Playing with Politics at the Pulpit: an Unfortunate Trend in American Catholicism
Moyerboard
It’s no secret that the Vatican’s once esteemed reputation has faded dramatically in recent years, especially in westernized nations. Papal visits still draw massive crowds of Catholic worshipers around the world, and the Pope himself still meets regularly with both cherished and vilified world leaders. But these visits are now merely symbolic, carrying only slightly more weight than visits by members of England’s Royal Family. The Holy See’s once commanding authority, which played a role in collapsing the Berlin Wall and dissolving the Soviet Union, has all but evaporated. This dramatic fall from grace has been primarily attributed to the Church’s sex abuse scandal and subsequent cover up, in which Cardinals and other top officials have attempted to egregiously shift the blame onto secular society, lawyers, and the media. But the sex abuse scandal is not the only reason why respect for the Church’s hierarchy is quickly diminishing. The Vatican’s unwavering insistence on pontificating politics is also turning many Catholics, particularly American Catholics, away from Church doors. Earlier this month, the Vatican issued a scathing reprimand directed towards the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization that represents the vast majority of American nuns. According to the reprimand, the Vatican believes that American nuns are concentrating too much on feeding the poor and on income inequality, and too little on politicized social issues, such as abortion and gay marriage. More recently, the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, barred an anti bullying group from presenting an award at one of their high schools due to the group’s mission statement, which Bishop Martin Amos has deemed “contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church”. The offending area, apparently, is the group’s position that LGBT teenagers should be defended from bullying and given suicide prevention counseling. Funny, throughout all of my biblical readings in Catholic grade school and high school, I never remember hearing Jesus say “Do unto others as you would have them do to you. Unless they’re gay. Then go get em’.” Even with these recent developments, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops continues to insist that they are politically neutral and not directly involved in political campaigning. According to a section of the Conference’s website, labeled Election Season Guidelines, The U.S. Catholic Church “does not and will not engage in partisan politics”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Any Catholic who is truly honest with themselves knows that, in the end, the Church will always align themselves with the socially conservative wing of the Republican Party during every election cycle. And they don’t do so in a passive manner either. In the weeks leading up to a major election, many Priests and Bishops turn the altar’s lectern into a bully pulpit, using the Sunday homily as a way of intimidating potential voters over the issues of abortion, gay marriage, divorce, and stem cell research. Cases of this kind of intimidation can be traced back to the Clinton/Dole Presidential election of 1996, when retired New Orleans Archbishop Phillip Hannan shocked many people by saying that Catholics who voted for President Clinton would be sinning due to his pro-choice stance on abortion. Since then, such proclamations have become less surprising. In fact, they are to be expected. The 2004 and 2008 Presidential elections were particularly brutal in terms of the vitriolic rhetoric directed at the Democratic candidates and their supporters. In 2004, John Kerry, a Catholic himself, was threatened with excommunication by some Church officials who were upset with his pro-choice beliefs. In 2008, many Church officials, such as retired Bishop Rene Gracida, warned that Catholics who were enamored with then-Senator Barack Obama could not vote for him if they had a “good conscience”. And more recently, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Illinois compared Obama with Hitler and Stalin due to his “pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda”. I myself have witnessed even more colorful condemnations of Democratic candidates and voters during Masses that I have attended. Some of the more memorable instances include a priest or bishop: • Lambasting Presidential candidate John Kerry and then Governor of New Jersey Jim McGreevey for re-marrying after they divorced their first spouses. • Saying “I have no idea what America was thinking” in reference to the Democratic Party’s substantial takeover of Congress in 2006. • Venomously referring to Presidential Candidate Barack Obama as the “Prince of Abortion” • Saying that voting for pro-choice candidates is a sin because abortion is the “new holocaust”. • Praising Sarah Palin as a true Christian woman when compared to female Catholic politicians such as Nancy Pelosi I’ve also seen political organizations handing out “Voting guides” to parishioners. Another snippet from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website states that “We do not authorize the distribution of partisan political materials on parish property”. Granted, the people that I saw handing pamphlets out were off Church grounds…but only by a few feet. And the contents of these voting guides, which read like less than subtle endorsements for socially conservative candidates, led me to believe that the parish was actively pushing this regulation as far as they could without crossing the continuously vanishing line that separates Church and State. At some point, the leadership of the American Catholic Church is going to have to decide what they really want to be: Patient, tolerant shepherds of a faith in crisis, or yet another cabal of conservative lobbyists masquerading as holy men (I’m looking at you, Pat Robertson and John Hagee.) If they are wise, they will choose the former, because continuing down the latter path can only ensure more empty pews (and collection baskets) in the coming years. The Magisterium doesn’t seem to understand that their flock is comprised of a diverse range of political ideologies and beliefs. In fact, the majority of American Catholics (57%) identify themselves as supporters of the Democratic Party, as opposed to the 40% who consider themselves to be Republicans. American Catholics also fall under numerous different categories when it comes to taking sides on hot button issues and controversial legislation. For example, The Church’s leadership was openly against President Obama’s healthcare bill in 2010. But only 68% of Catholic Republicans and 42% of Catholic Democrats opposed the bill. More surprisingly, there isn’t a majority of Democratic or Republican Catholics who identify themselves as staunchly pro life. Only 35% of Democratic Catholics and 48% of Republican Catholics call themselves pro life. This is particularly stunning when you consider how militant the Bishops have been in advocating anti-abortion candidates and organizations. It’s high time that these Cardinals and Bishops realize that Catholics aren’t going to march in lockstep with every political position that they choose to advocate. This final statistics hammers that point home: A paltry 33% of Catholic Republicans and 28% of Catholic Democrats believe in the absolute teaching authority of the Vatican. Perhaps if they focused on teaching about matters of faith, rather than personal politics, those numbers wouldn’t be so embarrassingly underwhelming. At any rate, individuals living in a free society aren’t going to change their opinions just because the Pope says so. And as long as the Vatican chooses to remain tone-deaf to the legitimate opinions and concerns coming from parishioners, nuns, and legal officials, the symbolic referendum currently being held against them will remain visible in those ever shrinking crowds at Sunday masses.
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.