UNITED STATES
Enlightened Catholicism
Fr Thomas Reese has written an article for NCR with his observations from the just concluded USCCB meeting in Baltimore. In the main I found this was a useless and boring meeting of corporate leaders who seem frighteningly out of touch with both their consumers and their own CEO. Although Fr Reese isn’t quite that blunt in his assessment he does say some things that are never the less quite blunt. The following is an extract that includes some of Reese’s blunt observations:
……But the bishops as a conference have been embarrassingly silent on economic justice during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Last year, the conference failed to pass a document on the economy despite growing inequality and high unemployment.
Many bishops fear that speaking loudly about economic issues would help Democrats and undermine their alliance with the Republican Party on issues like gay marriage, abortion, and religious liberty. Some even think that the conference’s earlier letters, “Economic Justice for All” and “The Challenge of Peace,” were mistakes because they hurt their friends. (Poverty, illness, justice for all, what are these boring things when compared to the titillation of sexual issues?)
Will the new leadership of the conference make a difference? (No. Especially since the Koch Bros just donated a cool million to the bishops very own university–Catholic University of America. How quickly came the reward for staying the pelvic course with their friends in the GOP.)
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