Communist!

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis called Friday for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb the "economy of exclusion" that is taking hold today.

I can hear the shrieks renting the air from the right already. You can be sure that Francis will be called: a socialist, a Marxist, a communist at the least. And probably a lot of other things. Whaddaya think the chances of "governments" following his advice are?

Fossilized . . .

“We must not be fossilized in the past,” he said after being asked about transfers of priests from diocese to diocese that enabled them to escape investigation and prosecution. “This was a policy practiced decades ago, mostly.”

                         --Words of Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s representative in Geneva 

I read in the New York Times that Bishop Tomasi reports that almost 850 priest had been defrocked from 2004-2013 and another 2,500+ disciplined for sexual abuse. Moreover, since 1950 the Church has paid over $2.5 billion in compensation to victims and more millions on therapy and other costs associated with litigation and investigations. And over $260 million over the past 10 years doing background checks on people serving in the Church.

Big deal. Are we supposed to forget about the other stuff? What he doesn't say is how many bishops have lost their jobs for facilitating the abuse of kids for decades by simply moving miscreants around and/or paying off victims for silence. The answer is less than five. There are hundreds of these guys still out there in their positions of authority and privilege because Rome simply chose not to go after them. It was an understandable decision, after all, since Rome, which sees all and knows all, covered the whole sordid mess up for years and years until it could not contain things anymore. It's still doing it. The Vatican has been pretty damn sparing about what it says on this subject, and now we're being told that we should dwell on things that happened in the past . . . . mostly.

St. Pope and St. Pope

Last week--on April 28, to be exact--the Catholic church declared two recent pontiffs saints of the Church. I could here launch into a long disquisition about the very notion of sainthood, that some people can be so much holier than other people and how the Church for some reason ascribes this holiness overwhelmingly to members of the clergy and religious. Gee, I wonder why a hierarchical institution like the Roman Church would place priests, bishops, nuns, and brothers higher on the holiness scale than the rest of the poor shlubs out there having all those kids?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The two new saints are Pope John XXIII, who is most famous for calling the Second Vatican Council into session--most Catholics don't remember this since the Church has spent all the years since it closed trying to undo its impact--and Pope John Paul II, who reigned as pope longer than anybody else, and used his long pontificate to stamp out doctrinal dissent, appoint dogmatic troglodytes to the episcopate to ensure his conservative theology outlived him by many years, and of course, keep the lid on any information about the worldwide sexual scandal among the clergy. JPII was also instrumental in stifling liberation theology in Latin America and in shenanigans that ousted the communist government in his home country of Poland.

I'm much more inclined to give benefit of doubt to John XXIII, but he too was around when the sexual misconduct was raging in the Church . . . I would not have canonized the guy so quickly. Both these popes were brought to sainthood with unseemly haste. It usually takes decades, if not centuries. One wonders just what the rush was.

Here's another commentary on this subject, one that got me to thinking about it. This commentator is far gentler than I.

Just a thought regarding today’s news of the current Pope canonizing two former Popes.  This is rather like the chairman of a corporate board of directors giving a couple of former CEO’s huge retroactive bonuses. Source 

Oh, did I mention I was opposed to making these guys saints?

Lest We Get Confused by This Wonderful Pope

Back on ground level, things are still an unholy mess:

Mother Hubbard's Cupboard: The Roman Catholic diocese of Stockton, California (a wholly owned subsidiary of The Vatican, Inc.) says it hasn't got enough money to pay any more victims of priestly pedophilia, so there is no point in making a big to-do about it. So the diocese is seeking bankruptcy protection from the children they offered no protection to. Okay, so why not deed the church's property to the victims and let the church rent the places? O better, why not sue the parent company; it's got lots of money, it knew about the abuses, and it was their policies that allowed, if not encouraged, decades of child abuse. 

Source: Here

My Kinda Pope

Pope Francis is causing an absolute furor among all those pious (and impious, too) free market capitalists out there. Fox News, for example. He has said what needed to be said by the Church long since. In effect that the trickle-down nonsense that's been served up by the conservatives since before Reagan--you know what I'm talking about: the notion that wealth will trickle down from the rich in society to the less rich and poor by some sort of magical process involving tax cuts for everybody, but especially the really well off. See Wiki article.

In a new 85-page "apostolic exhortation," (You can find a good summary of the document's salient points here.) Pope Francis has basically played the bullshit card. A couple of samples:

The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings. (So much for Wall Street.)

