No Hopers, Jokers & Rogues from Ben Woolnough on Vimeo.

Fisherman’s Friends, is an emerging vocal group from Port Isaac in Cornwall. The group of 10 includes former or current fishermen, coast guardsmen and marine rescuers. For nearly 15 years they have gathered on evenings by the shore or in local pubs to have a few beers and sing sea shanties.

The group has recorded two CDs with their own interpretations of shanties. A vacationer recently came across them at the pub where they normally gathered and saw the potential. That vacationer was record producer Rupert Christie who brought them to Universal’s attention. The group signed with Universal this March.

The group’s prior two CD’s will soon be joined by a third. Their first album was recorded in a fifteenth-century church in St. Kew, Cornwall (the video above). They have also been invited to sing at the Glastonbury summer music festival.

From IWJ: Healthcare workers in Michigan–and across the country–need our support!

In his recent Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI repeatedly speaks of the “grave dangers for the rights of workers” that today imperil so many of our friends and neighbors who struggle daily to provide security for their families. It is imperative that people of faith stand with those workers hoping to secure wages and benefits consistent with their dignity as children of God.

Ascension Health is the nation’s largest Catholic and non-profit health system, comprised of 37 health systems or centers in 20 states, totaling over 570 hospitals, clinics, rehabilitation centers, labs, and other facilities. The employees of Genesys Health System, a member of Ascension Health, provide health care services in the Flint, Michigan area.

The management of Genesys is proposing severe wage, benefit, and pension cuts for several hundred of its employees. These healthcare workers are men and women committed to serving the health and welfare of the members of their communities.

On Friday, March 12, Genesys workers and their supporters traveled to the Ascension headquarters in St. Louis, Mo. to protest these wage and benefit cuts. Workers also gathered at Ascension centers in seven cities across the country – Washington, D.C., Buffalo, N.Y., Tucson, Ariz, Detroit, Flint, Mich. and Kansas City, Mo. – and held vigils before the management of Ascension and its subsidiary, Genesys Health System.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reminds us that “among the elements of a just and fair workplace [in medical and health care centers] are: fair wages, adequate benefits, safe and decent working conditions…” (See A Fair and Just Workplace: Principles and Practices for Catholic Health Care.) These things are indispensible if we hope to assure quality care for patients and dignity for working people.

As has been seen in several Labor issues over the past few years, the message often does not translate into action. While the R.C. Church is not unique in pushing out Unions, or resisting employee efforts to unionize, it should hold itself to a higher standard, especially in light of Encyclicals exhorting fair treatment of workers going back to Leo XIII.

From the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit via BNA: Ninth Circuit Nixes Seminarian’s Wage Claim, Says Exception Applies to Priest-in-Training

The First Amendment’s “ministerial exception” barred a Catholic seminarian from bringing his claim for unpaid overtime compensation against the Corporation of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle under the Washington Minimum Wage Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled March 16 (Rosas v. Corp. of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle, 9th Cir., No. 09-35003, 3/16/10 [pdf]).

Judge Robert R. Beezer wrote for the unanimous panel that the “ministerial exception helps to preserve the wall between church and state from even the mundane government intrusion presented here.” “The district court correctly determined that the ministerial exception bars [Cesar] Rosas’s claim and dismissed the case on the pleadings,” Beezer wrote.

In affirming the lower court, Beezer found that the interplay between the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses carves out an exception to otherwise applicable statutes if enforcing them would interfere with religious organizations’ employment decisions about their ministers.

Seminarian in Ministry Training Program

Rosas was a Mexican seminarian who was required to participate in a ministry training program at St. Mary Catholic Church in Marysville, Wash., located in Snohomish County, as part of the ordination process for the Catholic priesthood.

Rosas and another Mexican seminarian, Jesus Alcazar, worked under the supervision of St. Mary’s parish priest, Horatio Yanez, performing some pastoral duties and doing maintenance work for the church in 2002.

In February 2006 both Rosas and Alcazar filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese alleging Yanez had sexually harassed Alcazar and that the Archdiocese fired them in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for complaining and reporting the conduct. The two men also claimed the Archdiocese had failed to pay them overtime compensation in violation of the Washington Minimum Wage Act.

Trial Court Dismisses Wage Claims

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed Rosas’s harassment claim because he had not indicated that he had been sexually harassed but allowed Alcazar’s sexual harassment claim to proceed (4 DLR A-10, 1/8/07).

Alcazar subsequently settled his sexual harassment claim against the Archdiocese and was dismissed from the lawsuit.

