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The Pope’s Gay Priests

The Pope’s Gay Priests

Every bishop knows he has gay priests in the ranks—pretending otherwise is surely as much of a moral issue as, say, same-sex marriage. Gay priests work in dioceses and religious orders as pastors, teachers, administrators, right-hand men, chaplains, liturgists and preachers. The bishops know this and yet few are able to speak with the kind of candor the pope manages on a daily basis.

It seems Pope Francis is more progressive and caring than most US bishops…..

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UCC Advocacy: Email and Social Media

While in the US, I am interested how social media is used to promote justice and peace by the UCC Justice and Witness Ministries. I was happy to talk to their online communications specialist Jessie Palatucci who is in charge of the ministries’ online communication.

Of course, they do Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. The Justice and Peace Action Network sends out email newsletters regularly.

Now peace in Syria is a pressing issue.  Facebook and Twitter are updated several times a time to inform about the latest developments and petitions.

It is, however, not only information but also a enabling people to share their concerns easily. Their form-to-mail tool makes it really easy to send a personalized online petition to politicians, just click on the link on the tweet and fill in the empty fields and click submit. It is that easy.

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HTTrack Website Copier – Free Software Offline Browser (GNU GPL)

HTTrack Website Copier – Free Software Offline Browser (GNU GPL)

Great tool to archive a website!

HTTrack is a free (GPL, libre/free software) and easy-to-use offline browser utility. It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site’s relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the ‘mirrored’ website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an integrated help system. WinHTTrack is the Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Seven/8 release of HTTrack, and WebHTTrack the Linux/Unix/BSD release.

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I missed the chicken house or why I did not go to an Amish Service today

Yesterday, I visited Yoder’s Amish farm in Berlin, Ohio. I asked the tour guide if it would be possible to visit a Service an Amish service on Sunday. The Amish used to meet in barns for service. Each Sunday a different family invites the congregation to worship on their farm. They even have “church wagons“ which they use to transport the benches from farm to farm. Nowadays, they use “shops” instead of barns – I suppose the guide meant workshops – where they gather for worship. She had explained that the Amish only learn High German so they can read the Bible in church, they also sing their hymns in High German. Their hymn book Ausbund is the oldest German language hymnal still in continous use. One needs a personal invitation in order to attend a service because it is on a different farm each week.

How would I obtain a personal invitation, how could I meet an Amish who might invite me? Yoder’s Farm also offers a visit to an Amish school. The guide who explained the Amish school system to us, was a school teacher. She teaches around 30 students from grades one thru eight in a single room. The language of instruction is English – except for the High German class. Before and after school they speak a German dialect (Pennsylvania Deitsh/Dutch). The textbook they use for German is in gothic script and focuses on words that are common in Luther´s Bible translation. (They do use the old text, and not one of the revised versions now commonly used in Germany.)

It was really interesting talking to the teacher. After a while I dare ask her about the possibility to attend a service. She regrets she cannot invite me because it would be inappropriate for a woman to invite a man to church but she gives me directions to meet an Amish farmer who loves to talk about the Amish heritage and has invited outsiders to his church. He belongs to the New Order and this group would be more open outsiders. She gives us directions – we have to drive (no telephone to place a call!) to the farm to meet the farmer who might invite us – . “and if you see the chicken house, you have gone too far”, she explains. We can´t find the farm, we miss the chicken house – and I went to an English service this Sunday morning.