New York Times Late and Latest

Lots coming from the NYT.com as I try to catch up on my reading. I am now teaching writing at North Carolina Central University, and all week has been taken up with orientation.

The first interesting article is about a "renegade priest" in a Catholic church in St. Louis, MO, who is, from my vantage point, following Jesus! Fr. Bozek had the audacity to do the following:

In the subsequent years, Mr. Bozek has become an increasingly vocal advocate for a more progressive Catholic church. In 2008 he presented parishioners with what he called his “vision,” which included the right of priests to marry, and that of women and homosexuals to become priests.

“He has opened our eyes,” said Melissa Kirkiewicz, 35. “His vision is what we perceive as the future of the church. He’s going in the direction I want to go as a Catholic.”

For many others, however, Mr. Bozek’s progressive views, coupled with his excommunication, have become too much to tolerate.

“He has his own agenda,” Grzegorz Koltuniak, 53, said after the vote. “He’s not a priest anymore, but he’s fooled everyone. Why are we even talking about religion? This is about property, but he makes it about religion.”

Mercy! I think Jesus would approve!

Then last night I went and saw the film "Eyes Wide Open," an Israeli film about a gay couple among Orthodox Jews...stunning! The poignant life story of Aaron and Ezri, in which Aaron is married and playing in the system, and Ezri, a young gay Yeshiva student. Aaron gives this incredible line to a senior rabbi in defending his love for Ezri:

Aaron, a willing participant in this system, knows the danger he is courting, and finds himself caught in a terrible dilemma, an identity crisis with no easy resolution. He risks losing the only world he recognizes — secular Israel seems as far from his corner of Jerusalem as Antarctica — or else suppressing a vital part of himself.

“I feel alive now,” he says. “I was dead before.”

Powerful!

Then the latest gay couple who announced their wedding in the nyt.com, David and Alan:

Dr. David Scott Herszenson and Alan Emanuel Pierson are to affirm their partnership in Chicago Sunday morning at the Columbus Park Refectory, an event space in the Chicago Park District. Rabbi Julie Pelc Adler is to lead the commitment ceremony.

Mazel tov!

Pace!

B