The district court dismissed all other claims on the pleadings as barred by the First Amendment’s ministerial exception. “This exception prohibits a court from inquiring into the decisions of a religious organization concerning the hiring, firing, promotion, rate of pay, placement or any other employment related decision concerning ministers and other non-secular employees,” the trial court said.

Ministerial Exception Applies to State Law Claims

Rosas argued on appeal that the district court had erred in dismissing his state law claim without first determining if requiring the church to pay overtime wages actually burdened the church’s religious beliefs. Second, Rosas argued that requiring the church to pay overtime wages did not implicate a protected employment decision. Finally, he claimed that the district court erred in determining on the pleadings that he was a “minister” to whom the exception applied.

The appellate panel disagreed. Beezer first clarified that although the district court had relied on precedent involving only Title VII cases, the exception also applied to state law claims.

Beezer wrote that the ministerial exception encompassed “all tangible employment actions” and barred lawsuits seeking damages for lost or reduced pay.

“Our previous cases focus on Title VII, but our analysis in those cases compels the conclusion that the ministerial exception analysis applies to Washington’s Minimum Wage Act as well,” Beezer wrote. “Because the ministerial exception is constitutionally compelled, it applies as a matter of law across statutes, both state and federal, that would interfere with the church-minister relationship.”

Next, Beezer disposed of Rosas’s assertion that the trial court should have considered if the law “actually” burdened the church. “The [ministerial] exception was created because government interference with the church-minister relationship inherently burdens religion.”

Overtime Claim Triggers Exception

In addition, Beezer said that Rosas had misinterpreted Ninth Circuit precedent in arguing that the payment of overtime wages was not a protected employment decision that would trigger the exception.

Beezer said that Rosas admitted that his case involved the training and selection of the Catholic Church’s priests-issues the Ninth Circuit had expressly addressed in Bollard v. Cal. Province of the Soc’y of Jesus, 196 F. 3d 940, 81 FEP Cases 660 (9th Cir. 1999); (232 DLR AA-1, 12/3/99).

“This case thus quintessentially follows Bollard’s explanation,” Beezer wrote. “Rosas interprets our case law too narrowly. Bollard refers not only to the selection of ministers but more broadly to ‘employment decisions regarding … ministers,’ ”

Beezer wrote that the ministerial exception therefore encompassed “all tangible employment actions” and barred lawsuits seeking damages for lost or reduced pay.

Finally, Beezer rejected Rosas’s argument that the district court erred in ruling on the pleadings that the exception applied because Rosas claimed that his primary duties at the church primarily involved maintenance rather than ministerial duties…

Here is some text from Judge Beezer’s decision (emphasis mine and discussed below):

“The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947). The interplay between the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses creates an exception to an otherwise fully applicable statute if the statute would interfere with a religious organization’s employment decisions regarding its ministers. Bollard v. Cal. Province of the Soc’y of Jesus, 196 F.3d 940, 944, 946-47 (9th Cir. 1999). This “ministerial exception” helps to preserve the wall between church and state from even the mundane government intrusion presented here. In this case, plaintiff Cesar Rosas seeks pay for the overtime hours he worked as a seminarian in a Catholic church in Washington. The district court correctly determined that the ministerial exception bars Rosas’s claim and dismissed the case on the pleadings. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, 1 and we affirm.

…

Cesar Rosas and Jesus Alcazar were Catholic seminarians in Mexico. The Catholic Church required them to participate in a ministry training program at St. Mary Catholic Church in Marysville, Washington as their next step in becoming ordained priests. At St. Mary, Rosas and Alcazar allegedly suffered retaliation for claiming that Father Yanez¹ sexually harassed Alcazar, and they eventually sued Father Yanez and the Corporation of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle (“defendants”) under Title VII. 2 In addition, Rosas and Alcazar sued under supplemental jurisdiction for violations of Washington’s Minimum Wage Act for failure to pay overtime wages. See Wash. Rev. Code § 49.46.130. The district court dismissed the overtime wage claims on the pleadings, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c), and Rosas’s overtime wage claim is the only issue on appeal.

