10/31/2025

Friday, October 31, 2025

1517 Martin Luther sent his Ninety-five Theses to Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, precipitating the Protestant Reformation

1992 The Catholic church apologized for its treatment of astronomer Galileo Galilei after 359 years

1999 Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran Church leaders signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, ending a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation

2000  John Paul II declared Thomas More as "the heavenly Patron of Statesmen and Politicians."

2019 US House of Representatives votesd to formalize impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump

2023 Kenyan President William Ruto held a state banquet for King Charles III in Nairobi, whose speech acknowledged that “the wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret” 

In bed at 9:30, up at 5:15.  39°, wind chill 30°, high 51°, partly cloudy.   

Meds, etc.  Last antibiotic at 5:30 a.m.  Morning meds at 10:45 a.m.

My comment to JPG's sunrise photo:  

Charles D. Clausen

Another addition to our hoped-for coffee table book: Lake Michigan Sunrises. Your photos remind me of the lines in Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "God's Grandeur," 

" . . . nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— " .  

The poem, and your photos, engender some hope, something in short supply these days. Thanks again.

 Beautiful Port Washington.  I drove up there this afternoon to take a photo of the gorgeous foliage on Grand Avenue.  While there I explored the harbor area and found myself wishing we had a condo or apartment there with a lake view, like we had from our condo in the Knickerbocker Hotel.  The harbor views in Port Washington are much more picturesque than our view from the Knick.  If I had money to burn, I'd buy or rent one as a hideaway and sanctuary.

Anniversary thoughts, from a year ago.  First, the troublemaker Martin Luther couldn't leave bad enough alone.  Mr. Smartypants had to make a big fuss about all sorts of things, stir everybody up, and cause a whole bunch of wars in which lots of people were killed or hurt over theological differences that nobody understood.

The Chuch's apology to Galileo 359 years after its offense reminds me of Joe Biden's 'official' apology to America's Indigenous peoples for forcing their children into Indian schools to deprive them of their Indigenous identities, languages, customs, etc.  Better late than never???

482 years after Luther raised holy hell with his 95 theses, the Catlickers and the Prods came to some sort of an agreement about how exactly the Creator of the Universe treats the dominant species on one of his planets circling one of his suns in one of his galaxies.  700 guests at Augsburg’s Lutheran Church of St. Anna’s and more than 2,000 observers in a tent nearby watched, applauded, and hugged as officials from the two bodies stated that both churches believe the salvation of individual Christians is justified by God’s love alone, not by human efforts.  From the Vatican, Pope John Paul II welcomed the signing as a “milestone along a difficult path full of joy, union and communion among Christians.”  How well I remember the joy I felt on that Halloween (when I wasn't wondering whether all the computers in the world crash at midnight on 12/31/99.)

To celebrate the first anniversary of all those Catholics and Lutherans clapping and hugging, Pope JPII, not one of my favorites, designated St  Thomas More as the heavenly GoToGuy for Statesmen and Politicians.  Prior to this honor, Thomas was principally the GoToGuy for Lawyers since he had been one himself and there aren't all that many of them in Heaven.  Actually, as I think about it, is it such a great honor to be the GoToGuy for Lawyers and Politicians?  How many lawyers and politicians make it into Heaven?  My own connections with Thomas More are these.  First, my first True Love Charlene Wegge belonged to St. Thomas More parish on the southwest side of Chicago.  Going to mass with her was my introduction to Thomas More.  Then she dumped me and broke my heart.  Second,  I've long been fond of Hans Holbein the Younger's portrait of him in the Frick Collection in New York, hanging in the Living Hall on the left side of the big El Greco St. Jerome with Holbein's portrait of Thomas Cromwell on the right side of Jerome.  More looks warm and lovable and Cromwell looks cold and nasty. (According to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, More was far from warm and lovable, but who knows?  We get a very different picture of him in A Man for All Seasons.)  Yet another connection with Thomas More is through the Thomas More Society, a Catholic association of lawyers that sponsors an annual Red Mass for lawyers and judges.  I gave a speech to the Milwaukee chapter one year ago entitled "The Practice of Law as an Occasion of Sin," perhaps not surprisingly not a crowd-pleaser.

My 3rd trip to the Apple Store at Bayshore to get my MacBook fixed.  This technician suggested unpluggging the Eero mesh router and leaving it unplugged for a mixture, and if that didn't solve the problem of my being booted off the WiFi every several minutes, then getting into the troubleshooting section of the Eero app, if I could find our user name and password.  I unplugged the main unit downstairs and so far, it seems to have cured the problem that has been plaguing me for weeks.  Finger crossed.