A friend on the Tempe Governors Board sent me an e-mail mid-afternoon Monday with word that former longtime Tempe City Councilman Carol Smith had died in hospice care at Friendship Village after waging a long battle with cancer. She was 72. I called City Hall, and they hadnt gotten the word yet.Carol Smith communicated contrasts. Her perfectly arranged white cotton hair, long eye lashes, meticulously applied makeup and eye-catching dresses with bows and scarves could stop you in your tracks. But as feminine as Carol presented herself, she was tough. She could be surly, hostile and acerbic. The dirty looks she could give were deadly. But she always had Tempes interests in mind. She was an iron lady, tough and strongly opinionated. Carol, who served from 1986 to 1998 on the council, had been vice mayor 1990 to 1992. I moderated a City Council forum in 1986 when she first ran for the council and was struck by how well-schooled she was. The Arizona native and one-time school teacher had earned her bachelors degree in history and political science from Texas Christian University.Her father had started a family business in waste collection and disposal and landfills in 1926. As a result, Carol was an expert in waste management after having been involved in the family businesses - Waste Control of Arizona, Waste Control of Northern Arizona and Waste Control of New Mexico. Later she served as the chairman of the Maricopa Association of Governors Solid Waste Coordinating Committee and later was chairman of the State of Arizona Recycling Advisory Committee. I remember when Carol received Tempes Don Carlos Humanitarian Award in 1999, much was made about her obsessive habit of picking up aluminum cans wherever she spotted them on the landscape. She carried a sack in her trunk in which she deposited them for recycling. She and one-term Councilman Linda Spears were both unseated in 1998 by Hugh Hallman and Leonard Copple. The women took their losses hard, and it suddenly turned the council back to an all-male group until Barb Carter won a seat on it two years later. Some of what Carol Smith did related to her strong work with and for women. President in 1974-75 of the Las Noches Womans Club in Tempe, Carol went on serve at the highest levels of Womens Clubs, first as president of the Arizona clubs and later as the treasurer and recording secretary on the executive committee of the Greater Federation of Womens Club International. She served as president of Arizona Women in Municipal Government. In 1985, she was recognized as one of Tempes Women of Distinction by Tempe St. Lukes Hospital.Carol served in so many community roles. Almost 35 years ago, she was on the Governors Highway Safety Committee. She was board chairman and past president of the Boys and Girls Club of the East Valley; president of Southwest Center for Education and the Natural Environment (SCENE); and president of the Papago/Salado Association. While on the Tempe City Council, she was chairman of the Finance and Organizational Effectiveness Committee, as well as the Youth and Family Services Committee. She was the citys representative on the Maricopa Association of Governments Regional Policy Development Committee and the Youth Policy Committee. She was also on the Mayors Taskforce on Gangs. Among some of Carols other community involvements were Tempe Rotary Club, Zonta International, a 10-year member of the Tri-City Behavioral Health Services, and The League of Arizona Cities and Towns. She was directly responsible for raising funds for 40 trees to be planted at Tempe Town Lake and raised money for books and equipment at the Tempe Public Library. Since 1995, she had served on the Tempe Governors.Tragically on Oct. 5, 1984, her daughter, Kathleen Marie Smith, 20, was found dead in her Tempe apartment, which had also been set on fire. In the years that followed, there was enormous press and speculation on what happened. Carol, her ex-husband, David Smith, and family appealed for help from the public for clues. They offered a $50,000 reward. Billboards were put up for help. Then in August 2003, evidence led to the indictment of Robert Stanley Ortloff, who was being held in a Texas prison on a 50-year term on a charge of sending a pipe bomb to a serviceman. Ortloff had been a business partner with Kathleen Smith and they eyed opening a sandwich shop. Authorities had found that Ortloff had taken out two life insurance policies, totaling $125,000, on her. He was extradited to Phoenix on a charge of first-degree murder, burglary and arson. He intended to defend himself. The case remains unresolved.There are two surviving sons, Kevin Smith and Kelly Smith, and six grandchildren.Over the years, I had the chance to work with Carol on a number of projects including one of the Tempe Governor Balls. She was enormously astute about the logistics of the annual fund-raiser. She was always a good source for stories I did in Tempe, and we shared winning two of the communitys honors: the Don Carlos Humanitarian Award four years apart, and in 2004, the Tempe Historical Society named us both Tempe Living Legends. Carol Smith will be remembered in services tentatively set for Monday at Tempe Mortuary. Invariably, theyll pack the chapel to pay tribute for the stalwart and elegant woman who devoted her life to Tempe and countless causes of people.

