UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
Hillary Clinton Benefits From Errors, of US Bishops and the Pope’s Cardinals Council and Billionaire Donors, on Fixing the Pope’s Major Messes on Child Abuse, Gay Marriage and Contraception (Obamacare)
For over three decades, the Vatican and US bishops have been close political allies of the US Republican party and its “low tax/lower regulation/least safety net” billionaire donors. For over two of those decades, the Vatican and its US bishops have had fundamental disagreements with the US Democratic party’s most prominent woman and current leading presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, as noted here.
Ironically, Hillary Clinton now appears to be benefitting considerably from the multiple “messes” that the US bishops and both Pope Francis’ elite Council of Cardinals (C9) and billionaire donors have, in effect, evidently exacerbated by their many errors and omissions. These messes relate to (A) continuing priest child sexual abuse under unaccountable and stonewalling bishops’ noses, (B) opposition to same sex civil marriages, and (C) opposition to free contraception under Obamacare that contributes both to family poverty and to global warming through unwanted overpopulation.
The pope needs to re-assess in light, among other things, of the recent criminal cases relating to former US House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, and Minneapolis bishops. The recent image of Hastert, once two steps away from the US presidency, pleading Not Guilty in a Chicago Federal court should cause many in the Catholic hierarchy to reflect and reform, no? No one is now above the law, not even the pope!
It is likely only a matter of time before the media and prospective voters ask whether the allegations in Chicago about Hastert’s “secret side” and in Minneapolis about alleged cover-ups of priest child abuse by Fr. Kevin McDonough, brother of President Obama’s Chief of Staff, were factors in the Federal government’s currently inexplicable failure for years to investigate the epidemic of institutional child sexual abuse in the US, especially in the Catholic Church, as Australia, Ireland, Canada, the UK and many other nations are now doing?
Protecting child abusers turns off most modern voters. Opposing civil same sex marriage also turns off a growing majority of these voters, as recent US polls and the Irish Catholic vote make very clear. Opposing contraception and Obamacare is also a “vote loser”, especially with the millions of US voters who would lose their new health insurance if Obamacare is invalidated by the US Supreme Court.
It is no surprise that many US Republican political leaders privately hope the US Supreme Court will soon declare same sex marriage to be a constitutionally protected right. These Republicans fear the same sex marriage trap. Many Republicans, and likely several of the politically astute conservative US Supreme Court justices who want their successors to be appointed soon by a conservative Republican US president, now realize that Republicans likely can only win the 2016 US elections (and thereby control the selection of future US Supreme Court justices) by losing on the Obamacare and same sex marriage cases soon to be decided at the US Supreme Court. President Obama seems to understand all of this as well, which may be why he is reaching out to Catholics on health care.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.