How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. (So much for income inequality.)

And this beauty, which no one can misunderstand:

Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.

I like this guy. How can you not like him when he gives Rush Limbaugh apoplexy?

 

Francis and the Church Ingognito

Habemus papem

This happened yesterday. White smoke from the chapel and roar from the assembled thousands in St. Peter's Square. The conclave of Cardinals in Rome, in the Sistine Chapel, elected one of their own to head the Roman Catholic church as pope. His name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio and he is from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is the first pope ever elected from the Americas. You can find a whole passel of stories about him here. He's also the first pope to choose the name Francis. And the first Jesuit ever elected to the papacy. That's a lot of firsts. But in some things he will not be the first, but rather a link in a long chain. He will not be the first to staunchly uphold Catholic doctrine and positions on social issues. So we cannot expect any glimmer of change in the Church's underpinning theology, things that have been roiling in Christian thought elsewhere for decades. As with most things Catholic, doctrine seems immutable. And if that is immutable, then nothing is going to change on the social issues such as gay marriage, married priests, female clergy.

What Francis proposes to do is refocus the Church--read about it here--to put an end to its "self-referential" character and turn its focus outward away from Europe and towards the poor of the world. I can only applaud this from the standpoint of what the church should be doing to best reflect Jesus in the world, but I also can't help but notice that a move towards being less "self-referential" is going to perforce turn off the heat on the church's ongoing scandals: the never-ending pedophilia outrage, the Vatican bank, and various other shifty goings on in the Vatican. And I don't believe for a minute that all those guilty cardinals (like American Roger Mahony--and plenty of others--who spent millions of dollars trying to avoid disclosure and payments to victims of pedophile priests in Los Angeles) didn't welcome a change of direction away from the spotlight on their sordid and despicable behavior.

Some Thoughts about Church

This year (of our Lord, as they used to say) 2013, I'm going to cross the Rubicon of being 70 years old. In my mind, and that's the only one that really matters, it's a demarcation between aging or late middle age, and old or, less starkly, elderly. If you never could quite think of yourself as old, I submit that once you're into your 70s, you can stop fooling yourself about being anything other than elderly. All of this has been a matter of some considerable amazement to me, for we all can remember when we were young and thought about ourselves in the distant future at say, age 65 or 70, the notion seemed completely preposterous.

Even more preposterous are projections we make when we're younger about anything that's going to be true of our life when we get old. For example, except for my 5-6 year period as a near-atheist, I was a church-going Catholic. At age 45, I was ordained as a permanent deacon in the church and for the next 25 years faithfully performed my ministerial duties. And before ordination, I got involved in several different kinds of ministry. I was what could be honestly described as a "religious" person. The point of all this is, if anyone would have told me then or even ten years ago that at the age of 69 I would be out of the Catholic church (and of course out of ministry as a deacon) and not only that, but a member in good standing in a Protestant congregation . . . why what a truly absurd notion. Catholicism was supposed to be a life-long thing. But of course, what do you know about life when you're in your twenties?

Fact is, what you know about life at the stage I am now is only incrementally more. What you don't know is massive by comparison. And that's kinda the bedrock assumption of the little church community I belong to now, a United Church of Christ congregation that embraces a vision of Christianity that comports in just about every respect with my own. For years I silently reflected on the absurdity of my official standing as a member of the Catholic clergy, not because I didn't believe in service. Indeed, service was the only thing that made sense about it. The doctrines and dogmas certainly didn't. It became increasingly evident to me that if I were put in a position of saying yea or nay to a host of Catholic  theological propositions--redemption by Christ's blood, virgin birth, eucharist, Trinity, not to mention the easy ones like papal infallibility, exclusion of homosexuals, etc.--I would be saying either "nay" or "hey, let's talk about this" to just about all of them. I'm the last kind of person to let any proposition go unexamined. And the fact is, just about every theological notion I was taught to believe simply didn't stand up to examination.

Which I might have been able to abide--after all, I had found these propositions problematical for years--but I could not abide the overbearing authoritarianism of the institution and in the light of the massive still unfolding (after years of doing so) sexual scandals, the sheer depth of the hierarchy's hypocrisy and cruelty to children. The massive decades long cover-up of rampant pedophilia among the clergy. I heard a story on NPR the other day about the viciousness of the Irish nuns to the young girls they imprisoned in so-called "Magdalene laundries." Is there no end to these revelations of how un-Christian the Catholic church was and still is? 

