Chicago Daily Observer

Statement of Cardinal Francis George concerning remarks of
Fr. Michael Pfleger about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton during
an address at Trinity United Church of Christ on Sunday May 25, 2008

The Catholic Church does not endorse political candidates. Consequently, while a priest must speak to political issues that are also moral, he may not endorse candidates nor engage in partisan campaigning.

Racial issues are both political and moral and are also highly charged. Words can be differently interpreted, but Fr. Pfleger’s remarks about Senator Clinton are both partisan and amount to a personal attack. I regret that deeply.

To avoid months of turmoil in the church, Fr. Pfleger has promised me that he will not enter into campaigning, will not publicly mention any candidate by name and will abide by the discipline common to all Catholic priests.

Pastor John Hagee sent a letter today [click here] to Catholic League president Bill Donohue that effectively ends the dispute the two men have had. Donohue comments as follows:

“After weeks of meeting with various Catholic leaders, and accessing scholarly literature on Catholic-Jewish relations, Pastor John Hagee has demonstrated an improved understanding of the Catholic Church and its history. In his letter to me, Hagee says, ‘I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful.’ He specifically cites his emphasis of ‘the darkest chapters in the history of Catholic and Protestant relations with the Jews,’ and has pledged to provide a more complete and balanced portrayal going forward that will not reinforce mischaracterizations of the Catholic Church. And while he stresses that his invocation of terms like ‘apostate church’ and the ‘great whore’ were never meant by him to describe the Catholic Church, he ... Read More...

The Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC) does not support the Chicago Children’s Museum’s proposal to relocate from Navy Pier to Grant Park. In a letter to the Chicago Plan Commission, MPC noted the absence of a “thoughtful planning process,” as well as a lack of public information about the Museum’s consideration of other locations, as central to its opposition.

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Dear Governor Blagojevich,

On April 15, 2008, the Circuit Court in this action issued a preliminary injunction enjoining your Medicaid FamilyCare program for failing to meet certain statutory prerequisites. The other constitutional and non-constitutional objections to what your Administration have yet to be addressed. As a result, at the present the approximately 25,000 persons and families enrolled in the program are now without health insurance coverage they paid for and the doctors, clinics, hospitals that provided medical services in reliance on their getting paid under the Mediciaid FamilyCare Health Insurance Program either won’t be getting paid ever, or, if you are successful in your appeal, for many months or years to come. This is tragic for many people who relied on you and your Administration that they were covered under the new Mediciaid FamilyCare Health Insurance Program and that you could create such a program on your own authority without ... Read More...

Sen. Tom Coburn has emerged as a one-man gridlock machine. The Oklahoma Republican single-handedly blocked or slowed more than 90 bills in 2007, driving lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to distraction

We at The Chicago Daily Observer are pleased to announce that Don Rose will be one of our regular columnists—and with this offering begins a series on all the presidential candidates, Democratic and Republican. Don and I have been political sparring partners and have never agreed on a single political thing—but as a veteran liberal who started as press secretary to the Chicago campaign of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. As an analyst and strategist, his views are exceedingly valuable…at least to this Editor. As an independent political consultant he has advised Mayors Jane Byrne (during her upset of Michael Bilandic) and Harold Washington, U. S. Sen. Paul Simon, Supreme Court Justice Seymour Simon, Gov. Jim Edgar, former Cook county states attorney Bernard Carey and a good number of public officials including U. S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun during her early career as state representative. He has been an on-air ... Read More...

Look for the Chicago Daily Observer to launch today around 12 Noon Central Time.

Local pundits, local media coverage, and local politics make the Chicago Daily Observer your first choice in reporting about Chicago, Cook County and the State of Illinois.

An Olympic-sized drain on corporate foundations and non-profits will ?starve city anti-poverty services? because the money is being siphoned off for use in getting the Games in 2016, a coalition of 17 social service organizations charged today. He named Mayor Daley and Patrick G. Ryan of Aon as responsible for a plan to divert funds for costs estimated to reach $5 billion including $1.1 billion needed to build a lakeside Olympic Village.

Reverend Abbott Washburn, who has been recently named head of CONSERVE [City on Notice to Save Resources Victimized by Encroachment] said that private and independent sector support for charities are ?being jeopardized by big government in tandem with corporations so as to spend these funds on infrastructure that helps big business rather than the poor for whom they are intended.?

Washburn, a new face in city activism, told a news conference today, ?there is approximately $750 million ... Read More...

By Tom Roeser

The coming congressional campaign is expected to focus a conflict of interest charge by a Democratic opponent against Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Illinois). And it will have to do with his wife.

Once regarded as a boring bachelor type workaholic, Weller, 50, changed a few years ago. His marriage is the most unique in U. S. history. As the congressman from the 11th district west of Chicago beset with farm fields, exurban sprawl and rail yards branching out from the city, Weller is a farmer, pro-life and wants to make the Bush tax hikes permanent.

Nothing very distinctive about that. But everything changed in 2004 when he was introduced at a Guatemalan embassy party to one Zury Rios Sosa, a Guatemala congresswoman. Moreover she was the daughter of military dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt. Mott seized power in 11982 in a military coup and was an on-again, off-again ... Read More...

By Tom Roeser

Chicago is famous for losing people; but after a while they often turn up in a trunk?dead but accounted for. But yesterday Rosalie Schultz, 64, really got lost. She was already dead but had been transported to the Cook county medical examiner?s morgue for an autopsy. Then somebody filed her away in a cooler. When the funeral director came to pick her up, nobody could find her.

Thereupon the TV cameras raced to interview the interim chief medical examiner. He said with a shrug that he had searched all the coolers but thus far had not located Rosalie. Then there was a hurried cross-examination of the morgue staff. Had somebody forgotten to put a tag on her toe? Or a wrong tag? Tension mounted until an attendant who was sweeping up last night found Rosalie. She was stuck away high upon a shelf behind the bulky body ... Read More...

Illinois Republicans may have found a U. S. Senate candidate against Dick Durbin, a West Point grad who narrowly missed getting elected to Congress in 1994 because the fix was in.

Jim Nalepa, a LaGrange businessman who has been active in the GOP for fifteen years was a dead-on almost sure thing to defeat Democrat Bill Lipinski (D-Illinois) in 1994. It was the year Republicans took over the U.S. House. Lipinski was struggling trying to justify a lifetime of liberal voting to an upsurge that called for house-cleaning that swept the nation and extended to his district in Illinois.

Lipinski was on the ropes when he called for a favor from a prominent Republican state senator who was in trouble herself. Judy Baar Topinka was running a tight campaign for state treasurer. Topinka and Lipinski sat down and decided to back each other. The next day, Topinka, Riverside township ... Read More...

Fr. Michael Pfleger has made some very aggressive, claims in recent weeks. Yet you would never know that by reading the Chicago Tribune.