Heidi Schlumpf's blog

Before I settle in to watch tonight's "Colbert Report," I wanted to share Stephen's commentary, "Skeletons in the closet," from last night's episode.

Colbert defended the Catholic Church's threat to cut charitable work in Washington D.C. if a same-sex marriage amendment passes. "They have no choice," he said. "After all, Jesus said, 'If you wish to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor. Unless a couple of dudes go and register at Pottery Barn, in which case, f*&^ the poor.'"

Just as some are arguing for civil unions instead of marriage, Colbert proposes that churches start refusing funerals for gays and lesbians, leaving them to have "civil end-of-life ceremonies."

"We shouldn't have to watch these people flaunt their alternative death-styles," he said.

Watch the whole, sarcastic clip here.

I actually agree with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on something. Newsweek's choice of a cover photo of her in running shorts for an serious article about her political aspirations is sexist and inappropriate (though the headline, "How do you solve a problem like Sarah?" is pretty clever). She blasted the choice on her Facebook page. I have to agree with her on this. A similar photo of a male politician would be unheard of to accompany such an article.

Stories like these don't help the cause of U.S. women religious currently under investigation by the Vatican for allegedly supporting radical liberal causes:

Sister Donna Quinn, a long-time feminist and social justice activist, has been reprimanded by her order, the Wisconsin-based Sinsinawa Domincans, for escorting patients into a Hinsdale, Illinois clinic that provides abortions, The Chicago Tribune reports.

Online news site ChicagoCatholicNews speculates that the three bishops involved--Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, where Quinn lives; Bishop J. Peter Sartain of Joliet, where the clinic is located; and Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin, where the order is based--are "monitoring the situation" and expect to talk soon.

If early reviews (including one in NCR) and the questions at last night's public lecture by Catholic novelist Mary Gordon are any indication, Catholics still prefer to leave biblical interpretation to the experts.

Gordon read from her new nonfiction book, "Reading Jesus: A Writer's Encounter with the Gospels," at Loyola University's 34th Annual Edward Surtz Lecture. The book contains Gordon's reflections after reading all four gospels--from a literary perspective.

"Most people have their family Bible from the attic. They don't have [scripture scholar] Raymond Brown," Gordon said. "They base decisions not on context, but on text. People don't live their lives based on scholarship. They live their lives based on words. So I asked, 'What do these words say to a common reader?'"

As has become the custom, the two bishops from the cities competing in the World Series have entered a friendly wager on the games.

If the Phillies win, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York will ship a dozen bagels to the City of Brotherly Love; if the Yankees prevail, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia will send a case of Tastykakes to the Big Apple, according to a press release from the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

If you don't know what Tastykakes are, you're not missing much. Kind of like Twinkies or Ho Hos. Still, I root for the Phillies, being married to a native Philadelphian and all.

Trying not to be cynical, but wondering if these little human interest stories are specifically designed to make the hierarchy seem, well, more human.

Stephen Colbert gave his take on the pope's invitation to Anglicans last night. Lots of funny one-liners: calling the Archbishop of Canterbury "the diet pope" and Fox news analyst Father Jonathan Morris "Father Cute Priest."

Morris called the pope's controversial offer a sign of Christian unity. To which Colbert responded, "Nothing brings Christians together like excluding gays and women."

Guest Episcopalian Rev. Randall Balmer publicly declined the invitation to join the Catholic Church, saying, "Holy water's fine. Let's not drink the Kool-Aid."

Watch the clip (commercial first) to see why Colbert compares the Catholic Church to the National League and the Anglicans to the American League.

How's that for Catholic news? The Irish are now 10-9 in the so-called "Holy War" (or "Vatican Bowl") between the two Catholic universities, after breaking the Eagles' six-game winning streak on Saturday--barely.

Don't talk to me about USC.

A white Louisiana justice of the peace refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple, saying, "I just don't believe in mixing the races that way." Justice Keith Bardwell insists he is not a racist. "I have piles and piles of black friends," he told the Associated Press.

This happened last week. In 2009. No joke. To those who think racism is a thing of the past, think again.

Maybe refusing to marry gays and lesbians will look as ridiculous in a few decades.

After a popular teacher was abruptly pulled from the classroom, students at Chicago's Brother Rice High School organized a sit-in. But when that '60s-era protest method was scuttled by school officials, the students turned to Facebook.