…

Because the judgment was on the pleadings, the pleadings alone must be sufficient to support the district court’s judgment. We thus base our decision on the very few allegations in Rosas’s complaint. Rosas alleges as follows:

1.3 … The Corporation of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle hosted [Rosas] as [a] participant[ ] in a training/pastoral ministry program for the priesthood.
. . . .
2.2 Cesar Rosas entered the seminary to become a Catholic priest in 1995 in Mexico.
2.3 As part of [his] preparation for ordination into the priesthood, the Catholic Church required [Rosas] to engage in a ministerial placement outside [his] diocese, under the supervision of a pastor of the parish into which [he was] placed. The Archdiocese of Seattle sends seminarians to Mexico and has Mexican seminarians come to its parishes. [Rosas was] placed in St. Mary Parish in Marysville, Washington under the supervision of defendant Fr. Horatio Yanez.
. . . .
2.10 … [Rosas] was hired to do maintenance of the church and also assisted with Mass. He … worked many overtime hours he was not compensated for.

First, I think the Court erred in defining exactly what a minister is. Is a seminarian a minister of the R.C. Church? It could be argued that in the Roman Church, prior to Vatican II, most seminarians were ministers of the Church since they were likely tonsured and deemed clerics entitled to beneficences (the civil benefits then enjoyed by clerics)².

In this day and age a R.C. seminarian is no more a minister than your average lay person. They receive no beneficence from the Roman Church (health care, salary, stipend, room and board), nor are they entitled to carry out any ministry different than your average lay person (men and women both who may serve at the altar, distribute the Holy Eucharist – yuk, read the lessons, etc.). The average seminarian is just a student and a “civilian” with a vocational choice.

Next, seminaries are open to any lay person who may engage in a variety of ‘ministries’ or jobs in the Church. It is definitely no exclusive club and there is no real differentiation any longer. Any person may be in a training program related to their studies (an internship/externship) which makes the work these seminarians were doing no different from your average pew dweller. The Court, and likely the defendant’s lawyers, missed that point

Additionally, look at the work they were “hired” to do. The Archdiocese of Seattle took these university educated Mexicans, and in typically American fashion, made them maintenance men who also happened to serve as altar boys from time-to-time. It would only have been worse if the Archdiocese would have had them go out and pick crops. There is definitely something wrong here. If the ministerial teaching was to be about menial labor and humility, why not send them to a monastery?

Judge Beezer quoted the Fifth Circuit’s holding that if a person (1) is employed by a religious institution, (2) was chosen for the position based ‘largely on religious criteria,’ and (3) performs some religious duties … that person is a ‘minister’ for purposes of the ministerial exception,” What was missed was that the choice of these individuals for this service had very little to do with religious criteria and more to do with whether they had strong backs. Further, the religious duties portion of the test likely fails because the ministerial or religious portion of the training was so de minimis as to be almost non-existant.

So did the Court err in finding that these men were engaged in ministerial training? Absolutely! There was no ministerial training going on. These two young men were merely janitors, and the whole escapade a scam aimed at obtaining cheap labor. What happened here was wage theft, all disguised as “ministerial training;” another example of actions inconsistent with teaching.

As the Seattle Herald reported:

The two seminarians became disillusioned by the experience and have given up their quest to become priests…

“Both these young men had a lifelong dream of being priests,”… “It’s emotionally damaging when your lifelong dream and your spiritual vocation is shattered by the very people you entrusted that dream to.”

So much possibility wasted in a world plagued by a shortage of men willing to offer their lives for worship of God and service to His people. A sad case, and a case teetering on the edge of going the other way if all the facts had been established.

“John Paul the Great has enabled people to put fear behind them,” said Kazimierz Braun, internationally acclaimed Polish director, author, and former student of Karol Wojtyla (later Pope John Paul II). “Like a broken reed, he has raised and made whole our hope. He has fanned the sparks of faith and courage into a flame. Above all, he has embraced all in unconditional love.”

Braun spoke of the late pontiff in the first annual John Paul the Great Fine Arts Lecture, sponsored by the Franciscan University Fine Arts Society, on March 5.

In his youth, Braun joined a group of students and faculty from the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, called Swieta Lipka (“Holy Linden”), whose spiritual pastor and scholarly mentor was Bishop Professor Karol Wojtyla.

“Thanks to John Paul II, with increasing clarity I saw how inseparable is the union of the artistic and ethical dimensions of theater, and I understood that only this union can give a theater production meaning and energy, and express the abundant and inexplicable richness of the human being,” said Braun.

“What my mentor and pastor was steering me toward was unlike anything I had studied at drama school or experienced in professional theater. I believe this was one of Wojtyla’s peculiar gifts: pointing to new possibilities in every domain of human activity and restoring a proper sense of order to life, beginning with the spiritual life and branching out into politics, economics, scholarship, or art.”