It became just impossible for me to stay. So I left, and burned the bridges. I'm now with a group of people now who follow Jesus but who don't have dogma, who accept anybody who comes to our church no matter who or what they are, who believe in peace and social justice, who believe that God is still speaking to humankind, and who embrace a progressive vision of Christianity that we pray eventually will take root in the churches that look to Jesus as the model of how a human being should live his life. I'm not looking back, and I'm old enough now to confess that the future is out there in all its mystery. I don't have clue what it holds.

Just a Taste

. . . of a thoroughly enjoyable, but totally serious read at The Smirking Chimp. (Here) It's worth the whole read, of course.

So, shall we review:

The Catholic Church is anti-gay
The Mormon Church is anti-gay
The Boy Scouts are anti-gay.

The Catholic Church protected pedophiles
The Boy Scouts protected pedophiles
The Mormon used to protect polygamist-pedophiles

The Catholic Church represses women
The Mormon Church (LDS) represses women
The Evangelicals repress women
The Boy Scouts .. "Hey, who needs women? We have young boys."

I'm sick of the lot of them. Republicans who shout "voter fraud," and are then caught engaging in voter fraud.

Sick of "super-patriot" groups like the Boy Scouts of America, touting their "American values" getting caught, not just breaking the law, but protecting the perps and violating the trust of parents and society.

And I am sick of holier-than-thou religious folk who endlessly try to impose their beliefs on those who don't share them, don't want them or believe in them. But then also change those beliefs like dirty underwear whenever it suits their need for money, power and their tax-exempt money-making rackets.

[He's referring here to the evangelicals of America embracing the Mormon Mitt Romney. Until now Mormons have been considered an unholy "cult." But of course--there's that black guy in the White House. We can't have that. God is definitely against that.]

Now Here's an Idea

Hans Kung, several of whom's books I have read, is a progressive Roman Catholic theologian. I'll never forget what a huge impact his On Being a Christian (1976) had on me. I read it in the early '80s, and I have to say that Kung has probably had more influence on my thinking about church, Jesus, and matters spiritual than anybody else. (Leaving aside for the moment the question of the Spirit's influence which would, in any event, be pretty difficult to measure.

Anyway, I'm struck by Kung's latest cogent suggestion to the Catholic Church at large. In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, the German priest, now 84 years old, appealed "to priests and churchgoers to confront the Catholic hierarchy, which he says is corrupt, lacking credibility and apathetic to the real concerns of the church's members." He likened the "unconditional obedience" required of bishops to the pope as almost as extreme as the one German generals had to swear to Hitler. (A charge certainly to ring the chimes of the German pope Benedict XVI.)

"The priests and others in positions of responsibility need to stop being so subservient," Kung said, "to organize themselves and say that there are certain things that they simply will not put up with anymore."

Well, this is excellent, I say, as one of those who has been driven out by the Church's rigidity and increasing irrelevance to the lives of people whom I love (especially my children and siblings) but likewise to millions of just ordinary people who long for a spiritual existence that helps them make sense of their lives. But I also have to shake my head in disbelief. The idea that the sheep of the Catholic flock will ever demand anything from Rome (instead of the other way around) is too fantastic to contemplate. I think, sadly, that the Church is doomed to continue its slide into irrelevance.

But God bless Hans Kung for his courage.

Related articles

• Hans Küng May Be Old, But He's Still Fiery (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)

Now What Have I Been Saying . . . ?

Haven't I been saying over the past several weeks that the Catholic church has sold itself over stock, lock, and barrel to the Republican party. And why should anyone be surprised? Isn't it ever the case that despite the saintly souls in the ranks who actually care for the poor and who make it their business to do acts of charity and goodness, which, in the gospel scheme of things is exactly what followers of Jesus are supposed to be doing . . . I say that despite this, is it not always the case that the official Church, the institution, is ever allied with the forces of reaction? I search history in vain for evidence that it was otherwise after 326 CE when the Emperor Constantine bestowed the State's blessing on Christianity. Since then, which I have often seen as one of the worst things ever to happen to the church, the hierarchy and Rome has allied itself with the rich and powerful of society.

I reiterate that this is not to say that the Church does a vast amount of good in the world to relieve the sufferings of people and to care for their needs, but when it comes to knowing where its bread is buttered, the Church does not miss a beat. It's palsy walsy with the money . . . everywhere.