Country music superstar Martina McBride made a concert stop Thursday night at Jobs.Com Arena in Glendale, home of the Phoenix Coyotes. Her Waking Up Laughing Tour was shoe-horned into the schedule for what was known as the Glendale Arena until its sponsor-naming last fall. The building had already been booked for the three-day District Convention of the Jehovahs Witnesses, which was to begin hours later, at 9 a.m. Friday. The convention runs through 4 p.m. Sunday and attracts about 10,000 each day.By the time the arena cleared late Thursday night, there was no way that the arenas maintenance crew could have cleaned up the concert trash, tidied the restrooms, swept down the huge 17,500-seat space and set up chairs on the main floor in time for the Witnesses to be ready to start Friday morning. So they worked out a dealAt 2 a.m., almost 2,000 Jehovahs Witnesses, some from as far away as Prescott and Flagstaff arrived at the arena, next to the University of Phoenix Stadium, to go to work. Technically, Jehovahs Witnesses contract had them taking possession of the arena on Thursday. Out of a cooperative nature, they asked us if she (McBride) could come in, said Richard Melseth of Mesa, overseer of the weekend lectures and presentations. They yielded to the concert and volunteered an army of Witnesses to help the arena staff. We overwhelmed them, Melseth said. They were working as hard as they could, but considering that they just had a big, ol concert, and a lot of trash from McBrides fans, it demanded a practical solution. We did it in record time because they would have taken many, many hours in order to prepare for something like this — something that was 180 degrees different from a (religious) service like this.Gil Garcia, a media spokesman for the convention, said Witnesses responded to the request to help on short notice. This really gives us the opportunity to rise to the challenge and test the mettle to be able to respond quickly to a challenge like this. Added Melseth: I think it demonstrates the unity as well as the cohesive nature of our community, as well as sharing a common objective in educating us how to work together.It was better than moaning and groaning for being inconvenienced, he said This weekends convention is the third and final three-day annual district convention offered this summer to the Witnesses in Arizona and New Mexico and Las Vegas areas. The first two were June 22-24 and July 20-22 (Spanish language). About 30,000 Witnesses and the public will have attended them.Meanwhile, Martina McBride began her 50-venue tour April 12 and it follows the release of her ninth album, Waking Up Laughing. The Kansan turns 42 on Sunday and has been called the Celine Dion of Country Music.

Across the planet, the Vatican has effectively established its authority across the landscape of the Roman Catholic Church. Defiance of rules and procedures is dealt with swiftly and seriously to ensure orthodoxy.In China, Catholicism has had to make due, even letting the Communist government compromise procedures that are ironclad for the big church in all other parts of the world. China is often the exception in so much of human activity. Methodically, policy must serve China. With its sheer population, the economic powerhouse cannot be ignored, even as a prime and fertile field for evangelization. So the Vatican is throttled from business-as-usual practices in China. Since 1949, when the Communist Party took control of China, the nation has been officially atheist. Official ties with the Vatican there were cut; worship was permitted only in government-controlled churches. While it let Chinese Catholics still regard the pope as their spiritual leader, the Vatican no longer could appoint priests and, more importantly, the bishops in China. Pope Benedict XVI last month wrote the government-controlled Chinese Catholic Church, asking for reconciliation. According to Reuters, Catholics make up both an above-ground church that has the sanction of the government and the underground church which answers only to Rome. The country has about 14 million four million with government-controlled churches and 10 million underground Catholics loyal to Rome.On Tuesday, Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, a state entity, said he would like the pope to pay a visit to China. According to the Associated Press, Benedict did not dismiss it but he said the whole issue was complicated. I strongly hope to be able to see the pope one day here in Beijing to celebrate Mass for us Chinese, Bainian said in an interview with an Italian newspaper. The paper was told to tell the pope that Chinese Catholics pray for him always and called for the Lord to give us the grace to welcome him here among us. The pope has insisted it must be allowed to appoint its own bishops, but the government calls that interference in its national affairs. Bainian, nonetheless, said religion could never be used to interfere in Chinas internal affairs. Beijing never accepted what the church did in Poland, he said. That was in reference to the support that the Vatican, under Pope John Paul II, a native of Poland, lent to the Solidarity Movement there in the 1980s, which was instrumental in the downfall of Polish communism and a factor in its demise across Europe.Officially, China has said it wants better relations with Rome, but it has insisted that the Vatican end its diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which it contends is an illegitimate government claiming to represent China. Look for the Vatican to remain firm and patient, and China will find it is in its interests to drop its resistance to Romes full dominion over its church in China. But I doubt this pope will ever step foot there.

