Daily links: Mon., Sept. 18: Christians for taxes, a Palestinian gamble, and the return of meatless Fridays

With the president showing his hand on his deficit-reduction plan, Chicago Theological Seminary Prof. Susan Brooks Thistlewaite argues that the anti-tax mantra of the Tea Party [1] isn't very Christian, but progressive taxation is; USC's own Liz Fefebvre has her own nicely calculated riff on accusations of "class warfare [2]." On the international front, dotCommonweal is collecting Catholic statements [3] on the Palestianian effort to achieve state recognition at the UN; the Vatican has yet to weigh in. An America editorial [4] takes the side of the Palestinians.

On to news of the church: The new English Mass translation roll-out continues; the UK Tablet carries mostly negative letters [5] (some more here [6]) from Brits along with an essay by a bishop from New Zealand, who reports that after about a year of the new translations, 83 percent of respondents to a survey give the new texts a thumbs down. In addition to the new Mass texts, English Catholics have been called back to meatless Fridays by their bishops, and Father Tim Gardner has some flesh-free recipes [7] to make abstinence go down easier. On the other side of the Channel, the French began implementing a ill-conceived (OK, dumb) law [8] against prayer in public, driving the Muslims of France into indoor makeshift mosques.

Finally, Philadelphia's Catholic parents breathe a sigh of relief [9] as Catholic teachers and the archdiocese resolve their labor dispute.