Search

Results

Can we bank on your support?

20 Dec 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The infant in Elizabeth's womb "leaped for joy" when Mary approached, we hear in this Sunday's gospel. Small businesses that approach banks for loans are not getting a similar reaction. On Monday President Barack Obama told Wall Street bankers who were bailed out last year they have a moral obligation to make more loans. "One year ago--when many of these institutions were on the verge of collapse, a predicament largely of their own making, oftentimes because they failed to manage risk properly--we took difficult and, frankly, unpopular steps to pull them back from the brink," Obama said. Obama said that because taxpayers provided "extraordinary assistance" to save bankers from the financial crisis, "now that they're back on their feet, we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to rebuild our economy." Banks should not be required to make bad loans, the president said after meeting with executives of financial firms, but "I'm getting too many letters from small businesses who explain that they are credit worthy" but cannot get loans. In related news Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was named Person of the Year by Time magazine this week. Time credited Bernanke with leadership that helped set the U.S. economy on a path to recovery, even if bank bailouts have proven unpopular. "Bernanke . . . knows the economy would be much, much worse if the Fed had not taken such extreme measures to stop the panic," Time said. Source: Articles by Henry J. Pulizzi for the Wall Street Journal, David Jackson for USA TODAY, Mark Felsenthal and Caren Bohan for Reuters, and the Associated Press

barack obama ben bernanke federal reserve small business banks loans bankers person of the year time magazine

Restricted
Time to praise the protester

25 Dec 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Christmas Day reading from the Book of Isaiah has nothing but praise for “the feet of him who brings glad tidings, announcing peace, bearing good news.” Those who took to the streets of nations around the world this year did so not to praise but to protest the state of affairs in their respective countries.From the Arab spring to the Occupy movement, this year’s newly energized protestor was named “person of the year” by TIME magazine. “No one could have known that when a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in a public square in a town barely on a map, he would spark protests that would bring down dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya and rattle regimes in Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain,” said the article in TIME. “Or that that spirit of dissent would spur Mexicans to rise up against the terror of drug cartels, Greeks to march against unaccountable leaders, Americans to occupy public spaces to protest income inequality, and Russians to marshal themselves against a corrupt autocracy.” Protests have now occurred in countries whose populations total at least 3 billion people, reported TIME. People dissented and demanded, but perhaps most significantly “they did not despair, even when the answers came back in a cloud of tear gas or a hail of bullets. They literally embodied the idea that individual action can bring collective, colossal change. “Everywhere this year, people have complained about the failure of traditional leadership and the fecklessness of institutions,” commented TIME. “Politicians cannot look beyond the next election, and they refuse to make hard choices. . . . But leadership has come from the bottom of the pyramid, not the top. “For capturing and highlighting a global sense of restless promise, for upending governments and conventional wisdom, for combining the oldest of techniques with the newest of technologies to shine a light on human dignity, and, finally, for steering the planet on a more democratic though sometimes more dangerous path for the 21st century, the Protester is TIME's 2011 Person of the Year,” the magazine said. Source: Article by Rick Stengel for TIME

protests person of the year time magazine protestors

Restricted
Pope Francis; Man of the hour and person of the year

15 Dec 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday’s gospel Jesus praises John the Baptist as the model of a great prophet and messenger of God, saying that “among those born of women there has been none greater.” Pope Francis continues to earn the praise and admiration of Catholics and non-Catholics alike around the world, and this week TIME magazine named him their Person of the Year.“In a matter of months, Francis has elevated the healing mission of the church—the church as servant and comforter of hurting people in an often harsh world—above the doctrinal police work so important to his recent predecessors,” observed TIME.Francis has revitalized the once obscure Vatican Almoner, an agency that has been around for about 800 years, by turning it over to dynamic 50-year-old Polish Archbishop Konrad Krajewski.The Almoner hands out small amounts to the needy, including a recent gift of 1,600 phone cards to immigrant survivors of a capsized boat so they could call family back in Eritrea. “You can sell your desk,” Francis told Krajewski. “You don’t need it. You need to get out of the Vatican. Don’t wait for people to come ringing. You need to go out and look for the poor.” TIME reports that Francis also often gives Krajewski stacks of letters with his instructions to help the people who have written to him and asked for aid. The Vatican said the honor wasn't surprising given the resonance in the general public Francis has had, but it nevertheless said the choice was a "positive" recognition in the international media of spiritual values. “The Holy Father is not looking to become famous or to receive honors,” said the Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi. “But if the choice of Person of the Year helps spread the message of the gospel—a message of God's love for everyone—he will certainly be happy about that."It was the third time a pope had been TIME’s selection. John Paul II was selected in 1994 and John XXIII in 1962.Homily hint: For better or worse, mass media thrives on creating celebrities. Oftentimes the people and lifestyles glamorized leave something to be desired on the role-model front, but every once in a while the media gets it right. TIME got it right be selecting Pope Francis as their Person of the Year., and the Vatican got it right it in applauding the choice not for the sake of the man chosen but for the sake of the gospel of compassion he espouses. Sources: Articles by Howard Chua-Eoan and Elizabeth Dias for TIME and David Bauder for the Associated Press

Pope Francis person of the year time magazine

Restricted