Christian Brother Patrick B. Martin, a popular math teacher at Brother Rice, was transferred in late September, according Brother Rice president Brother Karl Walczak. "Nothing illegal has taken place," he told the Southtown Star.

Calling the reassignment a personnel matter, the school has remained close-lipped. But that hasn't stopped students from talking--primarily on the Internet.

Facebook groups like "Bring Back Bro. Martin" (almost 700 members) and "We want Bro. Martin" (450 members) are filled with posts by current students and alumni from all over the country praising the inspirational teacher and speculating about why he left, including rumors of possible health problems.

Proving once again that social media give a voice to people that those in power would rather keep quiet.

I recently wrote about Catholic bloggers in NCR, highlighting the popular Philadelphia blogger Rocco Palmo, who writes the gossipy Whispers in the Loggia, which these days is covering the African Synod, Cardinal Francis George's new book and the Phillies playoffs.

Palmo tries to distance himself from other Catholic bloggers because too many of them are used primarily to point fingers and rant, usually at fellow Catholics. I wrote, "While it’s nice and democratic that the Internet gives everyone a soapbox (or at least everyone with Internet access), some might want to use that soap to wash out their mouths. Call me biased, but I think the majority of these mudslinging sites are by traditionalist Catholics -- perhaps because it seems more Catholic blogs slant to the right than to the left."

I could claim that I haven't written this blog post for five days because I am so devastated that my city, Chicago, did not win the bid for the 2016 Olympics, but it wouldn't be true. Actually, I was busy entertaining my in-laws, who were visiting from Philadelphia.

Still, I am pretty bummed about the Olympics. Despite its reputation as the "Second City," Chicago is pretty big on civic pride. We love our sports teams (even when they lose for decades); we flock to our parks and lakefront (even when it's 20 below zero); and we are proud of our skyline (even if the Sears Tower is no longer the world's tallest building--or no longer called the Sears Tower). It was a rather humiliating to come in dead last.

A good number of Chicagoans cheered the loss. Many, if not most, of my friends opposed the city's Olympic bid, knowing it would mean higher taxes down the line. Few trust Mayor Richard Daley, whose most recent debacle involved selling the city's parking meter rights, which meant an immediate rate hike from 25 cents an hour to $1.

I stumbled across a couple of Catholic stories at Duke University's Leadership Education website. Jason Byassee, a former editor at Christian Century magazine and now executive director at Leadership Education, interviews Notre Dame Assistant Professor Margaret Pfeil, who lives in a Catholic Worker house in South Bend.

"We try to welcome people as they are, without necessarily giving them a spiel about who Dorothy Day was. We try to live in a way that makes guests feel comfortable and welcomed," she told Byassee. "We want them to understand that we intend to be a house of hospitality (I’m sure we do this imperfectly, by the way). Hopefully after awhile people begin to feel comfortable and will start asking questions, 'What is this all about? Why are you doing this? Who is this Dorothy Day?'"

America magazine, the venerable Jesuit periodical, has fewer SJs on its masthead. In its August 31 issue, Editor in Chief Drew Christiansen announced that five Jesuit editors are moving on to new assignments, while two new lay editors are joining the staff.

For years, the only lay editor was its part-time literary editor. Now the magazine seems to be making an effort to increase lay input, including adding three new lay members of the board of directors.

Kevin Clarke, formerly of U.S. Catholic magazine (where he and I were colleagues), has moved back to his native New York to become an associate editor at America. In his 20 years at Claretian Publications, Kevin worked on Salt of the Earth (as both a print and online publication), U.S. Catholic and as online editor. His expertise in social justice and international reporting will be an asset to America.

A second lay America editor is expected to be announced soon, according to Christiansen.

For anyone who's noticed that I've been absent from this blog for a few weeks, don't worry. I'm still here--just in the middle of a move.

Yes, we're among the few lucky Americans to have sold our house (a condo)--and rather quickly, I might add. I guess if the price is right...

And we were doubly lucky in that we found a nice house, a small Chicago bungalow, at a very reasonable price. Unfortunately the closing dates require us to be "homeless" for two weeks, so we've been bouncing from relative to friend to relative.