And so we read that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, is going to deliver the closing blessing the GOP convention at the end of the week. How appropriate.

"The cozy relationship between a sizable portion of U.S. bishops and the Republican Party should be cause for concern, and not just among progressive Catholics," Michael O'Loughlin wrote in a post on the website of America magazine, a leading Catholic weekly published by the Jesuits.

"Cardinal Dolan's appearance in Tampa will damage the church's ability to be a moral and legitimate voice for voiceless, as those who view the Catholic Church as being a shill for the GOP have just a bit more evidence to prove their case," O'Loughlin concluded.

Well, I should say so. To my knowledge, the official Church in the guise of one of its most prominent prelates has never publicly identified itself with a political party like this. So all pretense is off.

You Go, Sis!

Good for you, good sister!

Story I read today says that the US's Oak Ridge nuclear facility in Tennessee which is used to store weapons-grade uranium was temporarily shut down by three anti-nuke protesters who penetrated the facility by cutting through fences. According to them, they cleared four fences and walked over two hours before reaching a big storage building where they spray-painted slogans, and hung banners and crime scene tape.

One of those arrested was an 82-year old nun, Meagan Rice. She and her companions are charged with vandalism and criminal trespass. I'm sure the Vatican is not concerned about this unless the good sister has unorthodox opinions on birth control and woman priesthood, which is certainly more criminal than nuclear weapons.

Related articles

• G4S under fire after nun breaks into US nuclear facility (telegraph.co.uk)

Where We're All Going

Tonight Susan and I went to a wake service for an old and dear friend named Carl Amend. He died in his sleep of a massive stroke a few days ago. Carl and I go back a long way here in Oklahoma. We first met him and his wife Sharan during our Marriage Encounter phase, an experience that led both Carl and I into the diaconate for the Church. We were in the same formation class. We spent a lot of time together. We were in the same tutor group, spent 10 days during the summers for three years at intensive training. It was not long after ordination, about 6 months to a year, as I recall, that Carl had to move because of his job, off to St Louis, New Jersey, and then the somewhere in Texas. I think it might've been Austin. He moved back to Oklahoma City just a few years ago, and one of the last "official" duties as I did as a deacon was to bless his house, his new house.

Carl and I were always simpatico. We thought a lot alike in the spiritual realm, and he was a guy you could always count on. I could always count on Carl to be there if I needed him. He had a big rollicking laugh, and he loved to drink beer, two traits that are going to endear me to just about anybody. But he was generous, funny, unassuming, loyal, and dedicated to his family. It's ironic, I think, that here I am retired from the permanent diaconate and active ministry after 25 years, while Carl after he left Oklahoma City right after ordination never again practiced active ministry. I'm not sure why. We talked about it, but it was never really clear to me. Sharan told me this morning that she wants to talk to me about the diaconate, about Carl's choices. I'm looking forward to the conversation. (By the way, I don't miss the deacon ministry very much, but during these "family" times – funerals, baptisms, marriages – I feel the loss of my ministry most acutely.)

But in the meantime I mourn another of my friends who's gone. In addition to only other woeful results of getting older among the worst is this one: friends die. To me, it's one of the worst aspects of what is admittedly pretty bad deal. I loved Carl. I will miss him.

Have to Share This

A few days ago, I blogged (angrily) at the "Fortnight of Freedom" initiated by the Catholic bishops. And today I discover my wonderful guide Richard Rohr on the same subject but oh, so much more charitably. Really, is there any better indication of how far I have to go spiritually than comparing my screed of a few days ago with the following? I have to share this whole thing with you. Nobody I know of could have put this in such the right perspective. This is how a real Christian sees it.

The Catholic Bishops of America have initiated a two week campaign to fight for religious freedom in America. It is called a “Fortnight for Freedom”. It strikes a large part of the population as crying wolf when there is no wolf. Probably no population in human history has had more religious freedom and more religious support than the present population of the USA. (I myself, as a Franciscan vowed to common purse, pay no taxes. Nor do our local parishes or institutions.) It feels like entitled people wanting more entitlement.

