The Rev. Chris Carpenter was known as “Father Flick” in the Catholic Sun diocesan newspaper for his reviews of film and was pastor of Christ the King Catholic Church in Mesa from 1997 until January 2006. But he resigned at age 38 for what were called health reasons, moved to southern California to write and pursue other church work. Back and forth communications with the bishop have been cold since then. And Carpenter has been very public, along the way, with his displeasure with Roman Catholic practices and actions.

Over the weekend, Carpenter e-mailed an Easter letter to many friends, including those in the Valley. “I’m very happy to report that I have been accepted as a priest of the Reformed Catholic Church, effective today, Easter Sunday,” he wrote. He joins a Columbus, Ohio-based, Catholic movement. “We are a progressive, international, rapidly growing (including in the Phoenix area) communion descended from the ‘Old Catholics’ who broke with Rome in 1870 over papal infallibility.” Carpenter said the movement supports open communion, which permits non-Catholics and divorced/remarried people to receive it. It also supports the ordination of women to the priesthood, the full inclusion and participation of gay and lesbian people and the optional celibacy for priests. “We use the same liturgy, rites and prayers as the Roman church,” Carpenter noted. More can be found at www.reformedcatholicchurch.org.

“Their leadership has welcomed me with open arms, and I am grateful,” he wrote to friends.

Carpenter said he had been in the final stages of a three-year process of “dis-affiliating” with the Roman Catholic Church. “But I have had a fire lit under me in recent months via several critical letters from Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix,” the priest wrote. “Among other things, he disapproves of my ‘involvement in the homosexual community’ through the gay and lesbian ministry I chair in a non-clergy capacity at St. Matthew’s parish in Long Beach and has asked me to resign, even though the ministry is approved and supervised by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.’”

The former Mesa priest noted that he had requested sacramental faculties (the ability to celebrate Mass, baptize, do weddings, etc.) from Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and Bishop Tod Brown of the Orange diocese. His work has bridged both dioceses. “My requests of over a year ago have gone unanswered, which seems unprofessional, at best,” he said.

“The Roman Catholic Church today barely seems like the same church I was ordained to served in 1995,” Carpenter wrote. “In the wake of the sexual abuse scandal and the death of Pope John Paul II, many of the church’s leaders seem more and more to me like the legalistic Pharisees whom Jesus condemned during his time.” He said Pope Benedict XVI “has revealed glaring insensitivity and potential incompetence through his welcoming of radical traditionalist bishops, at least one of whom happens to be an anti-Semitic holocaust-denier.” Carpenter further was critical of the pope’s “challenging the effectiveness of condom use for AIDS prevention while in Africa where millions of people have died.”

Carpenter said he will be the first Reformed Catholic Church priest in California and has additionally been appointed Vicar of California and will oversee growth in the state. “I will also begin the formation of a Long Beach-based parish that has been named the Community of the Resurrection. He will continue his full-time ministry as a non-denominational/interfaith hospice chaplain. “My employers have been very supportive throughout my vocation discernment,” he said. They even recently gave him a raise.

He said he had no choice but to “leave the Roman (not the Catholic) church,” Carpenter said. “I’m very excited about returning to public, priestly ministry.” He said he finds it likely that once Olmsted receives and reviews his letter, he could be excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church or be disciplined in some other way.

While at Christ the King in Mesa, Carpenter had joined some 160 pastors of all faiths in signing the Phoenix Declaration, developed by No Longer Silent - Clergy for Justice. It called for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people to have full acceptance in the Christian faith, including ordination. When Olmsted learned in April 2004 that nine priests had signed it, he ordered them to remove their names. Carpenter was one of eight who backed down and removed their names. The priest would write later, “Something died as a result of the personal and public showdown over the Phoenix Declaration. A chilling effect has been experienced throughout all Catholic parishes and institutions concerned about outreach and ministry to LGBT persons.”

“There is a growing number of disillusioned Catholics here and around the world who are eager for what the Reformed Catholic Church has to offer,” Carpenter concluded.

