blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

In 1992 the Church of England (CoE) voted in its Synod to ordain women priests. It followed the wake of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States (TEC) which decided to ordain women priests in 1979. The first Anglican church to ordain a woman is Hong Kong, whose bisjop ordained its first woman priest Florence Lim in 1944 as a response to a need to minister to women during the Japanese occupation of the territory. It became obvious that when the CoE decides to ordain women as priests then it must ordain them as bishops. TEC ordained its first woman suffragan bishop Barbara Harris in 1989. However the first Anglican church to ordain a woman bishop as a diocesan was New Zealand who ordained Penny Jamieson in 1989. TEC elected a woman primate (head of a national church), Dr Katherine Jeffert-Schori in 2006. On the picture here is a supposed ancient depiction of the Virgin Mary as a priest and bishop. She is supposed to wear the Pallium, which is a vestment used only by metropol...

Pope Benedict XVI is like any good professor should be. He just given new insight on something very Darwinian. In a year end message to the Roman Curia , Benedict linked why there are two sexes only and why the environment has to be protected. The whole Darwinian understanding of sex is premised on the existence of 1) Males and 2) Females. Now it is only males and females period. Either males or females may do sexual selection and reproduce and by consequence any sexual preference aside from heterosexuality (which doesn't result in reproduction) will be naturally selected out. That is the Darwinian understanding. Any so called "homosexual" behaviour in animals is only an facultative way to achieve heterosexuality. Straightness rules in evolution and this means a male/female binary only. But some scientists like Joan Roughgarden have provided evidence that there might be multigenders in nature. But Roughgarden has to prove that these genders are functional with respect to ...

The NYTimes has this article about what turns on heterosexual women. According to experimental psychologists. It seems that images of naked men like David above turn on women as much as Mount Everest does! No wonder men really can't figure out women!

The media buzz was probably so irritating to the Vatican that L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican blurb had to make a press statement that the Pope doesn't wear Prada. That started when almost right after his election, the Pontiff was spotted by the fashion savvy wearing red loafers presumbably made by the Italian fashion house. Here's what the Telegraph says about it all. The Pontiff brought back red accessories, the medieval camauro, red copes, red vestments and of course the red Saturno cap. Papal watchers said that these fashion accessories were not worn since John XXIII was on the papal throne. In a visit to an orphanage at Christmastide John XXIII was mistaken for Santa by the poor kids. The Good Pope chuckled and never corrected the error! But for Benedict, only the extremely myopic can mistake the Professorial Pope for Father Christmas. Succeeding Pontiffs Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II were not fashion icons. John Paul II needed only his face to be T...

Residents of the island of Lesbos have lodged a suit in the Greek courts to have exclusive rights to use the adjective "Lesbian" to describe themselves. In the BBC World news coverage, reporters interviewed several "male Lesbians who are married to women". The residents of Lesbos say that the word "Lesbian" as it is used to describe homosexual women, insults them. Protesters have unfurled banners saying "If you are not from Lesbos, you aren't Lesbian", "Proud to be Lesbian and straight!" The most famous Lesbian is a woman poet named Sappho who in her poetry expressed her love for women. The adjective "lesbian"comes from the name of her island. So that's the reason why the residents of Lesbos are up in arms. Perhaps a compromise can be had. Lesbos residents can have "Lesbian" and homosexual women can have the more accurate Victorian term "Sapphist" to describe themselves. That word fell out of use i...

I finally saw that controversial rectal surgery video (taken in a Cebu government hospital) on a cable news channel in which a 39 year old gay florist was on the operating table as doctors (and nurses) try to remove a 7 inch body spray canister from his anus. On the video were several medical staff taking photos with their cellphone cameras. The video was allegedly taken without the patient's consent and the doctors and nurses were cheering and laughing. The video was uploaded on YouTube and got 7 million hits until it was taken out of the site. The issue has raised questions and medical ethics, patient confidentiality, privacy, gay rights, class discrimination and good grief, Catholic theology! I believe that the antics of the doctors and nurses have made an a_s of the health professions.The doctors and nurses have shoved up something in theirs! They have shot down the traditional respect we have for them. It is time that the spotlight be on doctors and nurses if they step out of ...

While I find Michael Tan's op ed column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer interesting reading,I found his latest column Wanted:Female nothing but plain stereotyping of heterosexual males and their mothers! Awful! While it is true that some mums do spoil their bratty boys, I don't think that all mums do spoil their kids. Also many boys do household chores though there are still some gender division of labour on the kind of chores done. If boys do chores, will they be as bratty as Mike Tan thinks they are? I know classmates from elementary school who come from a family of all boys and they do chores. Now no one doubts their masculinity. I also know a classmate who comes from a family of all girls. Now she had to do boy things like help dad fix the car. No one in his/her right mind would say she isn't feminine. And what's wrong with "Diskarte"? Females also practise their own kind of "diskarte"? And what's wrong with "pare"talk? If the me...