Most famous people on the steep slope to their death fall out of the public eye months or years before their demise. Ego presumably has a lot to do with it. They dont want their admiring public to see them as humans wasting away to disease and age. So only family and close friends can see them.Tammy Faye Bakker Messner became the exception. To most peoples shock, she appeared Thursday night (albeit a taped interview) on CNNs The Larry King Show. By Friday, she had died from her colon cancer that had moved to her lungs. Her death, at 65, became public Saturday. The family had moved swiftly to have her cremated and a service performed.Her death, like that of televangelist Jerry Falwell, who died May 15, reminded us anew about zealous religionists whose flamboyance and personalities had a way of overshadowing their basic work. Tammy Faye, of course, was cartoonish. Her gushing and exuberance, going back to her days on the PTL Network and Heritage USA, were unsinkable. She and her husband Jimmy Bakker, the boyish evangelist, were the good-times, fun couple who praised the Lord in one breath and pleaded for viewers checks in the next. She sang joyously and prayed on camera with the greatest urgency that somehow had a financial appeal to it.She made a career out of public crying, wiping the tar of her mascara from her cheeks and tearfully talking as the spikes of her fake eyelashes flapped. Her pity-parties still gave God the glory.They mostly were a phenomenon to their Christian television crowd in the 1970s and 1980s until the scandals broke in televangelism. Millions of dollars given for ministry were swallowed up in wanton extravagance, then things got perverse when both Jimmy Bakker and evangelist Jim Swaggart were caught up in sexual infidelity. Their tearful displays of public confessions became part of TV history.In February 2001, I interviewed Jimmy Bakker at Phoenix First Assembly of God where he had spoken and was helping his second wife, Lori Graham Bakker, a one-time Mesa bedroom furniture store manager, sell her new book, More Than I Could Ever Ask. In 1989, Bakker had been given a 45-year prison sentence for mail and wire fraud for bilking followers of the Praise the Lord ministry of $158 million. He would serve just five years of the term and was released in 1994. Tammy Faye missed prosecution and was never implicated in crimes. The Bakkers were divorced in 1992 while Jimmy was in prison and, in 1993, she married Roe Messner, who happened to be a business associate of Jimmy and was sent to prison for bankruptcy fraud. Messner was commonly at Tammy Fayes side in the numerous TV interviews she would do over the years. When I interviewed Jimmy Bakker, the ex-con six years ago, he was still emphatic that he had not defrauded his PTL fans. Absolutely no, never, never, he said. My budget grew to about a million dollars every two days, and it got to the point where the budget became so big and I was broadcasting in all 50 states.It all grew too fast for him to manage, he said. At 7,000 percent growth in 18 months, he got in over his head. It was more than I could handle, he told me. I committed adultery one time that is wrong and that is a sin. And I got overwhelmed with the budget.Most of the interview related to Jimmy Bakkers bride a woman he married in 1998 just seven weeks after meeting her. The paparazzi was out in force with helicopters for the Burbank, Calif., wedding. Lori Graham Bakkers story was about the classical redeemed woman. A rise from disgrace was the article headline. I noted that Lori herself hadnt even known about the PTL Bakkers until the televangelism scandal. Meanwhile, she had gone through her own hell. Divorced in 1975 after a 10-year stormy marriage, she had husband that demanded abortions after each new pregnancy five in all. He gave me no choice either him or the babies.The decade of the first marriage for Lori was marked by beatings, drugs, alcoholism and emptiness, the one-time Mesa business operator said. After the divorce, she said she was a wild woman on the loose making the round at bars of the East Valley, calling herself the Nightclub