    I was born and reared in Iowa, earned a journalism degree from Iowa State University and worked 10 years for an Iowa daily newpaper. I spent about 35 years living in the state. There were times I was embarrassed to be an Iowan because of the state’s lack of progress in some areas of social development.

But today this ex-Iowan salutes the Hawkeye state for the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling made public Friday to overnturn the 1998 ban on gay marriage.  In three weeks, that state joins Massachusetts and Connecticut as states where the marriage between two loving adults, regardless of gender, will be legal.  The 69-page decision, some are saying, is consistent with a state that has, in fact, been out in front on Civil Rights. The justices found that the state law restricting marriage to between a man and a woman violated Iowa’s Constitution.

Polk County Attorney John Sarcone announced his office will not ask for a rehearing, which is permitted for 21 days.  “Our Supreme Court has decided it, and they make the decision as to what the law is, and we follow Supreme Court decisions,” Sarcone said.    As one would predict, conservatives greeted it with a we’re-going-to-hell lament.  “It’s a perversion, and it opens the door to more perversions,” said the Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr., pastor of Main Street Baptist Church in Des Moines.

Certainly they’ll hammer the Legislature to pass new laws and try to get a public referendum to reverse what’s happened, much as what occurred last November in California where the state’s high court legalized gay marriage, only to see it overturned by a state proposition whose campaigns, pro and con, set records for spending.

The Iowa Court upheld an August 2007 decision by Polk County District Court Judge Robert Hanson, who found that a state law allowing marriage only between a man and a woman violates the state’s constitution rights of equal protection.

This decision and liberal civil union rules in New Jersey, New Hampshire and Vermont, what was started in California and what now exists in these three states create a critical mass for a stronger movement that won’t be stopped.  Iowa doesn’t require a residency rule — just a three-day waiting period — for marriage, so you can expect many couples, in Middle America especially, will take advantage of the new change.

Amen to these words from the Supreme Court: “We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important government objective. The Legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justication.”

I am so proud of Iowa. I sent congratulatory e-mails to friends in Iowa today to laud them for having a state that is leading the way.

Being out of work and semi-retired opens new opportunities that I had never expected. That includes spontaneity and the chance to be impulsive.  I can hear about a place I want to be and not have to immediately think about my job obligations.

So when I heard that President Barack Obama was coming to the Valley, I thought I would take the chance of seeing him, whatever the time or hour, in that place.  I expected it would be Veterans Memorial Coliseum or U.S. Airways Arena or Wells Fargo Arena, or even in an outdoors area.  On Sunday, when I learned it was Dobson High School in Mesa, I began to wonder what space availability would be like. After all, the school has a large enrollment and wouldn’t students alone fill the place?  On Facebook, I learned that tickets would be given out on Monday, but to get a ticket, one really needed to camp out Sunday night because “only 200 to 200 tickets would be distributed.”

It’s too cold on February nights to camp out.  So I got up at 3 a.m. Monday, put on two pairs of waffle long underwear, two pairs of socks, and four layers of shirts, then headed to Dobson.  Alas, a long line was already stretching along the north side of the parking lot. I was told to start beyond the driveway at the northwest corner of the parking lot. I put down my folding chair and turned on my flashlight and began the wait, accompanied by the book “Lies My Teacher Told Me” by James Loewen.  Soon someone came by putting numbers on our hands to try to prevent newcomers from infiltrating the line. I was No. 467.

I shivered through the wait, made friends with my neighbors and never expected to get a ticket. Krispy Kreme doughnuts were giving out by the boxes to the crowds  But we kept moving forward for literally hours after people started being sent by about 20 at a time to the school to register and get a ticket.  I got mine at 11:15 a.m.  I heard about 600 tickets were given out that morning.

Then it started all over to attend the event. I returned to Dobson about 4:45 a.m. Wednesday in advance of doors opening at 8:30 a.m. It was colder but I had three pairs of socks, two pairs of gloves and four layers under my suit and flag tie. Time went by relatively fast. I visited with so many I knew, especially my former colleagues at the Tribune who still have jobs and were reporting on and photographing the event.  The protesters, with the broad and varied messages, gave it a carnival atmosphere.  Jeers and shouts and counter protest gave color and drama to the scene. A Catholic Sun reporter was going to interview me, but when I gave him my name, he opted not to interview a known reporter, even if no longer one working the beat.

