UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
It’s to the credit of the U.S. Catholic bishops that they have issued several mild statements about the moral shortcomings of the Paul Ryan budget. This is in keeping with a rather predictable game the USCCB has played for some years now. Here’s the game: as a first step, when an election approaches, the members of the USCCB give every outward appearance and every strong sign possible of anointing the GOP as God’s own party.
Then having done their utmost to assure that “real” Catholics will cast their votes for God’s party and that the deck of public Catholic conversation will be strongly stacked in favor of the GOP as God’s party, they make a few ineffectual whispers in the direction of support for Catholic social teaching–whispers that mean absolutely nothing in light of their overweening endorsement of a political party that has no vital connection at all to this social teaching, but which, indeed, stands for its opposite.
I have long since grown disenchanted with this game, and with the dishonesty of Catholic centrists who continue to act as cheerleaders for the bishops, as they issue statements to which the bishops know perfectly well no one will listen, since what they whisper has already been effectively drowned out by their loud, coarse, and persistent pro-Republican proclamations. …
As for the claim that the U.S. Catholic bishops stand pre-eminently with the weak and vulnerable, I’ll keep thinking about that claim as I continue reading the stories coming out of the trials of Bishop Finn in Kansas City and of Monsignor Lynn in Philadelphia. For my money, you can’t get more weak and vulnerable than a child coerced by an adult into unwanted sexual activity.
And if the bishops’ response to those children has been a demonstration of their concern for the weak and vulnerable, then my understanding of terms like “concern,” “compassion,” and “weak and vulnerable” must be upside down.
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