A Catholic Sect Crazy Enough For The Teabaggers?

Authoritarian religion & fascism: a match made in Heaven

Although the right-wing/Know Nothing faction of the Republican Party has traditionally been not just Protestant but vehemently anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic, things have changed lately. Right-wing bigots in charge of the GOP and the Tea Party are happy for whatever support they can get-- including Jews and Catholics. In fact, conservative Catholics-- I mean really, really conservative Catholics-- couldn't be better suited for the anti-Science dogma at the heart of modern right-wing movements like today's GOP. Extremists in the Catholic Church are rewarded for the kind of mindless, faith-based devotion that any authoritarian or totalitarian agenda like the Republicans' is dependent on. Yesterday Manya Brachear reported in the Chicago Tribune not on Catholics in politics but on Catholics who are unable to accept any science-based reality whatsoever. The Society of St. Pius X, for example, rejects most of the modernizing reforms made by the Vatican II council from 1962 to 1965.

A few conservative Roman Catholics are pointing to a dozen Bible verses and the church's original teachings as proof that Earth is the center of the universe, the view that was at the heart of the church's clash with Galileo Galilei four centuries ago.

...Those promoting geocentrism argue that heliocentrism, or the centuries-old consensus among scientists that Earth revolves around the sun, is a conspiracy to squelch the church's influence.

"Heliocentrism becomes dangerous if it is being propped up as the true system when, in fact, it is a false system," said Robert Sungenis, leader of a budding movement to get scientists to reconsider. "False information leads to false ideas, and false ideas lead to illicit and immoral actions — thus the state of the world today.… Prior to Galileo, the church was in full command of the world, and governments and academia were subservient to her."

...[S]upporters contend there is scientific evidence to support geocentrism, just as there is evidence to support the six-day story of creation in Genesis.

There is proof in Scripture that Earth is the center of the universe, Sungenis said. Among many verses, he cites Joshua 10:12-14 as definitive proof: "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, while the nation took vengeance on its foe... The sun halted in the middle of the sky; not for a whole day did it resume its swift course."

But Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., said the Bible is silent on geocentrism.

"There's a big difference between looking at the origin of the planets, the solar system and the universe and looking at presently how they move and how they are interrelated," Ham said. "The Bible is neither geocentric or heliocentric. It does not give any specific information about the structure of the solar system."

Just as Ham challenges the foundation of natural history museums by disputing evolution, Sungenis challenges planetariums, most notably the Vatican Observatory.

Crackpots? Well, sure, but well-financed, well--armed, determined and... you know what Bob Dylan said about people who are certain that they have God on their side. The Southern Poverty Law Center considers the Society of St. Pius X a dangerous right-wing group that grew right out of Nazism. Founded by a psychotic French archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre in 1970, the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) is one of the most reactionary, anti-democratic elements in French politics, advocating a restoration of an absolute monarchy while condemning the French Revolution and everything it stood for (Liberté, égalité, fraternité). Lefebvre himself is a dedicated fascist and pro-Nazi supporter of the Vichy government of Philippe Pétain and the neo-Nazi National Front of Jean-Marie le Pen (something like a French version of our own teabaggers). In fact Lefebvre urged his supporters to vote for le Pen based on le Pen's unambiguous opposition to women's Choice. And their disdain for women goes beyond health issues... and, of course, beyond France. (Remember, this is the anti-Semitic cult Mel Gibson finances.)

Kansas recently elected an extreme right Catholic Opus Dei governor with SSPX sympathies, Sam Brownback. He was born into a normal Protestant family, moved to extreme evangelicalism and finally discovered something far more reactionary, the Opus Dei/SSPX branch of Catholicism. But in Kansas? You bet! Here's a 2008 report from Topeka on Good Morning America:

Just minutes before she was scheduled to referee a boy's varsity basketball game at St. Mary's Academy, Michelle Campbell was told she would not be allowed to work the game because she is a woman.

St. Mary's Academy, near Topeka, Kan., is a controversial religious school that follows older Roman Catholic laws, but many argue that religious beliefs does not give the school the right to discriminate.

"The policy of the school was that they indeed do not permit female officials to officiate the boys athletic contests at their school," said Gary Musselman, executive director of the Kansas State High School Athletics Association.

The school's policy-- straight from the SSPX hymnal-- is to not allow women to have authority over men. Perhaps that's the mentality that was behind the total melting away of Michele Bachmann's Republican Party support within days of Rick Perry entering the GOP presidential race.