I went through the security when our time came and made my way in the the Dobson gym and took a seat on the floor well toward the back. In retrospect, I wished I had taken a bleacher seat or had wandered around the seats up front and found one not taken.  Everyone seemed armed with a picture cellphone and/or digital camera.  Through the long wait for Obama, people were constantly shooting photos and sending them off to family and friend.  Throughout the president’s speech, the camera flashes were nonstop.

Arizona politicians and public officials were everywhere, backslapping, networking, positioning themselves, standing and talking in the spotlights to be seen the hall.  Obama was as crisp and articulate of a speaker as always. He was on message and no-nonsense throughout. No town hall format, no jeers or wisecracks from the audience. It seemed over quickly.

President Obama is the seventh U.S. president I have seen in person:  1) Lyndon Johnson outside a Disciples of Christ church in downtown Washington, D.C., in 1966; 2) Richard Nixon campaigning in Urbandale, Iowa, in 1968; 3) Ronald Reagan speaking to us at the Kiwanis International Convention in 1987 in Washington, D.C.; 4) Bill Clinton outside of Gammage Auditorium in Tempe in 1996 while campaigning; 5) George W. Bush in June 1999 in Waterloo, Iowa, while campaigning, met him, talked with him, got his autograph and had a picture taken with him; 6) Gerald Ford on an airport cart in the Denver Airport in 2003; and 7) Barack Obama in Mesa.

It was 1958 when the simple song, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” became a big hit, literally across the world. In America, Mahalia Jackson recorded it, and that led to its wider use as a song in just about every kind of setting, especially as a campfire and youth group song. It was ecumenical and applicable everywhere.

“He’s got you and me brother in his hands, he’s got you and my sister in his hands…” and so it went.  Very simple and no hidden message.  Recently, when I became part of those whose jobs were eliminated in the Tribune’s major downsizing and reinvention, I marveled at my own hands and how much they had done in 63 years of life and, especially, 45 years of pressing the keyboard in basic journalism. Those fingers tap the lettered keys that I almost never look at.  Of course, we have programmed it  with our brains through steady practice.  I can probably type 90 words a minute, but I have not tried to determine that for many years.

I would never suffer an accident that would break a bone, sprain a wrist or dislocate a shoulder, thus putting my craft as a writer out of action. I watched a good number of colleagues work around such injuries, improvising to work the typewriter or computer keyboard. My magnificent hands banged out millions of words on command. Since eighth grade when I first learned to type (I was required for all in my small Iowa school distict), I developed the proper typing techniques — not the hunt-and-peck method that some very veteran writers have used. One of my great prized possesions before computers was a Smith-Corona electric typewriter I purchased in an Army PX while in the Army in 1971. It would be such an important part of me for a couple decades.

I pounded on the keyboard a lot over these decades in both work, personal writing and lots of community projects, like reports and meeting minutes. Yet I never suffered carpal tunnel syndrome or related conditions that, for some, equired surgery, wrist supports or time off.

Of course, my hands — and your hands — have been summoned to do so much, that it defies making any kind of a master list.  As a boy, they carried so many rocks out of the Iowa dirt and droppedhem on a “stone boat” to be taken to fill driveway potholes on the farm. Or they washed cows’ udders to ready them for the chore of milking.. They pulled weeds, clasped twine on bales of hay or straw, drove hammers, wrapped around baseball bats, caught high flies, clasped books that took me all the way through college and graduate school. They shook the hands of Ted Kennedy, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, George W. Bush, Shirley Temple Black and Ernie Banks, to name a few notables.  My hands got slivers out of my kids’ fingers, wiped tears from their eyes and their behinds, held them as they were rocked to sleep and to get them dressed so many times, and showed them ow to pray.  Now they do the same for grandchildren.

Not too many years after our marriage in 1973, it became impossible to get my wedding ring off my left hand because of a fattening finger, and so it has become a fixture there. I don’t think it will wear out and have to be replace.