Queen. But her fate changed when Jimmy Bakker came into her life.Tammy Faye Bakker Messners staunch fight against her cancer was emboldening for others. Her bio showed that was just 19 when she and Jimmy first began their ministry together. At one time, she ran a puppet ministry for Pat Robertsons 700 Club. The Bakkers joined Jan and Paul Crouch in launching the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The TV evangelists are a close family.One of todays highest profile televangelists, Pastor John Hagee, may have overstated Tammy Fayes impact, but here it is: She led the way for us all. The invention of the printing press in 1440 allowed the word of the Bible to reach people in unprecedented ways. Ms Bakker took it one step further. In broadcasting the Word of God across the world, Tammy Faye was responsible for bringing an uncountable number of individuals closer to God, and for that, she will be missed.

HowSexyAmI.com proclaims a billboard on eastbound lane of the Santan Freeway. It shows a photo of two pairs of feet (presumably a mans and a womans) poking out from under the covers at the back of a bed. The feet are playfully twisted. Eye-catching indeed. The billboard sends drivers to the Web site to see whats going on. Were Bringing Sexy Back declares the site of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Chandler, which plans a six-week sermon series by its senior pastor, Linn Winters, starting Aug. 12. It is further promoted by a couple videos on the Web site (www.howsexyami.com). One features 14 changing black-and-white panels of somber men and women and this narrative: How do I decide what sexy is? …. Is it how much attention you get? Is it how you feel about yourself? When I feel sexy, does that mean Ill experience great sex? Who decides? Is it People Magazine? Is it Paris Hilton? Is it Dr. Phil? Or is it possible that the one who invented sex would have something to say about sex? . And he did Would I be interested? Would I listen? Would I go? … Series begins Aug. 12. Were bringing sexy back?The other video is a quick litany of statements by some of the same people. Among the comments or questions are: What is sexy?, I wished I felt sexy? Im bored, and I feel guilty.Winters, who launched the church 12 years ago in an apartment clubhouse, states, Were not afraid to talk about it. In fact, we believe sex is all too often ignored or just plain not handled well in the church. . We will work through the important topics to find out what is really means to be sexy.He asserts that God is pro-sex and has much to say about it. Our culture has attempted to redefine it and, in doing so, has made it something that is disappointing and leaves us empty, he said. .It is clear we are struggling in this area. Marriages are consistently ripped apart by marital unfaithfulness and effects of pornography. We believe that there is something better, and we, as a church, are trying to help people get to that.Winters will get occasional support in the sermons from Shaunti Feldhahn, author of For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men, and she co-authored: For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to t he Inner Lives of Women. Also speaking will be Michael Leahy, who will tell how pornography torpedoed his marriage. Topics for the six weeks are: Aug. 12: Greatest sex ever; Aug. 19: What you dont know WILL hurt you; Aug. 26: What every woman ought to know; Sept. 2, What happens in Vegas wont stay in Vegas; Sept. 9, Just this once; and Sept. 9, Porn: Whats the big deal? Sunday services are 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Cornerstone Christian Fellowship is at 1595 S. Alma School Road, Chandler.Congratulations to a church willing to forthrightly take on human sexuality from the pulpit. Certainly in that church that draws more than 4,000 on Sunday, it may be easier to hear things about intimacy. There may not be as much squirming as one might have in a small setting. The effort certainly answers repeated calls for The Church to step up and teach about healthy sex instead of ignoring it or applying blistering guilt.

