"Catholic Pol" to Offer Benediction at Rethug Convention

Look for this over-stuffed slug (left) to give the benediction one night at the Rethuglican National Convention (unless an Act of God intervenes -- hee-hee). That would be pedophile protector Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York. Here's Andrew Sullivan's take on the "Republican Party Cardinal:"

"And make no mistake: Dolan is an old-school Catholic pol - a figure who approved payments to molesting priests to expedite their firing, brazenly lied about it, then ran away abroad when the press demanded an explanation. His most important issues are criminalizing abortion, stripping gay couples of any civil legal protection, and making sure that non-Catholic employees of Catholic hospitals and schools be denied access to insured contraception. That he is saying the benediction for a ticket that explicitly endorses a priority for the super-rich over the working poor and views illegal immigrants as beneath contempt also tells you a lot about Dolan's priorities."

In other words, he's just the kind of pol-in-a-pulpit that should shame anyone calling themselves Catholic.

Catholic Association Reverses on Contraception Coverage

(click to enlarge)


(Mike Luckovich, via gocomics.com)

In a case of curious timing, the Catholic Health Association, which had previously accepted the Obama Administration compromise on including contraception in health care policies offered through Catholic institutions, is now backing off its support. The association still "supports the president’s overall health care overhaul, but believes he should broaden the exemption for religious groups who say facilitating the use of contraception in any way goes against their religious belief."

Seems to us and others that the Vatican and right-wing American bishops are strong-arming their wayward flock into line. All the more reason the Leadership Conference of Women Religious needs to stand its ground against these hypocritical goons and their march to return to the 18th century.

Impolitic Bishops and Uppity Sisters

The Kaplan Daily's Melinda Henneberger and Lisa Miller take on right-wing bishops eager to politic against President Obama, and the Vatican boyz and their 18th century view of the place of women in religion and society. Henneberger ponders whether certain American bishops are close to crossing the line into partisan Rethuglican politics (A: Yes), and Miller, who writes for the "On Faith" section of the Kaplan Daily, takes on the boyz' view of what constitutes "feminism," or more precisely, "radical feminism" among American nuns (A: when "...the sisters aren't behaving as girls should").

Miller gives us our favorite quote, from the late Mary Daly, who taught at Boston College, and who was appalled by

“... the contrast between the arrogant bearing and colorful attire of the ‘princes of the church," [snip] "and the humble, self-deprecating manner and somber clothing of the very few women... Watching the veiled nuns shuffle to the altar rail to receive Holy Communion from the hands of a priest was like observing a string of lowly ants at some bizarre picnic.”

Pay-for-Pedophilia

From the AP:
"The Archdiocese of Milwaukee confirmed Wednesday that it had a policy to pay suspected pedophile priests to leave the ministry.

"The acknowledgement was prompted by a document made public by abuse victims' advocates from the archdiocese's bankruptcy that references a 2003 proposal to pay $20,000 to 'unassignable priests' who accepted a return to the laity. The policy was crafted under then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is now a cardinal and head of the archdiocese in New York."

That would be the same Timothy Dolan who is leading the charge against the Affordable Care Act as an "act of religious freedom." Back in Milwaukee when he was questioned about a payoff to a notorious pedophile priest, Dolan said the notion he knew anything about it was "false, preposterous and unjust." So to summarize, in Cardinal "G.O.P." Dolan's "spiritual" cosmos it's o.k. to buy off a pedophile priest and not report him to authorities, but it's sacrilege for people to use contraception and for the Obama Administration to require private insurance providers to cover contraceptives in policies to which Church institutions subscribe. Oh, and Dolan's a liar to boot.

Wow. When did this guy's moral compass go awry?

(Photo: Cardinal "G.O.P." Dolan "...was blind but now I...uh...I'm still blind.")

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.

"Father Doesn't Know Best"

On the heels of the suit filed by 40 Catholic institutions to stop the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), Maureen Dowd tells us what we already know: in overwhelming numbers, Americans, including American Catholics, think birth control is "morally acceptable." And she has some choice words to say about the old Rethuglican men at the top of the Church's hierarchy bearing false witness about an Obama "war on religion", and whose agenda is blatantly anti-woman.

"... I wasn’t surprised to see the Gallup poll Tuesday showing that 82 percent of U.S. Catholics say birth control is morally acceptable. (Eighty-nine percent of all Americans and 90 percent of non-Catholics agreed.) [snip]

"The poll appeared on the same day as headlines about Catholic Church leaders fighting President Obama’s attempt to get insurance coverage for contraception for women who work or go to college at Catholic institutions. The church insists it’s an argument about religious freedom, not birth control. But, really, it’s about birth control, and women’s lower caste in the church. It’s about conservative bishops targeting Democratic candidates who support contraception and abortion rights as a matter of public policy. And it’s about a church that is obsessed with sex in ways it shouldn’t be, and not obsessed with sex in ways it should be. [my emphasis]

"The bishops and the Vatican care passionately about putting women in chastity belts. Yet they let unchaste priests run wild for decades, unconcerned about the generations of children who were violated and raped and passed around like communion wine."

Amen, sister!