My hands have been scraped in falls, bruised, caught in doors and bent backwards, but never enough to change my patterns.  I have generally small hands that carried callouses when I was a farm boy but no longer have  had the roughness of a working man’s hands.

On May 25, 1986, I led a group of about 80 people from my Tempe church to a milepost west of Phoenix on I-40 where we held hands and stretched out to form a link in “Hands Across America,” a grandiose idea to get people to form a human chain from America East Coast to the West Coast to raise awareness about hunger. There were never enough  people, so there were huge gaps.

Surely our hands are part of our greatest possessions that make us human. They hand us the chance to enjoy the most in life. Let’s give our hands a hand.

On the eve of the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president, I am swept up in a euphoria like nothing I can ever recall.  On this Martin Luther King Civil Rights Day, I hung out the flag, then headed off on the light rail to Margaret HancePark in downtown Phoenix where I spent the day with a throng of largely African-Americans in the annual MLK celebration in that park.   I have joined friends there every January celebration for about a decade.

We are human right activists seeking to capture some of the social justice sentiments of the setting to fight against the injustice that is male genital mutilation, more commonly known as circumcision.  Our chapter of the National Organization of Circumcision Information and Resource Centers has worked for 20 years in the Valley to educate the public and inform parents to leave their sons and grandsons, friends’ sons and others from foreskin amputation.  Alas, African-Americans have been as misled and misinformed as so many whites in the cruel, medically unethical procedure. Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians and Europeans are wise enough to reject such medical bunk.

On Monday, we basked in the joys of the throng at the park that one of them, Barack Obama, would take the oath of office as the next American president. The variety of Obama T-shirts being worn was remarkable. The happiness in the black community in the Valley has never been greater.  They and we are so hopeful that Obama will  demonstrate more than greatness, that he  will be so commanding in executing his vision that will transform America and show what the American presidency is truly capable of.

If you had the chance to watch the HBO special “We Are One” concert on Sunday from Lincoln Memorial (I DVR’d it for repeated rewatching), you witnessed a showcase of some of America’s great singers, personalities and speakers as they weaved rousing music with historical readings. It included Garth Brooks, Bon Jovi, Josh Groban,  Tom Hanks, James Taylor, Beyonce, Steve Wonder, U2’s Bono, Ashley Judd and John Mellencamp, withremarks by both Obama and Vice President-Designate Sen. Joseph Biden.  We were treated to a clip of the late icon Marian Anderson singing “America” more than 60 years ago on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution had denied her singing in Constitution Hall because whe was black.

Garth Brooks ended his singing, “God Bless America. God bless the world.” It’s that kind of spirit that is now pervading the discussion as the nation turns the page this week. Obama words on Tuesday surely will be carefully crafted for history and books of quotations and to be carved into stone one day.

As we look at the millions who have invaded Washington to be part of the moment, we see just more of what Nov. 4 was about: Making sure that change could and would happen, this time.  I suspect the litany of missteps of the Bush administration has soundly awakened a large segment of America to be vigilant at not allowing the political system to be taken over any time soon by ideologues, theocrats and those who determined that the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights could be bent to serve their agenda.  We have been awakened of what government must be and what it cannot be allowed to be.  Let’s hope we get away from fear politics and bullying diplomacy.

May the Obama administration move quickly to make the repairs and boldly move forward to do what is right for people of not only the United States but for the entire world.  Never in history, I suspect, have more people on this planet held more hope for new, wise and thoughtful display of American leadership .  Our prayers are long, deep and genuine for President Obama.  May we witness epic greatness.

At the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, he said, “Welcome to this celebration of American renewal … I stand here today as hopeful, as ever, that the United States of America will endure….Faith that anytime in America is possible.”

Savor this moment and pray for unity and resolve unprecedented in our epic history.

Can you imagine that if Arizona State University were playing University of Arizona in football in Sun Devil Stadium, all women would be banned from attending the game because the stadium is “male space” where men have to be men? Women couldn’t attend because they’d be dishonored being exposed to foul language of fanatic male fans. After all, men have a hard time behaving civilly.