How many cold-calling solicitors for non-profit groups reach households where residents may be literally on their death beds, or who have been served with divorce papers or just learned of a loved one killed in a car accident or Iraq? In such cases, the callers must politely tiptoe out of the situation. We have all taken cheery calls to help some cause when we just got a huge bill in the mail and feel in no mood to give away money we dont have.Supporting charities falls far low on the charts in times of sickness, grief and financial hard times.Those charged with helping in church fund-raising campaign delicately work around families and individuals known to be dealing with crises, most often medical. They arent made to sit through pitches nor are given the usual deadlines to turn in their pledges. They join, in a sense, the names of people on the margins and may be lightly nudged to help once things improve or recovery seems on its way. No surprise that a sizable part of the population cannot, does not and will not contribute to charities.Imagine the chaos of doing running charities in tumultuous and war-torn parts of the world. Like how is Iraqs United Way doing right now?A trial has started in Dallas, Texas, with Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development on trial for alleged support of terrorism. It is Americas largest Muslim charity, according to a Tuesday story in the New York Times. One of the five pillars of Islam is Zakah, or alms-giving. To be in full practice with Islam, Muslims are expected to give a portion of their income to relieve the suffering of the poor. The holy month of Ramadan is especially a time to meet that obligation. Then theres the Zakah on basic wealth, with at least a 2.5 percent levy on valuables and savings.In the complicated Holy Land Foundation case, the U.S. government asserts it is an integral part of Hamas, the powerful political force in the Middle East that won political control in Lebanon and has long been in the middle of the fight for Palestinians. The prosecution maintains that the main officers of the Holy Land foundation started the organization to generate charitable donations from the United States that ultimately helped Hamas thrive, Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar writes. The defense counters that government has hatched a conspiracy story. Its being compared to the funds that Catholics in Northern Ireland said were bound for poor Irish, but, instead, reached the Irish Republican Army. The case is being closely watched by a large number of charitable organizations, as well as Muslim-Americans, McFarquhar said, because its outcome might well help determine the line separating legitimate giving from the financing of banned organizations. Put yourself in the shoes of American Muslims with deep family ties to the Middle East. The tumult and chaos there have created untold need and suffering. Their nature instincts are to direct their charitable funds to their homelands. Imagine the challenges of funneling their giving through stable, safe and effective charities struggling to function amid the turmoil. The logistics are staggering.The article notes that in Great Britain those charities that are suspected may continue to deliver services to poor people. In the U.S., they dont cut slack. If any aspect of a charitys organization is engaged in terrorist support, then the charitable organization is a problem, said Chip Poncy, strategic policy director for the terrorism finance office of the U.S. Treasury.A 42-count indictment was filed against the Holy Land foundation and seven senior officials in 2004. When it was announced, then U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft made it a centerpiece of the USA Patriots Act work. There is no distinction between those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who knowingly finance terrorist attacks.Based in Richardson, Texas, the Holy Land foundation received $57 million in donations, gifts and grants from 1992 to 2001, the indictment alleges. They say $36 million of it went straight to people or groups related to Hamas. Even after President Clinton declared, in 1995, that Hamas was a terrorist group, it got $12.4 million from the foundation, the prosecutors say. Said an official with the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C.: "It has put a chill on First Amendment rights of Muslims in this country. It’s caused Muslims to question, Will donors be criminalized?"

