American Nuns > Vatican

I think it’s time for a new schism.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella organization which involves 80% of U.S. Catholic sisters, is having the hammer brought down on it by the Vatican for not being a pack of bigoted assholes. I wish that were an exaggeration:

The Vatican’s assessment, issued on Wednesday, said that members of the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

Yeah, I’ll bet they say things like, “A mother of four should not be left to die of pregnancy-related causes.”

The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.” During the debate over the health care overhaul in 2010, American bishops came out in opposition to the health plan, but dozens of sisters, many of whom belong to the Leadership Conference, signed a statement supporting it — support that provided crucial cover for the Obama administration in the battle over health care.

Yep. Women who support universal health care need to STFU, while old guys in fancy robes, who would rather let Americans die by the millions of preventable causes than tolerate birth control coverage, are the “authentic teachers of faith and morals.”

“I’m stunned,” said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby founded by sisters. Her group was also cited in the Vatican document, along with the Leadership Conference, for focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping “silent” on abortion and same-sex marriage.

Oh, yes. Oh fucking yes. The nuns care too much about alleviating poverty, and not enough about demonizing gays or attacking women who think they get to control their reproduction.

Oddly enough, I don’t even recall Jesus saying anything about homosexuality or abortion. This is the guy who hung out with a bunch of single men and a woman of ill-repute. He did, however, have some strong opinions about how we treat the poor.

Sisters, you all are so much cooler than your church. Break away from those ridiculous bigots. Start your own religion: the Church of Actually Giving a Shit About Humanity. All the Catholics who are horrified at the Church for their homophobia, misogyny and support of child-raping priests but who keep making noises about “social justice” and “ritual” will have a better place to give their money and time. The ones who want their religion to be more focused on persecuting gays, letting pregnant women die, and preaching against using condoms to prevent the spread of HIV, can fend for themselves.

You’re better than they are, and they’re not even trying to hide how threatened they are by that. Let those assholes rot.

D.C. Archdiocese Competes in the Euphemism Olympics

Barbara Johnson is now endeavoring to have Father Marcel Guarnizo removed from his post at St. John Neumann Catholic church. She has good reason: at her mother’s funeral, Fr. Guarnizo denied her Communion because she is a lesbian, and walked out of the funeral while Johnson was delivering a eulogy. The family were left on their own for the burial.

Let’s go over that one more time:

1. Father Guarnizo denied Communion to the deceased woman’s daughter. Because she is a lesbian. He told her in so many words, right up at the altar with everyone watching.

“He put his hand over the body of Christ and looked at me and said, ‘I can’t give you Communion because you live with a woman, and in the eyes of the church, that is a sin,’ ” she recalled Tuesday.

2. Father Guarnizo abandoned the funeral midway through.

Family members said the priest left the altar while Johnson, 51, was delivering a eulogy and did not attend the burial or find another priest to be there.

This is, to say the very least, profoundly unprofessional behavior for a priest giving a funeral Mass. And how is the Archdiocese handling the matter? Actually not badly, but their language is just fascinating:

Late Tuesday, Johnson received a letter of apology from the Rev. Barry Knestout, one of the archdiocese’s highest-ranking administrators, who said the lack of “kindness” she and her family received “is a cause of great concern and personal regret to me.”

“I am sorry that what should have been a celebration of your mother’s life, in light of her faith in Jesus Christ, was overshadowed by a lack of pastoral sensitivity,” Knestout wrote. “I hope that healing and reconciliation with the Church might be possible for you and any others who were affected by this experience. In the meantime, I will offer Mass for the happy repose of your mother’s soul. May God bring you and your family comfort in your grief and hope in the Resurrection.”

Lack of “kindness”? Cause of “personal regret” to the administrator? Lack of “pastoral sensitivity”?

Archdiocese officials at first issued a short statement saying that the priest’s actions were against “policy” and that they would look into it as a personnel issue.