How different from the early Christian martyrs, whom we piously venerate, who became holy and courageous through the limitations imposed on them by empires and emperors. Too bad Sts. Perpetua and Felicity could not sponsor a fortnight for freedom from their prison cells. Now we suffer no limitations or constrants, refuse to dialogue fairly or up front, and just complain that “our freedoms are being taken away”. The final irony is this was initiated by an issue that 98% of Catholic women do not even believe in–contraception. It really feels like bishops are shooting themselves in the foot by trying to divert attention away from our own problems and sins. Christian spirituality has always first sought spiritual freedom, inner freedom, freedom from self, freedom for love, and never did we expect governments to supply our “freedom” by any political mandate whatsoever. Our dear bishops are beginning to look like “the Republican party at prayer” more than men of the Gospel of Jesus.

 Fr Rohr blogs regularly. Right here. You could do worse than read what he has to say sometimes.

The "Fortnight"

Its full title is "Fortnight for Freedom." It began on June 21. What we're talking about here is two weeks of "non-stop nationwide teaching, preaching and public events to press" what the US Roman Catholic bishops are calling "freedom of religion." What the bishops are all exercised about is a requirement in the new healthcare law that institutions provide free contraception insurance coverage. Now, never mind the contraception is an issue that Catholics really don't give a hoot about for the most part. Never mind that the Obama administration has offered a workable compromise on the issue. And, oh, let's not mind that the bishops are denying this campaign has anything to do with partisan politics.

They have been forced to deny it of course because the secular press has been all over them. Why?  because to any normal person the fortnight for freedom looks like a nationwide "Vote Republican" exercise. It certainly does to me. The bishops claim it's about religious freedom, but if you'll pardon my saying so, that's a load of crap. In the same issue of USA Today that ran a story about the Fortnight, there is another story reporting that in the Philadelphia trial of Monsignor William Lynn, accused of facilitating the transfer of pedophile priests in that diocese, had not yet reached a verdict. This guy served as the Chancellor of the archdiocese, and of course he's the fall guy for the real criminal, the archbishop. And thus it's been all over the United States, the bishops have steadfastly refused to own up to their crimes. And these very same guys are now telling us about religious freedom! Give me a frigging break.

The local Catholic paper here in Oklahoma is full of Fortnight stuff. The local bishop* is careful to say that the debate is "not about contraception . . . not about religious freedom for Catholics only . . . not about the Church attempting to force anyone to do anything . . . not a fight that the Church asked for, but one which is been forced upon us by the federal mandate." And let's not forget the mandatory statement: "This is neither a partisan issue, nor liberal or conservative issue, but an American issue." 

What pious nonsense. What it all boils down to is supporting the Health Care Act is a blow to religious liberty, which is un-American, and which means you should vote for the party and candidate opposed to the affordable care act.

*You can find the entire statement here.

Related articles

• Fatuous 'Fortnight': Bishops' crusade is about power, not religious freedom

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• US Catholic bishops' abuse of 'religious freedom' | Katherine Stewart

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• 'Fortnight for Freedom' shows Catholic split

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Good God! (Again)

So where was I? Oh, yeah, I was going off about the Catholic Church's new push to restore indulgences, and I was in the midst of trying to explain the concept to those who may not be spun up on this sort of arcane stuff.

To recap: you're walking around toting all these sins. God will forgive them, of course, but the Church says the way you're positive this happens is you go to a priest and make a confession. He--always a "he"--then pronounces absolution and "poof!" all your sins are forgiven by God. You would think that would be it, but there's a catch . . .what about that punishment you would have gotten if you had not gone to confession and all those little bitty sins you didn't confess? What, you say? I thought we were done. Is there more? Well, there is, says the Church, something called "residual punishment" for sin. This is purgatory. Purgatory is reserved for those whose sins have already been forgiven, but who need to be further chastised. So what we're talking about here is the construction of a deity who is so crabby and vindictive that S/He will not let forgiveness be forgiveness. Will not let go at least some kind of "punishment" for one's having the temerity to transgress in the first place.

(Just as an aside: What the hell kind of God is that? It sounds like a God who is a lot like some human beings . . . some human beings cannot forgive, even when they say they forgive. In their hearts they always want the transgressor to pay, except in the human's case, he many times withholds forgiveness until the proper penance has been paid.)

But not to worry, dude. The Church has things covered for you. It's got a whole raft of these things called indulgences. You can get them for set period of time a day, week or weeks, year or years. And then there are blockbusters called "plenary" indulgences that wipe out every last second of residual punishment. So you're saying: well, gimme some of this, right? Right.