I forgot how hard moving is, and now I'm witnessing how the disorientation affects a 2-year-old. There's the packing, then the sadness at seeing your empty home--our first home as a married couple, the place we brought our son home to.

And when the movers arrive--four recent immigrants who worked harder that morning than I have all year--there is the guilt over having SO MUCH STUFF. Having to pack everything you own really highlights how much you own. At the end, when we were tossing the last miscellaneous junk into unlabeled boxes, I had a strong urge to give up all my possessions and move to a monastery.

An estimated 1 million Latinos live in the Archdiocese of Chicago, but the archdiocese's human service arm, Catholic Charities, is failing them, according to a report from the Chicago NPR station.

Critics, including immigrant advocates, a state senator and at least one Chicago priest, say Catholic Charities should be doing more to help impoverished Latino families.

The back-to-school displays are out, leaves are starting to drop from trees, and "Mad Men," the Emmy-award winning AMC series about a fictional New York ad agency, is back. Ah, fall.

Much was made about last season's Catholic storyline involving a priest (played by Tom Hanks' son) who counsels an advertising copywriter who had abandoned a baby who was the result of a one-night stand with a coworker. The season premier on Sunday night didn't do much with that angle, but it did set the stage for another season of what I call "mid-century modern sinning" in my review of the series for NCR here.

Other Catholic fans of the series include Father Jim Martin, S.J. at America, Deacon Greg Kandra at The Deacon's Bench and Thomas Hibbs at Inside Catholic.

During the "Obama drama" surrounding the University of Notre Dame's commencement last spring, a number of friends remarked to me that they couldn't even remember who their college graduation speaker was.

I can -- even though it was 20 years ago.

The main speaker was civil rights leader Andrew Young, who gave a rousing, inspirational sermon befitting a former preacher. The second speaker was Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who received the Laetare Medal that year. She was equally inspiring, and I remember feeling lucky to have had two amazing speakers help mark the end of my college career. (I also was excited that Covenant House founder Father Bruce Ritter received an honorary degree, but we all know what happened to him.)

In a news story that contained, not one, but two groan-inducing puns, the Hollywood Reporter announced last week that screenwriter and director Joe Eszterhas is planning a movie on Our Lady of Guadalupe."He may have sanded his jagged edge, but Joe Eszterhas still, apparently, has the basic instinct," the story joked, in reference to two of Eszterhas' movies, "Jagged Edge" and "Basic Instinct."

Like I said, groan.

The Hungarian-born Eszterhas abandoned the sex, drugs and greed of Hollywood for a quiet family life in Ohio and a return to his Catholic faith after a bout with throat cancer a few years ago. He describes his former life in his first memoir, Hollywood Animal, and his conversion in his second, Crossbearer.

Bill Donahue is on a rampage--again. The president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is usually busy blasting "anti-Catholicism," which he defines as the views of anyone who disagrees with his conservative view of the church. Now he's going broader. In "Secular Sabotage," his new book to be released Sept. 2 by FaithWorks, Donahue accuses extremist liberals of "destroying religion and culture in America," as the book's subtitle accuses.

The Princeton Review annually ranks colleges according to 62 different criteria, but none is more popular than its list of Top 20 Party Schools. Penn State took top honors in this year's list, followed by University of Florida, University of Mississippi, University of Georgia and Ohio University.

There was nary a Catholic school on the list.

I don't know if Catholics should be proud--or angry. Hey, we're fun. We party. We even have a reputation for excessive drinking. C'mon--not even one Catholic school was considered Top 20 material by the 122,000 students who voted this year?

The horror slasher movie "Orphan" open last weekend, raking in $12.8 million for Warner Bros. as the fourth most popular movie of the weekend.

An earlier outcry from adoptive parents offended by the premise that an older adopted child might be a homicidal psychopath resulted in the trailer line, "It must hard to love an adopted child as much as your own," being replaced. But the movie still reinforces the stereotype that it's risky to adopt an older child.

Stephen Colbert did a whole segment last night on the pope's wrist injury. Fans of the show may remember that after he broke his own wrist in 2007, Colbert launched his WristStrong program in which he tries to get celebrities to wear red silicone bracelets. Now he wants to get one on the broken wrist of Pope Benedict XVI--by having Colbert viewers pass one along to someone "holier than thou" until it reaches the pontiff.