One morning recently while I was finishing up a newsletter at home, I watched a film “Offside” that was made in Tehran, Iran, in 2006. It showcased the folkways of a society where the sexes are segregated. The film was made outside a soccer stadium during the actual qualifying match for the World Cup between teams from Iran and Bahrain.

It magnificently followed Iranian female soccer diehard enthusiasts who used wile and male disguises to penetrate the stadium gates with legitimate tickets, but as they tried to get into the stadium itself, they were recognized as women, captured and put into holding areas. Most of the film surrounds the women trying to bargain their way out of detention, while their police/soldier holders resent the women for making them the heavies.

Police also resent that they can’t look at the game through gates because they are occupied literally babysitting the women who continually display their knowledge of the Iranian soccer team. All the while, the soccer match goes on in the background through crescendos of cheers. The guards are conflicted by trying to show a modicum of manners toward the women but fearing that bending rules would land them in big trouble with superiors.

Veteran Iranian film director Jafar Panahi had to be a bit deceptive to make the film in the milieu of a real soccer match — a film that would cast negative light on the culture of Iran that became an Islamic republic in 1979. The best scenes came when one woman pleaded that she had to go to the restroom. Her male guard argued with her, saying there were no women’s restrooms in the stadium, that it was the woman’s own fault that she was in this predicament of needing a restroom and that the men’s restrooms are covered with crude graffiti unfit for a woman’s eyes. She threatened that she would relieve herself in her holding area. After constant pleas, the guard came up with a poster of a soccer star, made her a mask out of it and told her to put it over her face so she could slip into the restroom without being suspected. Inside, the guard has to drive out male restroom users who hassle him. In the course of things, the woman escapes to the outside and blends into the stadium crowd.

All the females were non-professional actors, mostly from Tehran University. Oddly Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had attempted in April 2006 to lift the absurd ban of women in the stadiums, but after he nullified it, the hardcore Islamic clerics overturned it. Leave it to religious leaders in a land of tyranny. Another irony: The Tehran stadium, is Azadi Stadium. Azadi means “freedom.”

So much for the cradle of civilization.

– 1) Religion is under-regarded as a force for driving so much of world events. Kudus to Arizona State University for developing its Center for The Study of Religion and Conflict.

– 2) Most people practice their faith oblivious to what others are doing. The most faithful are comfortable in their rituals and routines and aren’t about to take up calls for change or reform.

–3) Men more commonly turn away from religion and begrudgingly attend worship services on Christmas and Easter out of a sense of obligation and a wee impulse to reconnect with the divine.

–4) People who actively engage in a faith community consider others in their congregations among their best friends, and those relationships solidify their loyalties to that congregation and tend to keep them there.

–5) Most congregations are woefully lacking in promotion and marketing. Seeking news coverage is a late thought. Jews consistently do the best job.

–6) Congregations’ Web sites tend to be stale and poorly updated. Typically, a Webmaster sets it up and it is then fed with updated information, but neglect sets in and old, outdated information turns off on-line visitors.

–7) There’s no way to tell how many “fellowships” and faith communities there are in communities. Some are so fledgling, such as house churches or one person’s ministry just getting off the ground, that they aren’t on the radar screen.

–8) Ethnic congregations seem to taking root everywhere through communications among themselves and are flexible in renting established churches for off-hour services and developing thriving fellowships.

–9) The same 20 percent of the people in a congregation get put to work “volunteering” to do 80 percent of the tasks. Many have learned how to graciously and forcefully turn down requests to take duties. There’s even a kind of resentment when the hard workers become ill and can’t help anymore.

10) Megachurches are a buzz of activity, with good money spent on the best technology, from how kids are checked into a nursery to big screens and fog machines for worship. Some are like villages with their offerings and programs.

11) Church school offices are often packed with curriculum and remnants of years gone by. Church libraries contain generations-old books whose titles don’t seem relevant anymore.

 12) Clergy earnestly seek out their peers for consoling one another, for commiserating and getting needed support for the pressures of ministry. They are guarded with whom the gather regularly, wanting to be comfortable with those who are like mentors and shoulders to cry on. Some clergy associations are effective at rallying for ecumenical and interfaith projects, but faith leaders generally prefer meeting with their theologically compatible friends.

