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Over the next two weeks, as holiday festivities (hopefully) occupy more of our readers’ time than news and opinion journalism, we at Broad + Liberty will be on a reduced production schedule. If news breaks, we will surely cover it, but absent some big event, things will be quiet around here until 2025.

We hope you all enjoy a break from your own jobs and responsibilities, as well, and have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a joyous and prosperous New Year.

1. Upper Darby workers authorize strike as well-paid admins seek concessions

By Brad Vasoli
 

Transport Workers Union Local 234 members working for Upper Darby Township unanimously voted Monday afternoon to authorize a strike that could start as soon as January 1. 

The overwhelming majority of the roughly 115 township employees who affiliate with the TWU filled the American Legion Post 214 meeting room and followed their vote with applause and a jubilant chant.

The workers include trash collectors, electricians, mechanics, animal-control specialists, and other public-works tradesmen performing their duties under a contract expiring at year’s end. They want a new agreement holding their personal contributions to their healthcare coverage at 3.5 percent. A contract proposed by Democratic Mayor Ed Brown’s administration would require employees to contribute about three times as much. 

“This is a message to the township that we’re serious about getting a fair contract for our members,” Bannon said after the vote. “Some of their proposals that they have are just unreasonable and would bring serious harm to our members’ livelihoods and to the residents of this town.”

Why It Matters.  Some community leaders and activists have called for management to make concessions regarding their own compensation before asking labor to sacrifice. 

“I’d be looking at other places to cut money to make sure our trash is picked up,” former Township Council President Brian Burke (R-At-Large) told Broad + Liberty before the strike decision. [The township workers are] needed seven days a week…. Take [the money] from the CAO. Take it from Kilkenny.” 

Drexel Hill resident John DeMasi, who has spearheaded numerous grassroots efforts to boost transparency and fiscal discipline in the township, agreed.

“You can’t tell a union member, ‘Sorry, there’s no money, we’re paying ourselves too much,’” he said. 

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2. Reforming the reforms in church architecture

By Thom Nickels
 

While touring a number of Roman Catholic churches in Austria some time ago, I was struck by the haphazard clash of styles: magnificent Romanesque-Gothic high altars, richly appointed with frescoes and images, with an oddly shaped table plunked down in front like something dropped from The Planet of the Apes: the oh-so-simple Vatican II altar table (a/k/a Julia Child’s table). 

In such historic environments, the table, however expertly crafted, looks fairly comical. While the elaborate iconography in these splendid old churches makes Julia Child’s table seem less intrusive or offensive, that’s not the case in many new Catholic churches built since the close of Vatican II — a Council called by Pope John XXIII in 1962 to renew and invigorate the Church.

Why It Matters. Vatican II unleashed a storm that not only affected how Catholics worship (less smells and bells, more Baptist-style services), but the buildings they worship in. Those winds of change produced a fair amount of architectural self-destruction. According to Michael Rose, author of “Ugly as Sin: Why They Changed Our Churches from Sacred Places to Meeting Spaces—and How We Can Change Them Back Again,” the catalyst for the change was a duplicitous 1978 draft statement by the U.S. Bishop’s Committee on Liturgy, entitled “Environment and Art in Catholic Worship.”

This meant plain wooden altar tables rather than marble high altars with images of saints and angels; carpeted rooms; plain glass windows; potted plants in place of traditional Catholic artwork; small and nondescript Stations of the Cross that disappear into the walls; churches in the round resembling MTV soundstages; the elimination of altar rails and sanctuary lamps. Crucifixes replaced by Baptist-style wooden crosses or geometric plus signs; the traditional baptismal font transformed into a hot tub. 

Older churches, including many cathedrals, were stripped bare as high altars were removed and dismantled, and historic frescoes and icons whitewashed.

In the end, the new churches and “renovated” cathedrals had the look of conference halls or inter denominational chapels. Hundreds, maybe thousands of churches worldwide were destroyed by the architectural iconoclasts.

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3. Lightning Round

• Guy Ciarrocchi: Becoming a single-issue voter

• Seth Higgins: Two leadership lessons for McCormick as Casey departs

• Reuther demands pay raise just before voting for tax hike

• Howard Lurie: Shapiro’s actions strain our constitutional principles

• Frank Ryan: Solving the Social Security dilemma

• Unvetted charity paid speakers public money at event with Upper Darby mayor

• Beth Ann Rosica: State education department rescinds DEI guidelines — but some local school districts will follow them anyway.

4. What we're reading

For years, Republicans have been saying that Joe Biden’s mental acuity was in steep decline. For years, we were told we were lying, selectively editing, or “playing politics.” The June debate showed which side was telling the truth, but now that the election is in the rear-view mirror, the Democrats are finally, little by little, coming clean about the deception that ran through the Biden administration. The New York Times this week has a living eulogy for the man as he limps quietly toward the exit. The Wall Street Journal has a piece detailing the decline that hampered the president almost from the beginning. And at National Review, Jeff Blehar explains the travesty of this quasi-coup foisted upon the American people. Biden is leaving, but this dishonesty requires greater investigation.