It’s generally an off-year for conventions of American Christian denominations. With the high cost of such national gatherings, some have moved to holding conventions on alternate years while some gather only every three or four years, or in some other variation. One downside is that fewer people overall are ever selected to be delegates to such a convention in their lifetimes. It means summers arent like they used to be one faith after another doing its business in huge arenas to set the tone of church activity for another year. Besides financial savings, the longer gaps between the big meetings slow down procedural change in the church and may force denominational officers and administrators to handle large issues themselves. But with more time between them, it makes each gathering that much more important.We should pay attention to the major matters these groups take up, especially the resolutions calling for reforms, or the abandonment of things tried and failed or statements for the world to hear about what they believe theologically or their compelling stance on national social or cultural issues. Delegates typically are overwhelmed by written and spoken reports, and they beseech the Holy Spirit to help them discern and vote wisely.The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, based in St. Louis, began its 63rd Regular Convention in Houston on Saturday and will wind up its six-day meetings Thursday. Some 4,600 members half of them pastors and half laymen have been conducting the legislative business of the 2.5 million-member church, the second largest in the Lutheran family. Its president, Gerald Kieschnick, who happens to be a Houston native, was re-elected to his third three-year term on Sunday. I met and interviewed him when he spoke at Christs Greenfield Lutheran Church in Gilbert in early 2002. He was enmeshed, at the time, in the churchs controversy over a district president speaking at Yankee Stadium in New York City, along with leaders of many faiths after the 2001 Twin Towers attacks. (The two-hour Prayer for America rally was called mushy ecumenism by Charles Colson and widely criticized for Jesus Christ getting mentioned only five times). Some wanted Kieschnick ousted for giving David Benke the go-ahead to talk at the rally with the likes of Methodists or Sikhs, thus committing syncretism, the intermingling of theologies to Christianitys detriment. Benke eventually regained his district presidency. Kieschnick, who pushed for a review of the suspension, survived as well. Delegates got to hear President Bush via videotape. He thanked Missouri Synod Lutherans for their building new homes for victims of the Asia tsunami, helping flood victims in Indonesia, giving support and comfort to senior citizens and aiding HIV/AIDS victims and malaria in Kenya. You are providing light in times of darkness and making our world a better place, he told them. He saluted the denomination for providing more than 90 chaplains to the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq.He thanked the Lutherans for helping him preserve the sanctity of marriage, pushing for judges who strictly interpret the Constitution and devoting themselves to family, faith and freedom. Congratulations on marking your 160th year of preaching the Good News, Bush said. I wish you luck on your ambitious Ablaze program, which is working to reach 100 million people with the gospel in the coming decade.

The unfathomable $660 million going to clergy abuse victims in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles just conjures if-only thoughts in my mind. Sort of the same if-only thoughts if we had not started a war in Iraq and therefore had $12 billion per month to spend domestically on education, health care and rebuilding our cities.Mistakes and faulty judgment at the very top have led to massive unintended consequences an untold trail of victims, real innocent human beings. Leaders could have cut the losses much earlier by decisive action. Instead, things soared out of control in epic disaster.It seems to have taken many years to finally get this settlement for some 508 people who came forward with legitimate accounts of being taken advantage of sexually by priests going back seven decades. That doesnt count how many victims died in that time taking their untold stories to the grave. On Monday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Haley Fromholz approved the worked-out settlement between victims and the archdiocese led by Cardinal Roger Mahony and the most populous archdiocese in the U.S. It is the largest settlement to date for abuses, far exceeding the $85 million paid out in the Archdiocese of Boston to compensate 552 victims, announced in 2003. Each victim stands to receive an average of $1.3 million. That comes after five years of negotiations, with attorneys, of course, coming out handsomely, taking 40 percent.Mahony has led the diocese for 22 years and must be held accountable for years of allowing abuses to go on. You can look for growing pressure for him to resign or be reassigned by the Vatican in the same way Boston Cardinal Bernard Law became the first American bishop asked by the pope to give up his seat. After Law surrendered his post in December 2002, he was assigned to new duties in Rome. Victims of abuse had said Law should have gone to jail. MSNBC reported Monday that abuse victims in the L. A. archdiocese were upset that leaders of the archdiocese, including Mahoney, did not show up in court to acknowledge under oath what had happened to them and others over the past 70 years. Many victims accuse Mahony of having swept the abuse problem under the rug by transferring accused priests from parish to parish. The archbishop on Sunday made this statement of apology: There really is no way to go back and give them that innocence that was taken from them. The only thing I wish I could give the victims I cannot. Once again, I apologize to anyone who has been offended, who has been abused. I should not have happened and should not happen again.The new settlements take the totals to more than $2 billion in sexual abuse payouts to victims across the American Catholic landscape. Of course, for at least 20 years, we have seen individual priests abuse cases dealt with. Yet, few viewed it as the proverbial tip of the iceberg until the litany of cases reached critical mass, until the Boston Globe documented how horrendous it was and until groups like the SNAP Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and related groups pressed for justice. That such