Braun recounted visiting Bishop Wojtyla in Krakow and being assigned a paper “on the ethical problems which a young director encounters in theater.

“It was Wojtyla’s way of teaching and guiding people: to let them identify their personal, moral, or professional problems and freely search for just, honest, and proper solutions.”

Bishop Wojtyla discussed the paper with Braun. “I remember his questions: How do you want to unite faith with art in your theater work? How will you strive for the highest values in terms of both aesthetics and ethics? In the time of trial, what would you choose—the world or God?”

For Wojtyla and for Braun, that question carried real meaning. “During World War II under Nazi occupation and after the war under Soviet occupation, theater in Poland was prohibited since it was considered an expression of Polish national spirit. Thus, to do theater against the occupiers’ will was an act of bravery and patriotism.”

Braun quoted one of the late pope’s poems: “‘You have gone, but through me you walk on’…This thought precisely and perfectly expresses my own thoughts after the passing away of John Paul II: He has gone, but he is still walking through me, and you, and millions of us around the world.”

“Throughout my career, I would ask myself, ‘What would he think? Would he approve?’”

Braun is a professor of theater art at the University at Buffalo in New York, and holds doctoral degrees in Letters, Theatre, and Directing. He worked for professional theater companies in Poland before being forced to leave the country by Communist authorities in the 1980s. Braun has directed more than 140 theater and television productions in Poland and other countries, and has published more than 30 books.

He is currently guest directing Claudel’s Christopher Columbus, which will be performed by Franciscan University students and faculty the weekend of April 9-11 and April 16-18. Tickets are $4 for adults and $2 for students and seniors. Religious and children 12 and under are free…

Professor Braun and I hovered in and out of different Polonian circles in my days back in Buffalo. A real gentleman and a great director. I would recommend seeing his work. He has also published and I would recommend his “A Concise History of Polish Theater from the Eleventh to the Twentieth Centuries” (Studies in Theatre Arts, V. 21) and A History of Polish Theater, 1939-1989: Spheres of Captivity and Freedom (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies).

Next month Orbis Books is publishing A Worker Justice Reader: Essential Writings on Religion and Labor, an exciting anthology compiled by IWJ that will be a vital resource for seminaries, congregational study groups, social justice committees, labor unions, and beyond.

The book is organized into five parts:

1. Crisis for U.S. Workers
2. Religion-Labor History
3. What Our Religious Traditions Say about Work
4. Theology and the Ethics of Work
5. The Religion-Labor Movement Today

I will be picking up a copy. I wonder if the role of the PNCC in Labor history will be included, as well as the role played by organizations like the Polish National Alliance (An interesting history, the PNA is generally non-sectarian and was a close ally of the PNCC¹ in supporting Labor).

You can pre-order a copy online or by phone (call 800-258-5838 and use code WJR for FREE shipping) or through your local bookstore.

For suggestions on incorporating the Reader into your curriculum, contact Rev. April McGlothin-Eller, IWJ’s Student Programs Coordinator, at (773) 728-8400, ext. 21, or by E-mail.

The funeral of the Rev. Joachim Badeni, the oldest member of the Dominican Order in Poland, who died March 11, 2010 at the age of 97. The funeral was held in Krakow and was presided over by Cardinals Stanislaw Dziwisz, and Franciszek Macharski. Until his death, Rev. Badeni lived in Dominican monastery in Krakow.

Rev. Badeni was born as Kazimierz Stanislaw hr. Badeni. The Badeni family was part of Polish nobility under the Boncza coat of arms (about 20% of the citizens of the Polish kingdom were nobility or gentry). The Badeni family’s political influence and land holdings extended over tracts of Eastern Poland and Ruthenia, then referred to as Galicia and Lodomeria. Kazimierz was named after his grandfather, Count Kazimierz Felix Badeni, Viceroy of Galicia and the premiere of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Rev. Badeni was the author of several books covering theological and existential themes. He was co-founder of the famous Krakow pastoral academic institute “Beczka“. Rev. Badeni was buried in the famous Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow.

Notice two things in the photos below: In Poland funeral liturgies are generally performed in purple or black vestments. White is not a popular (or very proper) liturgical color for funerals. This unlike in the United States where we tend to psychologically and liturgically separate ourselves from the fact of death. Second, the Rev. Badeni’s sister, Maria Krystyna Habsburg, Arch-Dutchess of Austria, was in attendance.

Nestled between the stately Greystones of Logan Square and the weathered Victorians of Old Irving, Chicago’s Avondale community area, is filled with some of the Northwest Side’s most unique architecture with its characteristic mix of steeples, smokestacks and two-flats.

