{"id":551,"date":"2010-02-06T16:16:50","date_gmt":"2010-02-06T23:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=551"},"modified":"2010-02-06T16:16:50","modified_gmt":"2010-02-06T23:16:50","slug":"photo-hopping-junkets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=551","title":{"rendered":"Photo-hopping junkets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson and 11 ELCA officials  are on a Feb 3-17 junket to Europe. Landing first in London, Hanson spent an hour with the  Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who then spoke <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elca.org\/Who-We-Are\/Our-Three-Expressions\/Churchwide-Organization\/Communication-Services\/News\/Releases.aspx#&amp;&amp;a=4438\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cbriefly\u201d<\/a> with the others.<\/p>\n<p>After their photo-op with the ABC, the ELCAers are  hopping over to Istanbul, Rome, and Geneva.<\/p>\n<p>This kind of junketing is really ecumenical junk.  Photo-ops are easy \u2013 ask any Jewish lawyer with a photo of the Pope and himself  on his office wall. Real progress in ecumenism happens elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>The junkets cost real money, too. Don\u2019t be fooled by the  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elca.org\/Who-We-Are\/Our-Three-Expressions\/Churchwide-Organization\/Communication-Services\/News\/Releases.aspx#&amp;&amp;a=4427\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a>: \u201cEach person in the delegation is  providing for his or her own travel and lodging expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No matter what pocket the money comes from, this is ELCA  money that could better have been spent elsewhere.\u00a0And as a matter of fact,  such junkets are often perks to pay off, or solidify the support of, certain  bishops and supporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson and 11 ELCA officials are on a Feb 3-17 junket to Europe. Landing first in London, Hanson spent an hour with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who then spoke \u201cbriefly\u201d with the others. After their photo-op with the ABC, the ELCAers are hopping over to Istanbul, Rome, and Geneva. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":553,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions\/553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}