If Rev. Knestout is offering a redo of the funeral Mass for Barbara Johnson’s mother, that’s a good thing, but this is not merely about a shortage of “kindness” or “sensitivity.” Father Guarnizo tossed a monkey wrench into Mrs. Johnson’s funeral Mass and drove a wrecking ball into an already emotionally raw day for her family. That’s not just a question of “policy.” He was charged with a job and he did something very bad with it. If the D.C. Archdiocese wants to assure its parishioners that this will not be allowed to happen again, it’s quite simple: put Guarnizo out of a job. Tossing a bunch of watery corporate-speak at the Johnsons isn’t fooling anyone.

 

I’ve seen some wacky theories in Harry Potter fandom, but this?

Via Pharyngula, we learn from Nick Squires of the Telegraph that yoga is Satanic and the Harry Potter series is dangerous, according to the priest who has made a career out of finding “evil spirits” in people who need to be “cleansed” through painful, traumatizing rituals.

“In Harry Potter the Devil acts in a crafty and covert manner, under the guise of extraordinary powers, magic spells and curses,” said the priest, who in 1986 was appointed the chief exorcist for the Diocese of Rome.

And how did Father Gabriele Amorth form this theory of the physics of magic as shown in Harry Potter, you might ask?

“Satan is always hidden and what he most wants is for us not to believe in his existence. He studies every one of us and our tendencies towards good and evil, and then he offers temptations.”

He knows that extraordinary powers, magic spells and curses are the literary guise of Satan, because Satan is always hidden and wants us to believe he doesn’t exist.

In all the years I spent hanging out in Harry Potter fandom—and they were some great years!—I learned a lot of pretty far-fetched theories based more on what wasn’t in the books than on anything that was, but this one here? If this showed up in a fanfic, I think the “Hermione drugged Harry with a Love Potion to make him fall for Ginny” advocates would say, “Whoa, Padre. Step away from the shrooms.”

A reasonable person might see absolutely no parallel between Harry Potter and yoga, but Satan lurks in both, so I guess they must be condemned together.

In 1999, six years before he succeeded John Paul II as Pope, [Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger] issued a document which warned Roman Catholics of the dangers of yoga, Zen, transcendental meditation and other ‘eastern’ practises.

They could “degenerate into a cult of the body” that debases Christian prayer, the document said.

Yoga poses could create a feeling of well-being in the body but it was erroneous to confuse that with “the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit,” the document said.

Okay. I guess you can exercise, or you can pray, but you can’t do both.

DELICIOUS religion-pushing nonsense! My fangs are getting so sharp!

Robin Marty keeps dangling shiny things in my face at RH Reality Check, and this time, she actually goaded me into clicking over to an article at the National Catholic Register so I could get the full names and quotes. According to Bishop William E. Lori of Connecticut, religious liberty doesn’t exist unless Catholic institutions get federal funding to do whatever the heck they want on anyone their net happens to cover.

“There is no religious liberty if we are not free to express our faith in the public square and if we are not free to act on that faith through works of education, health care and charity,” Lori said in his first address to the bishops as chairman of the newly formed Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Education = Indoctrinating impressionable children with the fear of Damnation.

Health care = Denying birth control access to human trafficking victims.

Charity = Shutting down social services rather than provide contraception coverage to employees in your health care plan.

Mention rape survivor and Cardinal makes no sense.

Can someone please tell me whether this is sloppy journalism, or just a case of the Cardinal behaving nonsensically at the intersection of abortion rights and rape survival?

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago is apparently doing a mea culpa after attempting to shame Illinois’s pro-choice Governor:

“I deeply regret that,” George said Sunday afternoon, en route to Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, where he was scheduled to present awards to parishioners for their dedication to ministries. “A rape victim demands all the respect and sympathy that anybody can give.”

Sorry, what exactly is going on? What did Governor Quinn do to get the Cardinal all torqued off at him in the first place?