I guess you've already guessed that they don't just hand these things out for nuthin'. Oh, no. Acts of charity or piousness or performance of a religious function, like a retreat or pilgrimage, or prayer, or a combination of these things is required. Then HMC (Holy Mother Church) will bestow the indulgence.* Got it? We're talking about get-out-jail-free cards . . . and these things, these indulgences, are what the Church wants to restore to its regular practice. In the 21st century.

Good God! Are you kidding me?

*Back in Martin Luther's time, the Church sold indulgences for hard cash. Can you understand why that might have upset somebody who was trying to take God seriously?

Good God!

I have been saving this one ever since I stumbled across it a while back. Good God! is the unbelieving astonishment being expressed. It's also subtle theological statement about what I consider to be the nature of the deity. S/He is good, i.e., has nothing to do with the chastisement of the creatures S/He called into existence out of . . . purportedly (as I've been taught and learned) . . . love. This sort of background is required for you to truly grasp my disbelief when I read in the NY Times that the Catholic Church is on a campaign to revive indulgences. Indulgences! What are they going to reinstate next? Burning heretics at the stake? Going to hell for fried chicken on Friday? What? You don't know what indulgences are? Really? (Actually, I'm flattered if you have never heard of indulgences . . . that proves that this nearly 70-year-old blogger has readers under 50. So happy you're aboard!)

So indulgences. You can read the article, but I'll give you a more colloquial read on it. Okay. So you have these after-death places: heaven above and you have flaming hell below. And in between . . . it's not clear where . . . you have purgatory.  Imagine this place like a dingy Greyhound terminal waiting room. It's ugly, has a water cooler that's unsanitary-looking even if it works, and has nothing but grungy, uncomfortable benches to sit on. We're talking about a way-station here. A temporary stop on your way to a better place. That's purgatory. And why are you in this damned (sorry, force of habit) awful place? Because, dude, you were bad when you were alive. And God demands that you pay price if you have gone though the proper procedures to get forgiven for these bad things, sins, to put it in the argot. For more on this, see below.

The price you pay God if it were a really bad thing is hell, baby. You will burn in unquenchable torturing fires forever, as in longer than when every star in every galaxy in the universe burns out. In fact, beyond the time when every star in every galaxy in all the alternate universes to this one burn out. Forever is one long frigging time.

But even if you didn't do anything really bad, you still have to pay. The God who called you into existence out of love is not satisfied till S/He sits you in the Greyhound terminal till S/He's ready to see you. That, brothers and sisters, could be a day, a week, or a year, or several thousand or conceivably, million, years, depending on what bad things you did.

And here I have to remind you of something the Catholic Church doesn't want you to forget: you don't even make it to the Greyhound terminal unless God forgives you your sins. And how is that effected? Why, via one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, the sacrament of penance, commonly called "confession." That's where you go and recount your sins to a priest, who as a representative of Jesus (i.e., God), bestows God's forgiveness upon you in a proxy operation.

[Enough! Geez. I didn't realize this theological disquisition was going to be so long-winded, so I'm going to have to ask your indulgence (har, har!) for taking a break. I'll continue this tomorrow.]

Related articles

• Will The Catholic Church Ever Evolve? (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
• Catholic Church Uses Video Contest to Promote Sacrament of Confession (prweb.com)

The Pope is Pissed

Who would you rather have praying for you? These people?

Or this guy?

I submit to you that this is really no choice at all. Who is God more likely to heed? Holy women who have spent their entire lives in service to the poor, sick, and disadvantaged, who are best known for hospitals, prayer, and schools . . . or a pseudo-royal pontiff--best known for being part of the worldwide conspiracy in the Church to protect pedophiles and avoid paying their victims--who can find nothing better to do these days than beat up on nuns for not hewing strictly to the party line?

Yes, the Curia--Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith--has issued a report condemning the Leadership Conference of Woman Religious, which represents about two-thirds of the 57,000 American nuns. It seems that the holy women have not been sufficiently vocal about their support of Vatican policies on homosexuality and, even worse, the Church's insistence on ordination for men only. They have generally been polluted by "radical feminism," according to the Vatican.

I'm delighted to report that the nuns have received an outpouring of public support (see here; see also here and here.) How, really, could it be otherwise? Now maybe if the Pope got pissed off at something besides deviations on Church doctrine, people would be more inclined to lend an ear. When is Rome going to stop sounding like a hectoring old ninny and start really speaking the language of the Christ it claims to be sole manifestation of on Earth?