abuses could be so ubiquitous in dioceses from coast to coast and across so many decades begs questions about human weakness and temptation and about some insidious, underground communications among clergy of what could be gotten away with through the authoritative power of the priesthood.Whats interesting is seeing how Mahony and others try to quell the concerns of the massive flock as to the economic impact of the payouts. The Associated Press quoted Mahony that they would not have an impact on the archdioceses core ministry, but that the church would have to sell buildings, use some of its invested funds and borrow money. Under terms of the settlement, the archdiocese will pay $250 million, insurance carriers are to pay $227 millions and religious order pay $60 million, while the rest ($123 million) comes from litigation with religious orders that chose not to participate in the deal, the AP said. For those 80 to 100 cases tied to non-participating religious orders, the archdiocese pledges a resolution within five years. Until now, the Los Angeles Archdiocese had settled 86 claims and gave out more than $114 million to victims. That so much abuse went on for so many decades in so many dioceses led by so many bishops who should have had the oversight and authority to intercede speaks volumes about the flaws in human behavior — both by the abusers and their superiors. Safeguards may largely be in place now. But from what we have seen in such divergent inhumanities as the Holocaust to priest pedophilia, heinous and sordid people have a way of abusively feasting on others while others look away. Surely Cardinal Mahony cannot feasibly last in his post through the recovery of the Los Angeles Archdiocese from the shame and costly consequences.

Across the meeting table recently, two friends talk about Republican presidential candidates and the front-runners. One noted that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had been married three times. That shouldnt matter whether he can govern as president, the other firmly retorted. Thats a mans personal life unrelated to the talents of leadership, he insisted.Marital stability, once virtually expected in such candidates, seems to be a marginal issue. When there was more chatter about Giulianis three marriages, including his first one to his second cousin, it was also learned that his current wife, Judith Nathan Giuliani, was in her third marriage, not her second has it had been thought. It was never clear why her first marriage at age 20 in 1974 and lasting five years had been overlooked.This week, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., acknowledged that his name was on the a madams escort service phone records in Washington, D.C., which the D.C. Madam made public amid as she fights her own legal battles. Vitter has become the latest public official to go public with his infidelity. He said he was sorry for his serious sin and had made peace with his wife.This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible, the senator said Monday in a written statement. Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Unlike some discoveries of immorality of public officials in which loved ones and the family find things out together, Vitters family learned this some years back and had settled it then. So out of respect for them, he opted to not talk further. I will keep my discussion of the matter there with God and them. In recent decades, the behavior and misbehavior of public figures politicians, entertainers, business executives and sports figures — have gotten such relentless news coverage that it doesnt shock anymore. In fact, there is a near-expectation that political candidates come with baggage and scandals. In our cynicism, we seem resigned to believe that virtually all folks who reach pinnacles of power and influence have had their ruthless moments or cut some corners to get an upper hand. Choir boys are not elected president of the United States. Power comes with at least a modicum of corruption.Politics is a dirty business, beset with temptations, pressures and ambitions. Many talented people wont venture into public service out of fear of their private lives being made public or something being trump up regarding their reputation. So, theres a notion that those willing to go into public office are vulnerable to ambush and theres less surprise when it happens. The Christian Science Monitors Daniel B. Wood on Thursday reported that American voters dont automatically dismiss candidates involved in sex scandals, but the circumstances matter. Written in the aftermath of the Vitters revelation and infidelity revelations of Los Angels Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the article (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0712/p03s03-uspo.html)said voters are willing to forgive under the right circumstances. Wood quoted a Philadelphia political science professor, Mary Ellen Balchunis-Harris, that times have indeed changed. Americans have gotten over the fact that their politicians arent perfect.A Gallup Poll in May found that 91 percent of those polled regarded adultery as wrong, but that two watershed events that dominated the media the infidelity of two highly effective politicians may have created greater resigned acceptance. One was the 1988 frenzy over then-Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., whose presidential hopes were doomed by his affair with Donna Rice. The other was the affair of President Bill Clinton with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, made public in 1998. Clinton survived it and had personal approval ratings for his leadership performance. If Clinton could hang onto the presidency after that, then it weakens the argument that any lesser public official could be removed from his position," the writer quotes Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.Further, pollsters seem to have found the public are facing a kind of reality. In a February Pew poll, 56 percent of those who say they vote said that an extramarital affairs made no difference in whether they would support a candidate. On the other hand, 39 percent noted they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who had been unfaithful. Republicans were far less willing to consider voting for such a philanderer. Sixty-two percent of Republicans versus 25 percent of Democrats said they were less likely to give them their votes. And how swiftly politicians responded and how remorseful they seemed are keys to ultimate public reaction, Wood reported.