George, leader of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Chicago, and the five other bishops who oversee the church in Illinois released the statement Wednesday criticizing Quinn, a Catholic, for his plans to present an award Nov. 17 at the annual luncheon for the Personal PAC. The statement said Quinn had “gone beyond a political alignment with those supporting the legal right to kill children in their mothers’ wombs to rewarding those deemed most successful in this terrible work.”

So, first of all, Cardinal George is annoyed at Governor Quinn for being pro-choice; that much has been going on for a while. We’ll be having none of this “thinking for yourself” or “forming your own opinions on controversial issues” as long as you call yourself a Catholic; that independent-thinking nonsense is for those who we know are going to Hell anyway. The new development was that the Governor was presenting an award at a luncheon for Personal PAC, which is dedicated to electing pro-choice candidates to office in Illinois. Hence, the woman-erasing language of “supporting the legal right to kill children in their mothers’ wombs” when the Cardinal decided this was a step too far.

With me so far? Good.

This is where it gets tricky:

Quinn defended his decision to honor Goodman, whom he described as “a strong advocate of helping rape victims all over our state and the country.”

And that is when the Cardinal suddenly started backpedaling like a cyclist who missed his turn:

“I am not sure what we would have done,” he said. “If we had known this, that it was in fact an award to a rape victim, I think our own conversation would have been very different.”

I think what happened is that Personal PAC is hosting the luncheon, but the award isn’t really for supporting pro-choice candidates, it’s in honor of Jennie Goodman’s advocacy on behalf of rape victims, and Cardinal George didn’t want to be seen beating his fists on the floor over an award going to a woman who’s known as a defender of rape victims. It’s bad PR, you know.

Although, this is where Cardinal George’s language gets even creepier. Governor Quinn makes it about her advocacy in helping rape victims. Cardinal George makes it sound more like she deserves their respect simply for being a rape victim. It has nothing to do with anything she’s done and everything to do with what someone else has done to her.

Come to think of it, that actually tracks really well with womb-control logic. It’s all about taking away the woman’s agency. Her body does not belong to her. If she doesn’t get a say in whether to give birth, then there’s no reason why she should decide to have sex. It’s ultimately the same idea.

 

Ireland will be having none of this bullshit, either.

Ophelia Benson shows us that Vatican officials have seen the Cloyne report and are self-aware as ever:

In its response, the Vatican will point out the  weakness of Irish state monitoring of child abuse. And it will insist that the Taoiseach’s comments failed to recognise the efforts of Pope Benedict XVI to ensure bishops comply with national laws.

The Government will also be told that the seal of the confession is
sacrosanct.

Are we quite sure we’re not reading an article at The Onion?

The claims are, roughly translated:

1. “You didn’t work hard enough to stop us!”

2. “How dare you criticize the Pope!”

3. “We don’t have to tell you NOTHIN’.”

I suppose the Catholic hierarchy’s logic is that as long as they insist they did nothing wrong, the secular world will have no case against them.

I expect the Taoiseach’s response to this will be a classier version of: “Don’t piss on my leg, fuckers.”

Ireland is having none of the Vatican’s bullshit

Sullivan shares the news of the Cloyne report, in which Prime Minister Enda Kenny lays down the law:

The revelations of the Cloyne report have brought the Government, Irish Catholics and the Vatican to an unprecedented juncture. It’s fair to say that after the Ryan and Murphy reports Ireland is, perhaps, unshockable when it comes to the abuse of children. But Cloyne has proved to be of a different order. Because for the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual-abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See, to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic . . . as little as three years ago, not three decades ago. And in doing so, the Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism . . . the narcissism . . . that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.”

Sullivan concludes:

The church in Ireland is now dying, thanks to the wickedness and corruption that endures in Benedict’s authoritarian church. It deserves to die as an institution, because it has betrayed, indeed attacked, the very Gospels it is supposed to uphold.