While today Avondale is chiefly associated with the famous “Polish Village” along Milwaukee Avenue centered around St. Hyacinth Basilica and St. Wenceslaus Church in the district’s western half, diverse ethnicities have contributed over time to the area’s rich narrative.

Avondale’s history begins as part of the quiet prairie area surrounding Chicago in what would be incorporated as Jefferson Township in 1850. Two of the old Native American trails through the area were planked, becoming the Upper and Lower Northwest Plank Roads, routes traversed largely by truck farmers en route to sell their goods at the Randolph Street Market. Known to us today as Milwaukee and Elston Avenues, these two diagonal thoroughfares break up the monotony of the city’s ever-present grid…

Well enough. Wondering what is wrong with the article? Here it is:

By 1894 St. Hyacinth’s Roman Catholic Parish was founded for Poles in an attempt to pre-empt the establishment of a schismatic parish by the Polish National Catholic Church.

While such a statement would be perfectly acceptable in a Roman Catholic publication, because it does represent the Roman Catholic point-of-view, it does not belong in a historical study or essay. What should a reader infer, especially in this day and age when fewer and fewer even understand the meaning of “schismatic?” This is, after all, supposed to be a history, not a discussion of Church politics, polity, or theology. Further, the article discusses other Parishes established in the area, including the Allen Church (an African-American congregation and the oldest church in the area) as well as German and Swedish Lutheran congregations. The article is conspicuous in not taking those congregations to task for the Reformation…

The article might have discussed the Kozlowski movement in Chicago, the fact that the Roman Catholic Church reacted to the PNCC by appointing the first native Pole as a Suffragen Bishop in Chicago in 1908, that in response to Bishop Hodur’s consecration in 1907, or any amount of historical data that might help a reader to understand the religious and political environment in the neighborhood.

From looking at the Historical Society’s mission statement, no where can I discern that this is a sectarian organization. As such, its newsletter and publications, if they are to reflect history, should be edited more carefully. In the alternative, articles should be labeled as personal opinion, or as biased sectarian histories.

The PNCC has had its role in the history of this neighborhood, and a proper historical exposition on the neighborhood should reflect balance while avoiding sectarian pejoratives.

IRONDEQUOIT — A priest who made headlines as the first married priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester has returned to the church of his first ministry, St. Casimir Polish National Catholic Church on Simpson Road.

Along the way, the Rev. Melvin Walczak, 62, has had quite a journey.

St. Casimir is part of the Polish National Catholic Church, which formed in 1897 by Polish nationalists who broke away from Roman Catholicism. The church, which according to its Web site has more than 25,000 members nationally, allows married priests.

The Roman Catholic Church typically does not, but policy does permit married priests ordained in another church to become Roman Catholics and continue to serve as priests.

Walczak served as pastor of St. Casimir from 1973 until 1985, when he switched denominations. He served at four Roman Catholic diocesan churches as well as at Rochester General Hospital, where he was director of pastoral care.

But after experiencing a “crisis of ministry,” Walczak left the diocese in 1996 and worked for the administrations of Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks and, before that, former county executive Jack Doyle.

Walczak retired last year and thought about moving to the South to be near his brother. But when he learned of financial problems at St. Casimir, Walczak contacted the church’s bishop, who reappointed him.

And last Sunday, for the first time in a quarter-century, Walczak celebrated Mass at St. Casimir.

A homecoming

“I was frightened by how comfortable it felt, but frightened by how nervous I felt,” Walczak said. “As it unfolded, God provided the grace to make it easier for me. The anxiousness comes from not surrendering to God, and the peace comes from saying, ‘It’s in your hands now.’” Parishioners at St. Casimir said they were thrilled with Walczak’s return.

“We consider Father Mel a friend as well as pastor,” said Gary Richardson of Penfield, who got married at St. Casimir in 1963, when the church was still on Ernst Street in Rochester. “He’s a take-charge guy, and that’s a good thing. We’re all delighted with Father Mel coming back. If anyone can save the church, it’s Father Mel.”

Maria Weldy of Irondequoit, who joined St. Casimir after Walczak left, has been fighting to keep the church open. Membership now is about 20 families, compared with about 200 families when Walczak first served there.

“When someone comes over and offers his experience, it’s incredible,” Weldy said. “We’re very grateful, and it’s very surprising.”

…

Walczak … retired in 2009 and planned to spend a year in retirement before making any “dramatic changes.”

Then he read about St. Casimir’s problems.

