Catholic Church: A "Troubled Family"

Following E.J. Dionne's article the other day about the push-back right-wing [crypto-Rethuglican] Catholic bishops are feeling for their increasingly partisan attacks on the Obama Administration, the Kaplan Daily's religion writer Lisa Miller writes:

"A small group of very conservative bishops has hijacked the church, or at least the public voice of the church. The bishops are playing the role of the authoritarian father. In case after case, their message to the faithful is 'Do it because I say so.'

"Last week, in an orchestrated political maneuver, 43 Catholic entities — including the Archdiocese of Washington — filed a dozen lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying that any mandate requiring religious organizations to provide contraceptive coverage to employees was a violation of religious liberty.

"So, even though 82 percent of American Catholics believe that birth control is morally acceptable, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the lawsuits 'a compelling display of the unity of the church in defense of religious liberty.' (The USCCB is not a party to the suits.)

"A much larger group of more moderate bishops has stayed mostly silent, fearful that to take a stand against the brethren would be to lay bare intramural fissures. They play the role of the silent and frustrated mother.

"The lawsuits are, in fact, very far from a 'compelling display of unity.' There are 194 dioceses in the country; only about a dozen joined the suits. There are more than 200 Catholic colleges and universities in the United States, and only a handful joined the suits. Notably missing from this so-called display of unity are the dioceses of Chicago and Los Angeles, both of which have prominent leadership and robust, vibrant Catholic communities. Also missing from the list of plaintiffs are some of the country’s most prominent Catholic educational institutions, notably Boston College and Georgetown University." (my emphasis)

Not only are the right-wingers dividing the Church hierarchy, they're dividing the faithful, 82 percent of which don't support their view of the immorality of birth control. We would also suggest, if polled, they would not support the right-wingers "hijacking" the public voice of the Church in order to align it with the Rethuglican Party.

Progressive Catholics Pushing Back

Yesterday, we noted (with the NY Times' MoDo) a disturbing trend by right-wing Catholic bishops to aggressively enter the political (and judicial) sphere over contraceptive provisions of the Affordable Care Act -- provisions which the Obama Administration have already compromised on, and are willing to negotiate further. But really, this isn't so much about "religious freedom," as those in the conservative Church hierarchy contend, as much as it is about creating a political alliance among right-wing dead enders against the President and Dems on this and other social issues. As discredited as the Church has become over its decades-long pedophile priest protection program, this may be yet another disaster in the making for them, given the Catholic public's overwhelming acceptance of birth control.

E.J. Dionne writes about the push back on the recent lawsuits by some progressive Catholic bishops (you know, the ones that want to care for the poor and sick for a change). Dionne writes:

"...in recent months, a series of events — among them the Vatican’s rebuke of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, encouraged by right-wing U.S. bishops — have angered more progressive Catholics and led to talk among the disgruntled faithful of the need for a 'Catholic spring' to challenge the hierarchy’s shift to the right."

While we're not hopeful that this will be a turning point, given the extreme conservatism of Pope Joseph Ratzinger Benedict XVI, it's still encouraging to see some courageous Catholic leaders swimming against the right-wing tide in their Church.