Ophelia Benson brings us the news and cheers on the elected officials who are now breathing fire at the Catholic hierarchy. Patrick O’Malley weighs in.

 

It’s the “I’m not a bigot, but…” argument.

Archbishop Dolan is making about as much sense on marriage equality as the Catholic hierarchy ever does:

“Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America – not in China or North Korea. In those countries, government presumes daily to ‘redefine’ rights, relationships, values, and natural law,” says Dolan. “There, communiqués from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of ‘family’ and ‘marriage’ means.”

Yeah. Allowing same-sex couples civil marriage rights is just like the one-child policy. Sex without babies, therefore tyranny. Got it.

“We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought,”

And true freedom means that Archbishop Dolan gets to decide what makes a true family, what kind of rights sexual minorities shouldn’t have, and how heterosexuals should (not) control their fertility. That’s what “natural law” means: your fertility controls you, not the other way around.

“Our beliefs should not be viewed as discrimination against homosexual people,” Dolan swears. “The Church affirms the basic human rights of gay men and women, and the state has rightly changed many laws to offer these men and women hospital visitation rights, bereavement leave, death benefits, insurance benefits, and the like.”

He left out the part where the state has rightly changed many laws over the objections of the Church to stop treating same-sex couples like non-entities.

Merely asserting that you’re not discriminating against homosexual people doesn’t make it so. It’s like beginning a statement with “No offense, but…” and you know what follows is going to be offensive. You never hear anyone say “I’m not a racist, but…” unless they’re about to say something perfectly racist. How about this, Archbishop? If the Church doesn’t want to be viewed as discriminating against homosexual people, then…stop discriminating against homosexual people. Stop preaching that gay sex is a mortal sin. Keep your dollars out of political advertising, leave our elected officials alone, and don’t try to interfere with laws concerning marriage, foster care, adoption or child custody. Either value all families, stay the heck out of the political process, or fucking own up to the fact that your religion has a problem with sexual minorities.

If you get to redefine freedom, then we get to redefine marriage. In fact, we’re going to redefine marriage anyway, because it is a cultural institution and no one benefits from keeping gays out of it. We’ve been redefining marriage for thousands of years, and we will continue to do so.

Your Holeyness has been served.

WaPo National says:

The U.S. State Department says the Vatican has been served with court papers stemming from decades-old allegations of sexual abuse against a now-deceased priest at a Wisconsin school for the deaf.

The lawsuit was filed nearly a year ago in federal court. It claims Pope Benedict XVI and two other top Vatican officials knew about allegations of sexual abuse at the Milwaukee-area school and called off internal punishment of the accused priest.

We do not take kindly to covering up for grown men who use their power as clergy members to molest boys who are unable to communicate with most hearing people.

 

Catholic hierarchy sounding more like The Onion every day.

Do they EVER listen to themselves?

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi whines:

“People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behaviour between people of the same sex,” he told the current session of the Human Rights Council.

“When they express their moral beliefs or beliefs about human nature … they are stigmatised, and worse — they are vilified, and prosecuted.

“These attacks are violations of fundamental human rights and cannot be justified under any circumstances,” Tomasi said.

Really, Archbishop Tomasi? REALLY?! You’re complaining about how your fellow travelers are being “stigmatized” and “vilified” for how they choose to treat sexual minorities?

Tomasi also said the Vatican believed in the inherent dignity of all human beings and condemned all violence against people because of their sexual orientation or behaviour.

“But states can and must regulate behaviours, including various sexual behaviours,” he said.

“Throughout the world, there is a consensus between societies that certain kinds of sexual behaviour must be forbidden by law. Paedophilia and incest are two examples.”

Yeah, you imply that homosexuality is comparable to pedophilia and incest, and that states “can and must” regulate sexual behaviors, but of course you don’t condone violence against people for their sexual orientation! No, not at all!

The will of the majority isn’t so nice when it’s turning against you, now is it?