13) Church potlucks are a blessing. But the desserts are sinfully bad for holding cholesterol in check.

14) Houses of worship are the perfect settings for powerful art — sculpture, paintings, ceramics, prints — but there is so little of it to be found.

15) People who snore in church need to remember to get a good night’s rest before. As for those whose cell-phones go off during services, don’t let it ever happen again.

16) Churches’ phone systems are not friendly. Beyond their being supremely impersonal, it is often impossible to talk to a person. And those that require one to put in the “first three letters of the last name…” are faulty and problematic. Just give us someone to answer as soon as the church office is called. Directions and service times should be presented by transferring the call.

17) Congregations ought to take worship outdoors more often, whether under the trees in back or to a park. There isn’t enough celebration in God’s wider creation.

18) It takes discipline to be in choirs — from the weeknight practices to warm-ups before services to the special concerts, retreats and weekly expectations to be there to sing for worship. Choir members should be appreciated more.

19) Those who claim they have somehow been abused by religion or its practitioners are NOT likely making that stuff up.

20) When church leaders are asked how many members or families they have, they always pause, grimace and give a number, with qualifications like “not including winter visitors” or “families, kids and all.” Who really knows?

While cleaning out my eight file drawers of mostly religion-related paper files at the Tribune recently, I found a file marked “Papal Money Survey.”   It was from November 1988 — more than 20 years ago.  The file tells of how one group of journalists dealt with winning and spending $1,000 from a newspaper contest.

As the Tribune religion editor in 1987, I was in charge of the overall coverage of the historic visit of Pope John Paul II t the Valley Sept. 14-15. We had a team of writers, photographers and other staff getting the story told. John D’Anna, now with the Arizona Republic, was the city editor handling logistics on that end.

In 1988, we learned the effort had won the “Best of Cox Newspaper Awards” category for “deadline writing” in competition with other  papers in the Cox Newspapers chain, which owned our papers until 1996. So how should we distribute the $1,000?   Well, first off, we established the “Pope Award Spending Committee” made up of me, Anne Rackham, Paul O’Neill and Bob Yoho.  We subsequently decided to write a letter to the 50 staffers who had been part of the papal visit work and have them fill out a survey. There were four options:  Divide the $1,000 among those news room reporters, editors, photographers and copy editors employed Sept. 14 and still on the staff; use it for a news room party; establish a scholarship fund; or “my idea is…”

We got back 33 surveys.  Some suggested a scholarship in the name of the late Walter Zipf, a longtime Tribune columnist and Mesa observer. There was a suggestion that it be a scholarship named for retiring Tribune editor Peggy Bryant. Nine said scholarship; 13 said to give it to me for overseeing coverage. Three wanted a party.  Three suggested we put it in the Arizona Lottery.

In the end, the decision was made to give me half, $500; spend $400 for a party; and $100 for the Quick Pick Lottery.  Here’s what a letter to staff said: “If we win the jackpot (six numbers correct), 5 percent will fund a Walter Zipf scholarship and the rest will be distributed among the editorial staff. If we get fewer, than six numbers, but win more than $2,000, half will go to scholarship and half to the staff.  If we win between $500 and $2,000, it will go into a scholarship. If we win less than $500, it will go back into lottery tickets and start over.”

 Well, the $100 went into the lottery in October 1988, and out of the 100 picks, we won $44. The decision was made to buy more lottery tickets with the winnngs a couple weeks later. In the end, all of that was lost. The file still contains all the lottery tickets and photo copies of them to show what numbers were picked. Meanwhile there was $48.47 left from the party hosted by a reporter and it was put into the Tribune Christmas Basket program to help the needy.

What if we had followed the choice of one staff member and put all $1,000 in the lottery? It’ likely all have evaporated.  Don’t ask me how I spent my $500. I don’t remember.

 
“

Tis the season for congregations to determine what they can afford next year. Much as money is the milk of politics, tithing and offerings keep churches, temples and fellowships operating and doing their work.

