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Happy Passover and Holy Thursday

7:03 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Religion · 2 Comments

9 Apr 2009

2009_04_matzo Passover started yesterday at sundown and marks the start many holy high holidays in at least two faiths. Passover remembers the escape of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. Yesterday afternoon I asked a child I work with what Passover was, her four year old response was: “When Jewish people eat crackers”. I’m assuming she meant matzos aka unleavened bread symbolizing the haste in which the Jewish people had to leave.

Today is also Holy Thursday, marking Jesus’s Last Supper, which was actually a seder because yes, Jesus was Jewish.

I have been searching for stories about Latino seders or Latino synagogues in the U.S. so please if you are a Jewish Latino share your a pedacito of your vida with us. In the meantime, I’ve actually been going to church lately (God help us all, really) and am really interested in seeing how the church in my hood does Holy Week.

One Catholic Cardinal Gets it Right, Asking Obama to Stop Immigration Raids

11:55 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · chicago|Immigration|Religion · 1 Comment

23 Mar 2009

So the institution of the Catholic Church hasn’t been winning points with people, well with me anyway. I mean really? Thankfully Cardinal Francis George has given me a little hope that not all is lost. He told a crowd of hundreds in Our Lady of Mercy Church in Albany Park, Chicago, that Obama should stop the immigration raids to show that the new administration really is about change.

George sought to cast the issue in moral terms, calling it “a matter of conscience” and an important step to creating a more peaceful society.

“We cannot strengthen families when people live in fear from day to day,” he said.

“May this be the year that raids and separation of families stop,” George said. “May this be the year that our legislators pass comprehensive immigration reform.”

Can I get an Amen?

Via / The Chicago Tribune

Pope: Condoms Make AIDS Worse

18 Mar 2009

How many of you — regardless of religious beliefs — can really call this statement valid?

The Pope has really outdone himself this time. Going a step beyond John Paul the II’s assertion that abstinence is preferable to condoms — which in itself is ridiculous — Benedict has clearly gone off the deep end. Condoms worsen the problem? That’s just crazy talk. AIDS experts in South Africa agree:

Rebecca Hodes, head of policy for the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa’s city of Capetown, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday they were “extremely angered and saddened by this ill-considered response from the pope”.

“We know, based on over the 10-year experience of preventing and treating HIV in South Africa, that condoms are one of the only evidence-based means of preventing HIV available to us in Africa,” she said.

“There is very little evidence to support abstinence-only education campaigns as a means of preventing HIV. Condoms work in preventing HIV.”

Via / Al Jazeera

Catholic Church Stands Behind Brazilian Abortion Excommunication

9:46 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Brazil|children|Health|Religion|Women · 3 Comments

10 Mar 2009

Last week the horrific news of a 9 year old girl being raped by her stepfather and subsequently having a life saving abortion put the Catholic Church in the spotlight after the local church excommunicated the girl’s mother. Responses here included people disturbed not just by what happened to the girl initially but also the second victimization of the girl and her family, and people stating that cases such as this were one of the reasons so many were leaving the Catholic Church. One person was who commented was willing to sacrifice the life and mental well being of the child so that she could carry and give birth to twins. Even President Lula of Brazil commented on the case, taking sides against the church.

The Vatican made an official statement on the case and not surprisingly supported the decision of the local Brazilian Church to excommunicate the mother and the doctors who performed the abortion. The church then went even further and attacked the girl as being more sinful than the step-father who raped her.

From the Latin Americanist:

“It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated,” said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re to a local daily. Re- who is the head of the Roman Catholic Church’s Congregation for Bishops- acknowledged that “life must always be protected” yet did not say anything over the girl’s life being in danger by her pregnancy.

Aside from excommunicating the girl’s mother, Sobrinho also had the gall to disparage the raped child:

The stepfather was not excommunicated because the church said that his action, although deplorable, was not as bad as ending the life of an unborn child.

“It is clear that he committed a very serious sin, but worse than this is the abortion,” Sobrinho said.

That’s right mujeres, abortion, even to save the life of a nine year girl is worse than child rape according the the Roman Catholic Church.

Excommunicate my ass now.

If Jesus is Love, Where’s the Amor for 9 Year Old Brazilian Rape Victim

2:04 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Brazil|children|Health|Religion · 7 Comments

6 Mar 2009

It’s so horrific that it physically hurts me to think about: a 9 year old child (allegedly) raped by her stepfather and then she becomes pregnant.

A nine-year-old Brazilian girl who was impregnated after being allegedly raped by her stepfather underwent an abortion yesterday.

The child- who’s identity is being kept private- would’ve had her life in danger had she allowed the pregnancy to continue according to doctors. (At the time of the abortion the eighty-pound girl was in her fifteenth week of pregnancy). “She is very small. Her uterus doesn’t have the ability to hold one, let alone two children,” said Fatima Maia- the director of the hospital where the abortion was performed.

And instead of the faith community offering compassion and comfort to a child, the Roman Catholic Church has come down on the girl’ mother and doctors for saving her physical life.

