Faith in our future ... investment returns

The latest from the Archbankruptcy is Milwaukee archdiocese pension funds fall short: Unfunded liabilities total $41.8 million, according to bankruptcy filing, reports Annysa Johnson in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

"the size of the lay workers' pension liability (at $37.4 million) and the funding level of the cemetery workers' pension (55% - with $1.3 million in assets and a $1 million unfunded liability) raise concerns about the health and future of those benefits, pension experts say."

That is, there is reason for concern about ultimately receiving a pension. On the other hand, anyone who does not think about a pension as having something to do with the long term might be reassured.

"Archdiocese spokeswoman Julie Wolf blamed the shortfalls on poor investment returns and said in a statement that there is 'no current cause for concern for employees.'

"'All benefits have been timely paid, and it is clear that the plans will continue to pay all benefits payable in the immediate future,' she said."

A bit like saying that, if one consults an actuarial table, there is virtually no risk that one will go to Hell in the immediate future.

"Wolf, of the archdiocese, said the plans continue to be funded according to actuarial recommendations, and the archdiocese communicates regularly with vested participants."

Reliance on experts would be more reassuring if our Archdiocese didn't also say it relied on experts in deciding how to handle the sexual abuse claims that ultimately bankrupted it.

By Robot

Pagan Kennedy reports on the rise of computer-generated ebooks in this New York Times article, Do Androids Dream of Electric Authors?

Sounds of silence

Headlines from this week's Milwaukee Catholic Herald

Liturgist, rock ‘n’ roller make music together

Pope: Silence, solitude needed in 'agitated, sometimes frantic' world

Weather forecast poker

T.S. O'Rama with four of a kind.

I suppose sunny beats partly sunny, etc., and bets would have to be placed weeks in advance.

Turtle Sunday

From the Police Report in Franklin Now, September 29, 2011.

"Police helped a turtle find its way after a resident of the 2900 block of Drexel Avenue called police at 5:15 p.m. Sept. 25, reporting that the critter was on the sidewalk in front of her home. She was afraid it might make its way to the road. Police caught the turtle and released it at a swamp near South 31st Street."

Looking back at The Sixties, and theirs

There's now a national organization for old progressive priests. Robert McClory's article in the National Catholic Reporter quotes Fr. David Cooper as saying the new Association of U.S. Catholic Priests was formed to give priests a voice he says they lost due to changes in canon law. In 1983. "Asked why a national association has not emerged before, Cooper said he didn't know."

If progressive priests don't know where they've been for 28 years, then it is hard to believe they now know where they're going.

Another "core member" of the organization, Fr. Len Dubi, summed up the experience of the founding meeting. "It's like the excitement we felt in the seminary -- even though the median age of our group is about 71!" Fr. Dubi hopes the organization can attract young priests, which in this context appears to mean those born after the death of Pope Pius XI.

Neo-logism

"In the book-review media and weeklies of opinion, at the beginning of the Fifties, it was the fad to refer to these writers as 'New Conservatives' or 'Neo-Conservatives'-the prefix 'neo' usually implying the contempt of the commentator. Recently, at the end of the Seventies, the epithet 'Neo-Conservative' has been clapped to yet another set of writers and scholars." --Russell Kirk