Don't hold your breath.

Related articles

• Pope pissed off at uppity American nuns - orders Inquisition! (dvorak.org)
• Vatican Smacks Down Catholic Nuns For Daring To Care About Poor People (crooksandliars.com)
• Nuns Gone Wild! (thedailybeast.com)

A Caniption

That's what the Catholic Church is having over what they claim is a matter of constitutional rights, specifically the right of free speech--and according to one bishop the rights of conscience. All over the country pulpits vibrated yesterday with letters of indignation from bishops because of the Obama administration's rule that requires contraceptive services such as birth control pills be included in the health care insurance plans under the Affordable Health Care Act. Though churches and other directly-worship connected institutions are exempt, places like hospitals are not. So the Catholic bishops are having shit fits.

I would like to raise several points of order. First, it's been well-established by any number of surveys that Catholics by a massive percentage, like over 90, practice birth control despite what the Church teaches on the matter.

A report released last year shows about 98 per cent of sexually active Catholic women have used contraceptive methods banned by the church. The study showed practices of Catholic women are in line with women of other religious affiliations and adult American women in general.

Nearly 70 per cent of Catholic women use sterilization, the birth control pill or an IUD, according to the Guttmacher Institute research. (Source)

So the natural question arises, just who are these bishops talking to? Second, where are the voices of these models of morality when it comes to issues that aren't "safe" from government retaliation or even more to the point, retaliation from the pews? Which, need we note, translates into far fewer shekels in the collection plates.* Did we hear them denouncing the war in Iraq, which was launched on the basis of a passel of lies by the president and henchmen? The immorality of nuclear weapons? Did we ever hear these paragons of virtue condemn the gross inequities of daily life in this country: the disparity of income, the scandalous number of people who go hungry every day in the land of the free? How about the crimes being committed against the earth by corporations? Hell, no. You're not going to hear this stuff from the pulpits. That's way likely to piss off people with wallets.

Third, anybody who is morally repulsed by an insurance plan that covers contraception, well, they can go get a plan that doesn't. Nobody has to actually use birth control or the morning after pill if it does violence to their religious beliefs. But what about the Methodist who works in a Catholic hospital. Does she not deserve a comprehensive health insurance plan?

Finally, this is the same bunch of people who kept their mouths tightly shut while hundreds of priests in their charge molested and sexually abused children all over the country. (In fact, some of the bishops were pedophiles, too, graduated up the chain.) This is the same bunch of people who didn't have the balls to purge their own ranks after virtually every single one of them suborned pedophilia in their dioceses for decades. This is the same bunch of people that is still spending millions of dollars trying to fend off legal settlements with the victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. The whole lot of them have forfeited their right to lecture the rest of us and the US government, no less, about freedom of conscience! Not until they all stand publicly in sackcloth covered with ashes every Sunday for about five years should they open their pie holes about what's constitutional.

*Although there are still some progressives in the Catholic Church, it is a predominantly conservative organization whose hierarchy sees the world in the same way Republicans do. I have to confess this is impressionistic evidence from close observation on my part. As part of the Church's hierarchy for over 25 years, I listened to the political opinions of hundreds of Catholic leaders, cleric and lay, in several different parishes. Let me tell you. Progressives among these people were scarce.

Related articles

• Birth Control: Could It Be Illegal Again? (ideas.time.com)
• Catholics rebel against Obama contraception plan (politico.com)
• Why New Birth Control Benefits are the Right Choice and Why Religious Conservatives Have it Wrong (alternet.org)
• I'm So Tired of Waking Up on Monday Mornings and Punching My Radio In the Face (slog.thestranger.com)

"So What?"--- Really?

For some reason, and it's difficult to explain, this morning's piece in USA Today (which has become a frequent source lately since it lands in the driveway five days out of seven) entitled, "God, religion, atheism 'So what?' That's what many say" was really kinda upsetting to me. My spiritual journey in a nutshell: lifelong dissident Catholic; ordained deacon; out of the Church for myriad reasons since August 2010.

But still, to read that "So what?" characterizes the attitude of a growing number of people about matters spiritual is distressing. Apparently there are quite a few in this category, and judging my own family, both immediate and extended, and Susan's, too, that's pretty much the prevailing attitude. I cannot determine that many of those we are closest to and know best care about spirituality or even wonder about it. Maybe I do them all a disservice, and if so, I'm certainly sorry. But so it seems to me.

