LOUISVILLE (KY)
Courier-Journal
[with video]
Editorial
Congratulations to Louisville Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz on his election as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Archbishop Kurtz takes over during a time of great change in the church, brought about mainly by the election earlier this year of Pope Francis, who has called for the church to turn away from what he has said are “small-minded rules” and to be “ministers of mercy.”
We hope Archbishop Kurtz will take that to heart.
Since arriving in Louisville in 2007, Archbishop Kurtz has pushed the type of doctrinal issues that Pope Francis’ two most recent predecessors — Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI — stood for.
Archbishop Kurtz supported state legislation that would remove civil rights protections from some people, all in the name of “religious freedom,” and has spoken out against federal health care mandates that would provide insurance coverage for millions of people, all because they included a requirement that insurance plans pay for artificial contraception.
He sided with those in the Vatican who sought to crack down on nuns who dared suggest that women should take a greater role in the church and were involved in other forms of “dissent.”
He has taken money that could have gone to help the needy in the Louisville and given it instead to a campaign in Maine to overturn legislative approval of gay marriage.
While all those positions fit well into the world views of the dogmatic popes before him, they seem to be anathema to Pope Francis, who has spent the first months of his tenure urging the church to be more pastoral than judgmental.
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