the faithful and keep them out of Nassau OTB on holy days, Easter Sunday and Palm Sunday.
His humble beginnings show that the beliefs of people are not all the same.
NY PML Sec 109 violates the rights secured by NY Const. Art. 1, Sec 3 but a communication from the Vatican to the faithful and Governor Andrew Cuomo might point them in the right direction?
A Humble Beginning: Signs From a Papacy's First Days
![[image]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WO-AN212_POPEjp_F_20130329180850.jpg)
Associated Press
Pope Francis prays during the Celebration of the Lord's Passion in Saint Peter's Basilica on Friday.
ROME—As Christians around the world
celebrate Easter week, Catholics here are closely watching the words and
gestures of Pope Francis for clues to the direction the newly chosen
pontiff will lead his 2,000-year-old church.
At a juvenile detention center on the outskirts of the Italian
capital, the leader of the Roman Catholic faithful knelt before 12 young
inmates—including women and Muslims—before bathing and kissing their
feet in a Holy Thursday ritual.
"It is the example of our Lord," the 76-year-old pope said in a
homily for the prisoners he met on a day that commemorates the last
supper Jesus shared with his twelve apostles. "The one who is highest up
must be at the service of others."
Andrew Medichini/Associated Press
Pope Francis kisses a baby at the Vatican.
With these and other remarks about helping
the poor and the powerless, Pope Francis has prompted wide speculation
about his intentions for the church, following the scholarly focus on
church doctrine by his predecessor,
Benedict XVI.
Observers have noted, for example, that Pope Francis, the first
pontiff from the Americas, still wears the cross he wore as archbishop
of Buenos Aires, rather than the golden one customary for popes, and
that he has declined to wear the papal red shoes and other fancy
vestments favored by past pontiffs.
Earlier this week, the pope indicated he wouldn't move into the
pontiff's gilded official quarters in the Apostolic Palace any time
soon, instead planning to stay at a modest Vatican guesthouse.
"The way he is doing things is making a huge impression here in
Rome," said the Rev. John Wauck, a priest who teaches at the Pontifical
University of the Holy Cross. "The reaction is enthusiasm mixed with
apprehension."
After Easter, the pope is expected to start naming top officials of
the Roman Curia, the Vatican's administration, and take other concrete
steps to guide a church dealing with both a sex-abuse crisis and a loss
of believers in its one-time stronghold of Western Europe.
Much of what the pope has done since his selection earlier this month
has been symbolic, but some see it as signaling change in an
institution that has long emphasized continuity. He has urged the church
to engage with people far from its teachings.
![[image]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BK897_pope_DV_20130329181441.jpg)
ZUMAPRESS.com
Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square
In his first general audience
Wednesday, Francis said that Catholics needed to "be the first to move
towards our brothers and sisters, especially those who are most distant,
those who are forgotten, those who are most in need of understanding,
consolation and help."
That contrasted with his predecessor, who viewed the church's
relationship with the secular world as largely adversarial, and
responded by defending the church's fundamental beliefs and rituals.
"This is making a real shift," said Alberto Melloni, a professor of
church history at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. "He's
imposing a style of pastoral proximity to the people."
Pope Francis is expected to uphold church doctrines that oppose
abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage—issues at the forefront of
Pope Benedict's battle to stem secularism. However, Francis is likely
to shift the church's emphasis to outreach, tending to the world's poor
and evangelizing the global south.
Progressives are embracing that shift, saying he could fulfill what
they consider one of the aims of the Second Vatican Council and make the
church more open and engaged with the world. Others warn such an
approach risks alienating believers who championed the restoration of
centuries-old practices by Francis' predecessor.
At a news conference Friday, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi
was asked: Does the inclusion of women in the foot-washing ceremony
mean the pope is open to ordaining female priests? Why did he decide to
include two Muslims in the Christian ceremony?
Associated Press
A crowd gathers in the shadow
of the Roman Colosseum on Good Friday for the Way of the Cross,
commemorating Jesus' journey to crucifixion.
"I wouldn't continue down this path of
interpretation," Father Lombardi said at one point, warning against "too
many theories behind every particular gesture."
Until Pope Francis, no pontiff had ever washed the feet of a woman or
a Muslim on Holy Thursday, which marks two of the most important
institutions in Roman Catholicism, the Eucharist and the priesthood.
