. In one such case, a woman in Oregon went to a Catholic hospital to give birth and requested that she be sterilized after the delivery. Doctors did not perform the requested procedure, but failed to inform her that it had not been performed. Believing she had been sterilized, the woman later faced an unwanted pregnancy.

Religiously controlled hospitals evade a legal obligation to provide essential reproductive health services.

In an attempt to justify their failure to provide services otherwise required by law, religiously controlled institutions often invoke statutory "conscience clauses" that allow entire institutions to claim religious or moral objections to offering specific services. The individual religious and conscientious choices of patients concerning their medical care are thus subordinated to the institutional "conscience" of hospitals. Federal, state, and local governments facilitate this denial of essential health care services by granting tax-exempt status to religiously controlled hospitals.

Mergers with religiously controlled hospitals restrict women's access to reproductive health care services, even at non-sectarian institutions.

All patients, regardless of their religious affiliations, are profoundly affected by the refusal of religiously controlled hospitals to provide reproductive services. This is especially true in communities where a religiously controlled or religiously affiliated institution is the sole provider in the area. Low-income and minority women with few resources to obtain alternative medical care are the most vulnerable. For example, in 1992, 14 Catholic hospitals in the Chicago area denied 1,004 rape victims access to the morning-after pill. Of these 1,004 rape victims, 45% were low-income women seeking services in Catholic hospitals in poor and minority communities. The growth of religiously controlled health care systems in the last ten years has been extraordinary. Religiously affiliated networks now include everything from laboratory facilities to outpatient clinics, from insurance companies to individual doctors' practices. Indeed, for a growing number of Americans, religiously controlled systems are now the sole source of medical care.

Clinics that provide abortion services must be affiliated with hospitals.

Although 93% of abortions are performed in clinics or physicians' offices, hospitals have a vital role in maintaining women's access to this essential reproductive service. Abortion clinics are required by law in most states and by professional standards to be affiliated with local hospitals so that they can transfer a patient to a nearby full-service hospital for emergency care. Religiously controlled hospitals that refuse to provide clinics with this necessary back-up service effectively preclude them from performing abortions. In addition, hospitals must also provide abortions to women with critical needs. The 1% of all abortions performed as inpatient hospital procedures are cases involving serious complications, such as life-threatening conditions or fetuses with severe anomalies. In rural areas, where religiously controlled hospitals are often the primary or sole medical providers for families, their refusal to offer emergency services or perform medically complicated abortions is particularly problematic.

Mergers with religiously controlled hospitals have devastating economic consequences for women.


The scarcity of reproductive health services at religiously controlled hospitals not only poses health risks, but also has detrimental economic effects on women. Because these hospitals are forbidden from providing a wide variety of health services, women who need reproductive health services must find them elsewhere. The expenses associated with health care obviously increase when the cheapest and most convenient hospital will not provide needed reproductive services. For low-income women with no health insurance or those who receive Medicaid, these added costs could prevent them from obtaining the health care they need.

American Friends Service Committee youth worker wounded at peaceful protest in Gaza

American Friends Service Committe is the service arm of the Quakers. One of their youth workers, Ibrahim Shatali, was wounded at a peaceful protest. Prayers for his safe recovery. And for peace between Hamas and Fatah, Palestine and Israel.

Philadelphia [June 15] —The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) expresses profound sadness that Ibrahim Shatali, program coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee Quaker Palestine Youth Program, was shot on Wednesday, June 13, in Gaza City during a peaceful demonstration calling for an end to violence between Hamas and Fatah supporters.

Ibrahim suffered a chest injury and underwent a three-hour surgery in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He is in stable condition following surgery and the Service Committee is relieved he is making progress toward recovery.

Ibrahim was among hundreds of Palestinian peace activists who joined peaceful demonstrations in three cities on the Gaza Strip. Tragically, marchers in Gaza City and Rafah were met with gunfire that resulted in the death of one participant and the wounding of 15 others.

Since its establishment in 1996, the Quaker Palestine Youth Program has worked closely with local and international organizations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to enhance opportunities for marginalized Palestinian youth. The program is managed through AFSC’s offices in Ramallah and Gaza with support from the Middle East Regional Office in Amman, Jordan.

The Quaker Palestine Youth Program helps youths become active citizens by enhancing the skills they need to contribute to civil society and to preserve their communities. Ibrahim joined the program as a student coach. His determination, hard work and enthusiasm for the program led to a staff position in 2004.

More than 2,200 young men and women have been involved with the program over the past four years. Previous projects include: establishing science labs and computer centers, developing youth-focused web-sites, founding libraries, campaigning against early marriage, and cultural preservation and education.

Backed by a 90-year history working for peace, justice and reconciliation in troubled areas of the world, the American Friends Service Committee is a faith-based organization grounded in Quaker beliefs respecting the dignity and worth of every person. Quaker work in the Middle East dates back to 1875, with the establishment of a Friends school in Lebanon. AFSC work in Israel and the Palestinian Territories began providing relief assistance on behalf of the United Nations to more than 200,000 Palestinian refugees entering the Gaza Strip during and after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and has continued to the present.

AFSC asks all concerned to continue to hold Ibrahim and the people of Gaza in the Light.

More information on the Quaker Palestine Youth Program can be found here.

Madpriest reveals homosexual agenda