Here are some numbers:

• 44 percent told one survey they spend no time at all seeking "eternal wisdom"--a pretty lousy phrase, I think, but there it is
• 19 percent say "looking for meaning" is "useless."
• Another survey finds 46 percent who never wonder whether they will go to heaven

Well, okay, on this one, I haven't got much of a problem. I don't wonder about it at all myself. Heaven is a specifically Christian concept, and so is the notion--derived from Scripture and expanded and expounded by centuries of theology and Church pronouncements--of "earning" a way there or forfeiting your place there by your actions is at best problematical and at worst, silly. I tend towards the silly side. Why? Because the whole concept anthropomorphizes God into a crabby and totally unreasonable perfectionist who contradicts himself at every turn by first creating humankind in his own image, according to Scripture, then instilling it with appetites, proclivities, bad genes, and drives that ultimately cause it to fail his rather exacting code of behavior which must be followed to get into heaven. The other alternative is hell where you go if your behavior doesn't measure up to the said exacting code. Yet the Christian God is a god of love. Hmmm.

• Same survey found 28 percent who say finding a "deeper purpose" in the their life is not a priority
• 18 percent of those surveyed scoffed at the notion that God has a plan or purpose for everyone.

Does this mean that 72 percent are intent at some significant level on finding a deeper purpose in their lives? What does "priority" mean in this context? What about the 10 percent between the seekers and the scoffers? Are they seeking a deeper purpose but only sometimes or without much fervor? Sorry, I digress.

• 6.3 percent of Americans are totally secular, "unconnected to God or a higher power or any religious identity and willing to say religion is not important in their lives."

This figure is from Pew Forum's 2007 Religious Landscape Survey; it seems really low to me.

In fact, this has turned into quite a little essay, so I'll have to take it up again tomorrow. Right now I'm tired, and the subject really deserves closer attention than I've got to give it right now.

Related articles

• Spiritual apathetic, the new and fastest growing class of religion. (pastormikesays.wordpress.com)
• Religious Diversity among Atheists (freethoughtblogs.com)
• Study Finds American 'Millennials' are Spiritually Diverse (prweb.com)

Happy Valley

Scumbag Sandusky and enabler Paterno in happier times

I knew it at one time, but I was reminded by all the news out of Penn State of late that that campus is known as "Happy Valley." It's more than a little ironic, don't you think, that this latest mecca for pedophilia should bear such a nickname? I don't have to tell you the sordid details of the scandal that is engulfing the happy valley school with its sainted football coach. Seems the defensive coordinator there under Saint Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, sexually abused boys over a period of years, in some cases right there in the Penn State showers where he was seen on different occasions by members a clean-up crew and by a graduate assistant. Early reports say eight boys were victimized; the latest number I've heard is 20. And this is almost certainly too low. We veterans of the Catholic priest sex scandal know two irrefutable facts about pedophiles. They are serial offenders, and they don't stop abusing kids until they are caught. If you're talking years these slime balls are abusing kids before that, the victims can easily mount to over 50 or 60 kids or even more. (Chronology of the events leading to arrest of Sandusky here.)

What makes this thing so sordid is the same exact thing that happened with the Catholic church. Here the institution was a university and its squeaky clean football program and its squeaky clean legendary coach. But confronted with allegations that one of the football lights, Sandusky, had been caught sexually abusing children, the university covered the thing up and two of the college officials, including the Athletic Director, went on to perjure themselves before a grand jury in connection with this. And Saint Joe? Well, he was informed about this in 2002, and he reported it up the chain. And then . . . . does nothing. Doesn't confront Sandusky. Doesn't follow up on the report he made. Doesn't say anything when nothing happens in the case. And of course the higher ups don't do anything either.

WTF is wrong with these people? You have to wonder how much of this heinous behavior--the crime and the silence--is going on all over America. Is Penn State and the Catholic Church just the tip of a huge rancid iceberg?

Update I: The news Wednesday evening is that Paterno and the president of Penn State have both been fired. Good.

Related articles

• 'I'm Not the Football Coach': Paterno Fired from Penn State, Effective Immediately (time.com)
• The Penn State Scandal and the Loss of Faith in Institutions (news.firedoglake.com)
• Sandusky case links: USA Today compares Penn State to Catholic Church; Paul Posluszny, Dan Connor discuss scandal (pennlive.com)