 The severe economic slump has gotten church leaders and boards to look seriously at budgets and plans as they gear up or complete fall stewardship campaigns. Not only do they have members whose own wealth and investments have had sharp losses of value, they have congregations where people have been put out of work, have had hours cut or are having to relocate to stay employed. With so many uncertainties in the roller-coaster economy, people of faith are coming to terms about how much faith they have in the economy and how God will see them, and their congregations, through it.

 Tom Breen of the Associated Press this week produced a story called “Churches are looking at hard times.” He talked to faith leaders around the nation to hear what they have to say in this traditional season of harvest. What he found were folks being practical and holding off on some projects, like the new $4 million building that the First Baptist Church in Weston, Fla., planned to erect. But weekly donations at the 2,500-member church have dropped from $40,000 to $36,000. “We want to continue to build, but we don’t want to jeopardize our church ministry,” said the senior pastor, Rob Peters.

Breen writes that many churches are trimming budgets at the same time that the weak economy leaves more families coming to them for help with food, heating bills and gasoline. Churches, in some cases, are striving to maintain their Christian outreach and pulling back on physical improvements or adding staff. Davis Willis, the pastor of Stevens Creek Community Church in Augusta, Ga., said his congregation has a strong tradition of tithing, the biblical mandate to turn over at least 10 percent of personal income to the church for its work. “You would never know that things are taking a nosedive in terms of the economy,” Willis said. “It’s part of the DNA here, so we have seen some consistency even in rough times.

 At St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Charleston, W. Va., the Rev. Richard Mahan abandoned giving a sermon on forgiveness and, instead, he talked about the economy and how the faithful could cope with it. “Everybody’s facing hard times,” he told his flock. “If you are not, you’re going to.”

 Breen pointed to research from the Christian research group, Empty Tomb Inc., where six recessions since 1968 were examined for the impact on giving for faith communities. In three of those periods, giving went up, and in three, it went down. Another group, Giving USA Foundation looked at religion-related charitable giving in 11 recession years since 1968 and found tithing and diving were down in six of them.

 The stewardship director for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Ed Kruse, is calling on leaders of the 4.8 million denomination to focus on donating as a discipline. He cites Matthew 6:21: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.”

Not even what we are thinking can be kept from others. If we have evil thoughts or good thoughts, a machine and authorities will know — and act accordingly.

Correspondent Leslie Stahl interviewed scientists and researchers primarily at Carnegie-Mellon University who have determined that an MRI scan of the human brain can literally determined what someone is thinking at any given moment because of which parts of the brain are active or inactive at each moment. An expensive and powerful magnet, said to be 60,000 stronger than the earth’s magnetic field, was employed in the MRI that was demonstrated. A “60 Minutes” staff person, associate producer Meghan Frank, agreed to be a guinea pig for some instant testing. She lay down and was rolled into the MRI tube where her brain was scanned as she randomly thought about 10 predetermined things — five tools (like a hammer and screwdriver) and five dwellings (igloo or barn). She was given a brief period of time after each item to clear her mind.

Her set of successive brain scans were then put to the test by the computer which had the list of 10 items and had to match them again the scans it had done. One by one, it identified all 10 correctly. Presumably, Frank could have been asked to think of five friends and five enemies, and the MRI could pick them out.

The ramifications are endless. A researcher noted that if he found his car in the driveway had fender damage and both children denied being at fault, the perpetrating teen could be determined with an MRI. The technology goes beyond lie detector tests because he probes mental wave patterns. It was noted that research and application is going faster in other countries, so this technology is going to serve good or ill no matter what happens in the U.S. How far away are we from a dictator having the means to ferret out disloyalty or the thoughts of his subject to have him overthrown? What about the workplace where an employer could retain only those workers thinking positive thought about being there?

The Carnegie-Mellon folks said it may be less than five years that we’ll see this brain scan technology put to practical application in the U.S. Lawsuits will quickly follow to see what is ethical and what are the dangers of just the newest intrusion, which began with DNA testing, corner wall cameras and photo radar along our roadways. The ability to know our brains is a thought we’d like to get out of our heads.