My summer reading has been pretty bleak. I have focused on articles, newsletters and books that take a macro examination of world religions and where they seem to be headed. Once I thought we were moving, albeit painfully slowly, toward interfaith understanding and dtente. Not anymore. The we-are-better-than-you obsession seems intent on prevailing, never mind civilizations survival. Forces leading global faiths are determined to gain the upper hand through edicts and statements that are undoing the work of spiritual peace-makers seeking common ground over decades and centuriesLatest evidence: Pope Benedict XVIs rattling 16-page document released Tuesday that reaffirms the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church and how flawed other Christian churches are. Here is how a Catholic News Service reporter in Rome, John Thavis, worded it: In a brief document, the Vaticans doctrinal congregation reaffirmed that the Catholic Church is the one true church, even if elements of truth can be found in separated churches and communities.Ecumenical News International phrased it this way: The document says that Protestant denominations of the Reformation have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery (and) cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called churches in the proper sense.And Reuters News explained Christian Orthodox churches are true churches but they suffer from a wound because they did not recognize the primacy of the pope. (Christianity went through its Great Schism in 1054 after centuries of brooding over papal supremacy). While Orthodox traditions do, in fact, maintain an apostolic succession, a priesthood and the Eucharist, it is still lacking something in their condition as particular churches because they united under the pope in Rome, Reuters said. Benedicts statement has been explained as a step to clear up ambiguity of previously stated doctrine. Anything not Roman Catholic is either defective or not true churches. The document, which will be debated and analyzed a long time, was called Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church. So while other churches, now a term used loosely, may have some sanctifying elements that can be used as instruments of salvation, their actual value emanates from the fullness of grace and truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church, it said in drawing words from a Vatican II statement called Decree on Ecumenism.The great gulf not only stems from Protestants nonacceptance of papal authority and the succession of leadership from Christs apostles to Pope Benedict, but the understanding of Holy Communion, or the Eucharist, itself. Protestants generally regard Holy Communion as a sacrament that re-enacts the Last Supper and becomes a moment of grace. Catholics are taught that Jesus Christ himself actually indwells the bread or wine in what is the ultimate mystery.The announcement triggered widespread surprise, especially Protestant groups like the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, consisting of 75 million folks living in more than 100 countries. It makes us question whether we are indeed praying together for Christian unity. It asked, How serious were Catholics all along to engage in ecumenical dialogue with Reformed groups when it now says they are inferior followers of Christ? Yet a Vatican undersecretary, the Rev. J. Augustine Di Noia, insisted the document does not undercut the popes work toward ecumenical progress. He insisted that when people go into a Catholic church and take part in the Mass, both the sacraments and the spiritual experience demonstrate everything that Christ intended the church to be.Tell that to hundreds of millions of non-Catholics who believe Christ is fully present in their spiritual experiences. Other religions, of course, tout such superiority and perfection but many thought the Catholic Church was about finished with that privileged claim in the face of Christianity’s critical need to confront common threats and problems.