Topping my summer reading list is A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church, Archbishop Rembert Weakland's memoir that includes his response to the scandal that precipitated his resignation, along with a frank discussion of his own homosexuality. I'm only on page 85 of the 284-page tome, but have already covered his childhood in Patton, Pa., the novitiate at St. Vincent's Archabbey in Latrobe, his theological studies in Rome and now his musical studies at Julliard and Columbia in New York.

I don't watch "Jon and Kate Plus 8" but since I don't live under a rock, I couldn't escape the news that the parents of twins and a set of sextuplets are splitting up. But the Gosselins aren't the only large family profiled on a reality TV show these days. You'd think this new obsession with big broods would be focusing on Catholics and/or Mormons -- the two traditional religions that encourage lots of kids.

Wrong:

The majority of the TV families are evangelical Christians. And, as I learned in the article, "More Not Always Merrier," in the Lakeland, Fla., Ledger, most are associated with a controversial movement promoting large families called "QuiverFull," based on the verse in Psalm 127 that compares children (or "sons") to arrows: "Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them." The QuiverFull movement eschews any form of birth control or spacing, including Natural Family Planning.

I know Pope Benedict has declared this "The Year of the Priest," but that doesn't mean any old Joe can impersonate one.

This strange news item out of the City of Brotherly Love: A 26-year-old man dressed as a Catholic priest and entered the intensive care unit room of an injured Philadelphia police officer and comforted the officer and his family last month. Paul Schlear of North Philadelphia also has admitted to wearing an alb in processions at the funerals of two fallen police officers. According to one report, he pretended to talk to Cardinal Justin Rigali on his cell phone while at the hospital.

A statement from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia called the matter deeply disturbing. "The Archdiocese, which has fostered a close prayerful relationship with the men and women of the Philadelphia police force and their families, is pained by the duplicity of anyone who would betray the Church and cause such hurt to God's people in such a vulnerable position," the statement said.

Milwaukee Catholic Herald Managing Editor Maryangela Layman Roman wrote this beautiful tribute to Ethel Gintoft, a female pioneer in the Catholic press who died last month, in which she compares Gintoft to Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon and Karl Malden.

"Just as the others were standouts in the music, television or Hollywood worlds, Ethel was a pioneer and leader in her field, the Catholic press," she writes. "During her funeral Mass last Thursday at the Cathedral of St. John, Father [Michael] Hammer not only mentioned the company Ethel was keeping on her journey to everlasting life, but added, that being the reporter she was, she no doubt had notebook and pen in hand ready to take advantage of this historical moment."

Call to Action is putting a younger face forward with the naming of a new director to replace Dan and Sheila Daley, who had served as co-directors since the church reform group's founding in 1978.

Jim FitzGerald, 37, will lead the 25,000-member organization, which has been working to reach out to younger Catholics over the past several years. He has a background in non-profit administration and theology -- plus a history with CTA, having served as a board member, chapter leader and local faciliator for CTA's "NextGen" program for reform-minded Catholics in their 20s and 30s.

The governor of Illinois yesterday vetoed a proposed state budget that would drastically cut human services, a move applauded by many Catholics who have been protesting the cuts to services to the poor, developmentally disabled, children and seniors.

"The legislature decided to slash human services, the budget for the important programs that help vulnerable people, mostly people who have no lobbyists, who don't have political action committees, who don't have friends in high places, who have workers in their agencies that are receiving very modest salaries but they do it because they love the job, they love people," Gov. Pat Quinn said.

I grew up reading the Milwaukee archdiocesan newspaper. The Catholic Herald shared the living room coffee table with the Milwaukee Journal and Sentinel--two separate papers back then. As an avid reader, I devoured any and all printed matter in the house, even the paper that contained a list of movies my parents wouldn't allow me to see.

What do Pope Benedict XVI, Marilyn Manson, Eminem and U2 have in common? They all have record deals with the British music label, Geffen UK.

The pope and Vatican priests will record Christmas music and prayers, according to the UK's Daily Mirror. "Everyone thought it was a wind-up when we got a call from the Vatican. But it was the pope's representative inviting us to Rome. Two senior managers flew out. The pope wasn't there in person, sadly. But we didn't hesitate to offer His Holiness a deal," the newspaper quoted a source at the London-based record label.

No word on whether the pope will go on tour.