Washington Cardinal Tries to Muzzle Secretary Sebelius

Washington Roman Catholic Cardinal Donald Wuerl is attempting to silence Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, herself a practicing Catholic, criticizing the Jesuit-run Georgetown University for inviting Sebelius to speak at an awards ceremony at the school's Public Policy Institute. Wuerl, along with other conservative (a.k.a., Rethuglican) cardinals, has framed the issue of Sebelius being a public figure "whose actions...present the most direct challenge to religious liberty in recent history" (in other words, her involvement in the health reform law mandate requiring contraception coverage). Of course, framing this as an issue of "religious liberty" is bearing false witness, but it fits the right-wing meme that the U.S. Conference of Bishops is pushing along with the fundamentalist right: that the Obama Administration is hostile to religion. Trying to keep Sebelius from speaking at a Catholic university, though, is hostile to the American values of free speech and an open discussion of issues without fear of censorship or reprisal, wouldn't you say Cardinal Wuerl?

(Photo: Cardinal Wuerl -- he won't be allowing any discussion or dissent!)

Your Sunday Church Sign

Hate The Sin, Love The Subpoenas

When we think about our society's failing to hold people accountable for their wrongdoing, Wall Street greedheads almost always come to mind. However, we're reading that Catholic bishops are getting more aggressive in fighting a group representing the victims of abuse by Catholic clergy. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has been subpoenaed repeatedly by lawyers representing the Catholic Church in a Missouri abuse case, as part of an ongoing effort by the Church hierarchy to silence the victim advocacy group. The bishops have been joined in their drive to shut down sex abuse claims against the Church by a Rethuglican front group, the so-called "Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights," whose leader "Sweaty Bill" Donohue uttered this statement:

“The bishops have come together collectively. I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.”

Sweaty Bill better get the bishops to approve that last sentence: they may have to shell out some settlement money, but damned if these bishops want to give up their recreational sexytime.

Holy Hypocrisy!

The conservative Catholic hierarchy -- aided and abetted by the Rethug outrage machine -- is raging against the Obama Administration's initiative to insure that employees of Catholic universities and hospitals have access to birth control as part of their health care packages. Now we see that some Catholic universities -- including DePaul, Georgetown and Fordham -- already include birth control in their health benefit packages. This is in addition to the 28 States that also have such provisions for Catholic institutions in their States. Keep in mind that employees of Catholic institutions are of different faiths, too, not just Catholic.

One would have hoped that the various Bishops and Cardinals, morally outraged against something that 98% of Catholic women practice, would have been as proactive in halting their despicable role in shuffling pedophile priests around from parish to parish for decades. Odd how when it comes to men in the Church, different rules apply.

Notre Dame Coda

As a few angry protesters were hauled away, President Obama was greeted with "thunderous applause" by "the vast majority" of the 12,000 people gathered at yesterday's commencement ceremonies at Notre Dame. Obama and Notre Dame's president, Rev. John Jenkins, both appealed to "faith and reason" and for opponents on both sides of the abortion/ stem-cell debate to use "fair-minded words" (Obama even chiding his own campaign web site for its choice of words in the abortion debate).

We would also like to quote extensively from the graduation ceremony remarks of Trinity Washington University president Patricia McGuire yesterday:

"The real scandal at Notre Dame today is not that the president of the United States is speaking at commencement. The real scandal is the misappropriation of sacred teachings for political ends. The real scandal is the spectacle of ostensibly Catholic mobs camping out at Notre Dame for the specific purpose of disrupting the commencement address of the nation's first African American president. This ugly spectacle is an embarrassment to all Catholics. The face that Catholicism shows to our new president should be one marked with the sign of peace, not distorted in the snarl of hatred.

The religious vigilantism apparent in the Notre Dame controversy arises from organizations that have no official standing with the church, but who are successful in gaining media coverage as if they were speaking for Catholicism....They have established themselves as uberguardians of a belief system we can hardly recognize. Theirs is a narrow faith devoted almost exclusively to one issue. They defend the rights of the unborn but have no charity toward the living. They mock social justice as a liberal mythology."

"Who Is A Real Catholic"

Catholic author David Gibson has an insightful article in today's WaPo, "Who is a Real Catholic." In it, Gibson uses today's address by President Obama at Notre Dame as a launching pad for exploring how "conservatives have made politics the eighth sacrament, with one's position on abortion and gay marriage becoming the litmus test of whether one is a 'good Catholic' or a Catholic at all." Following much the same argument as the Post's E.J. Dionne earlier this month, Gibson shows how a minority bloc of Catholics, including some Cardinals and bishops, are motivated more -- or have been co-opted -- by a political (read "hard right-wing") agenda rather than by the "inclusive, forgiving, big-church" Catholicism of St. Augustine and the Second Vatican Council.

Gibson has a marvelous quote from the penultimate Pope Benedict - the XV (in 1914!!) - who declared that "no one should consider himself entitled to affix on those who merely do not agree with his ideas the stigma of disloyalty to faith."

"More Catholic Than The Pope"

E.J. Dionne's op/ed in today's WaPo, "The Stakes at Notre Dame", has the priceless observation, "We now know that the reaction of right-wing Catholics to Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama falls into the category of 'more Catholic than the Pope.'"

Dionne notes that L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, offered a quite positive analysis of Obama's approach to "life issues." As Dionne notes, the article demonstrates that the right-wingers' "over-the-top response is rooted at least as much in Republican and conservative politics as in concern over the abortion question."

Dionne goes on to quote from an editorial in the current issue of the Jesuits' America magazine which criticizes the wingnuts' "highly partisan political edge" which has "not escaped the notice of the Vatican." Oops, wankers, you might want to spend less time reading Rethuglican talking points and more time reflecting on what should be left to God and what to man.