A Roman Catholic archbishop says the abortion of twins carried by a 9-year-old girl who allegedly was raped by her stepfather means excommunication for the girl’s mother and her doctors.

Despite the nature of the case, the church had to hold its line against abortion, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said in an interview aired Thursday by Globo television.

“The law of God is higher than any human laws,” he said. “When a human law — that is, a law enacted by human legislators — is against the law of God, that law has no value. The adults who approved, who carried out this abortion have incurred excommunication.”

I worry about the girl’s emotional life, her soul and not in the sense of if she will go to heaven because she had an abortion. I wonder about how this child can comprehend all that she has had to face and will continue to face.

I also wonder what the hell the Catholic Church is thinking when they lack the basic compassion and love that Jesus preached.

Via / The Latin Americanist

Catholics Converge on Mexico City to Discuss “Model Families”

15 Jan 2009

If you’re sick and tired of the Christian Right and the Catholic Church forcing their idea of “family” — a unit made up of a man, a woman and some kids — on you, then you’d be better off not reading on. This week the infamous “Encuentro Mundial de las Familias” took place in Mexico City, and it was all traditional family model, all the time, with a whole lot of judgment and marginalization, as was to be expected. I mean, it is an event organized by the Vatican.

Here’s what church officials Ennio Antonelli and Marc Quellet had to say about gay families and those made up of unmarried couples:

The inaugural reception was over when, in the first talk given by the president of the Pope’s Family Council of the Vatican, Italian cardenal Ennio Antonelli said: “We think, and not only us, that the experience of living together between homosexuals should remain something private and within friendship relationships. Of course one can consider [these relationships] good or bad, that’s another story, but it should be considered a private relationship.”

In addition, for the Archbishop of Québec, Marc Quellet, the “free unions” among homosexuals, but also among heterosexuals, should combatted by the Church and society itself, because they constitute a threat to “human ecology.”

Hugo Chavez Tells Venezuelan Jews to Denounce Gaza Attacks

2:20 pm By Maegan La Mala · Gaza|Religion|Venezuela · 1 Comment

6 Jan 2009

capt.b4e4ea3d735d4e48b4c903951e44faac.venezuela_elections_xch101.jpg More verbal than Barack Obama and forever willing to comment on anything that’s going on in the world, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has put a call out to Jews in his country: denounce the Israeli military actions in Gaza. Rather surprisingly, he did so with good taste and decorum

“A Palestinian community lives here with us which we adore and love and there are also Jews that live here who we love as well, but I wish the Jewish community would declare themselves against this barbarism. Do it. Don’t you strongly denounce any act of persecution and the Holocaust? What do you think we are looking at [in Gaza]? Put your hand on your heart and be fair.”

Of course, he had other things to say, which fit well into his typical spiel, like how Fidel is called a tyrant but he has never invaded a country like Israel is doing now. And how Irani president Ahmadineyad is equally vilified, yet he has never taken action against any country.

What do you think? Are the comparisons fair?

Via / El Universal (Venezuela)

“Jewtinos” Get their own Clothing Line

7:45 am By Maegan La Mala · Culture|Fashion|Religion · Comments Off

31 Dec 2008

“Jewtinos”, people of Latino and Jewish origin, aren’t a huge demographic for marketers, and therefore the door is left wide open for those looking to cater to customers wanting specialized products that represent this ethnicity and/or faith combination. Enter Adriana Lopez, founder of the new clothing line Jewtina, who is making clothes that reflect Latino Jewish culture.

“I’m very proud to be Jewish and also to be Latina, but I never found anything anywhere that allowed me to express both of these sentiments,” Lopez told EFE. Born in Los Angeles, the fruit of a marriage between a Colombian father and a Mexican mother, both of Jewish descent, Lopez said she felt the need to creat something that would distinguish people like her.

“I always joked, telling people that I was Jewtina, and one day my husband, who’s Cuban, told me I should register the brand and I did, said the 35 year-old businesswoman.

Adriana sees opportunity in this market, not only in the U.S. but also throughout Latin America, in countries with sizable Jewish populations, such as Argentina and Brasil.

Via / RPP Noticias

The Purpose Behind Purpose Driven Pastor Invocation Pick

10:59 am By Maegan La Mala · Controversia|Politics|Religion · 1 Comment

19 Dec 2008

By now, everyone knows that Barack Obama has picked the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.

So what’s the big deal? Evangelical pastors have been opening inaugurations for years. Look at Billy Graham. Pero, for the President-elect, with change as his motto, to choose the author of “The Purpose Driven Life,” to start up the next four years feels, well, like something we would expect from a Bush, or a McCain, or a Palin, even.

The decision to have Warren, pastor of a megachurch in Orange County, California, is supposed to be read as an act of peacemaking and bridge building, but what is Obama working towards by including someone who doesn’t believe in evolution, is an outspoken opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage? Warren equates same-sex marriage with incest.Certainly not the type of person I am interested in making peace with.

Not only that, but Warren is a little pervy. See a video here.

Via / NYT

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