“I have a friend who said, ‘Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous,’ and I have leaned on that,” Walczak said. “I hope to appeal to folks who have not been going to church, and to people who are going but are disillusioned.

“I’m still not sure why I’m here. I’m not sure that I understand God’s plan. But there are a lot of God’s plans that I don’t understand.”

Welcome home Fr. Walczak. May God grant you great joy and perseverance in your ministry in the Polish National Catholic Church.

For centuries, historians, political theorists, anthropologists and the public have tended to think about the political process in seasonal, cyclical terms. From Polybius to Paul Kennedy, from ancient Rome to imperial Britain, we discern a rhythm to history. Great powers, like great men, are born, rise, reign and then gradually wane. No matter whether civilizations decline culturally, economically or ecologically, their downfalls are protracted.

In the same way, the challenges that face the United States are often represented as slow-burning. It is the steady march of demographics — which is driving up the ratio of retirees to workers — not bad policy that condemns the public finances of the United States to sink deeper into the red. It is the inexorable growth of China’s economy, not American stagnation, that will make the gross domestic product of the People’s Republic larger than that of the United States by 2027.

As for climate change, the day of reckoning could be as much as a century away. These threats seem very remote compared with the time frame for the deployment of U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan, in which the unit of account is months, not years, much less decades.

But what if history is not cyclical and slow-moving but arrhythmic — at times almost stationary but also capable of accelerating suddenly, like a sports car? What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly, like a thief in the night?

Great powers are complex systems, made up of a very large number of interacting components that are asymmetrically organized, which means their construction more resembles a termite hill than an Egyptian pyramid. They operate somewhere between order and disorder. Such systems can appear to operate quite stably for some time; they seem to be in equilibrium but are, in fact, constantly adapting. But there comes a moment when complex systems “go critical.” A very small trigger can set off a “phase transition” from a benign equilibrium to a crisis — a single grain of sand causes a whole pile to collapse.

Not long after such crises happen, historians arrive on the scene. They are the scholars who specialize in the study of “fat tail” events — the low-frequency, high-impact historical moments, the ones that are by definition outside the norm and that therefore inhabit the “tails” of probability distributions — such as wars, revolutions, financial crashes and imperial collapses. But historians often misunderstand complexity in decoding these events. They are trained to explain calamity in terms of long-term causes, often dating back decades. This is what Nassim Taleb rightly condemned in “The Black Swan” as “the narrative fallacy.”

In reality, most of the fat-tail phenomena that historians study are not the climaxes of prolonged and deterministic story lines; instead, they represent perturbations, and sometimes the complete breakdowns, of complex systems…

…

If empires are complex systems that sooner or later succumb to sudden and catastrophic malfunctions, what are the implications for the United States today? First, debating the stages of decline may be a waste of time — it is a precipitous and unexpected fall that should most concern policymakers and citizens. Second, most imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises. Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly indeed as the United States contemplates a deficit for 2010 of more than $1.5 trillion — about 11% of GDP, the biggest since World War II.

These numbers are bad, but in the realm of political entities, the role of perception is just as crucial. In imperial crises, it is not the material underpinnings of power that really matter but expectations about future power. The fiscal numbers cited above cannot erode U.S. strength on their own, but they can work to weaken a long-assumed faith in the United States’ ability to weather any crisis.

One day, a seemingly random piece of bad news — perhaps a negative report by a rating agency — will make the headlines during an otherwise quiet news cycle. Suddenly, it will be not just a few policy wonks who worry about the sustainability of U.S. fiscal policy but the public at large, not to mention investors abroad. It is this shift that is crucial: A complex adaptive system is in big trouble when its component parts lose faith in its viability.

Over the last three years, the complex system of the global economy flipped from boom to bust — all because a bunch of Americans started to default on their subprime mortgages, thereby blowing huge holes in the business models of thousands of highly leveraged financial institutions. The next phase of the current crisis may begin when the public begins to reassess the credibility of the radical monetary and fiscal steps that were taken in response….

The 3K walk has turned into a fun, healthy and spiritual way to raise money for St. Nersess Seminary which really needs your support right about now. There are 4 seminarians who will be graduating in May and who will be serving in parishes within the year. The seminary expects possibly four more new seminarians in the fall of 2010. It is an exciting time for St. Nersess and they could use your support.

If you wish to support the efforts of our friends at St. Nersess, please send your checks payable to St. Nersess and mail them to St. Nersess Armenian Seminary, 150 Stratton Road, New Rochelle, NY.