Jesus' final meal with his apostles established the ritual that
anchors Catholic Mass, instructing the men—who served as models for an
all-male priesthood—to commune with him by eating bread and drinking
wine. He washed their feet to show that service was at the center of
their mission.
Pope Francis has marked Holy Thursday by washing the feet of a dozen young inmates at a juvenile detention center.
For Pope Francis, in a Holy Thursday Mass, to
clean the feet of two women, including a Muslim from Serbia, left some
speechless.
"I don't know what to say. All these things are breaking down," said
Rev. Joseph Kramer who oversees a church in Rome that celebrates the
Mass in Latin, part of an initiative by Pope Benedict XVI to revive one
of Catholicism's oldest traditions. "We're stretching tradition. Things
are mutating."
A news website for Catholic traditionalists, Rorate Caeli, headlined
its story on the foot-washing ritual: "The Official End of the Reform of
the Reform—by example." The "reform of the reform" refers to an effort
within the church to reverse the liberalization of Vatican II in the
1960s.
Andrew Medichini/Associated Press
Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square.
In the last century, priestly attempts
to deal with economic inequity and other problems besetting their
parishioners led to the development of so-called liberation theology. In
1960s and 1970s Latin America, this view drew some priests to embrace
the rhetoric of class warfare.
"The great challenge confronting the church is whether it's going to
be perceived as the church of privilege and wealth, or whether it can
align itself—in a true, authentic way—in solidarity with the poor," said
Carl Anderson, head of the Catholic fraternal organization, the Knights
of Columbus.
Pope Francis stood apart from extreme versions of liberation theology
as a young Jesuit in Argentina. Later in his career, as Cardinal Jorge
Bergoglio, he became known for calling the church to minister to the
poor in the slums of Buenos Aires.
Now, in Rome, he "will be pricking at the consciences of the wealthy of the world," predicted one senior Vatican official.
When in Buenos Aires, Francis declined to live in the archbishop's
official residence. And, so far, he has refused to move in to the papal
apartments of the Apostolic Palace, staying instead in a more modest
guesthouse.
For the Curia, that is a loud message. The Apostolic Palace is the
nerve center of the Vatican administration and the seat of a papal
court. By staying outside the papal palace, Vatican watchers say, the
new pope is able keep his ear close to the ground and more likely to
learn what went wrong in the previous papacy.
"It's like the CEO moving out of the corner office, away from his
gatekeepers. You're going to hear a lot more," said Francis X. Rocca,
Rome bureau chief of Catholic News Service.
Write to Gordon Fairclough at
gordon.fairclough@wsj.com and Stacy Meichtry at
stacy.meichtry@wsj.com
HI-
Thanks for the help. The item’s
below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing
address.
Claude
Solnik
(631)
913-4244
Long Island Business
News
2150
Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma,
NY 11779-7348
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has
been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have
spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New
York State Racing Law
bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has
ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could
easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You
should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau
OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable
logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to
take people’s bets?”
Elias
Tsekerides, president of the
Federation of Hellenic Societies of
Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and
Palm Sunday.
“I
don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the
Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or
not open.”
OTB
officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone,
with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and
Hawthorne running.
One
option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York
City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million
– and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy
money.
Dear Pope Francis:
Please tell your believers in New York State including Governor Andrew Cuomo that the Church does not need the help of the State of New York to keep the faithful out of Nassau OTB including on the Sundays that you observe Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. People of many beliefs or no beliefs at all bet and/or work at Nassau OTB and should be free to do so whenever tracks are running anywhere in the US. There are significant tracks running on your Easter Sunday. Please help.
March 24, 2013, 8:38 a.m. ET
NY betting parlor closing prompts bill
Article
Comments (3)
more in New York »
smaller
Larger
facebook
twitter
google plus
linked in
Email
Print
Save ↓ More
Associated Press
ALBANY, N.Y. ? Today is Palm Sunday for most Christian denominations in the U.S.
In New York that means Off-Track Betting parlors are closed.
It's one of three dark days at OTB. The others are Christmas and Easter from the same calendar.
This has at least one cashier arguing it denies the right to work based on an old statute and fails to abide by the constitutionally required separation of church and state.
Jackson Leeds, also an attorney, has been writing to state officials since he took the part-time OTB job in 2003 at Nassau OTB.
Some agree with him, also noting lost business.
State Sen. Eric Adams, ranking Democrat on the Senate's Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee, has introduced a bill to allow pari-mutuel wagering and horse racing on Palm Sunday.
Comments (
Printable Version
Email This
Font
