The Catholic Church Begs Mimi Walters And Ed Royce For Compassion

Earlier today, we looked at how Trump and Ryan are leading a war against Jesus' message to mankind. It looks like every Catholic pastor in CA-39 and CA-45 (mostly Orange County) is concerned about the same thing-- except they're focusing on Republican members of Congress Ed Royce and Mimi Walters, both lockstep rubber-stamps for Trump and Ryan. The Orange County Register piece over the weekend was devastating. All the pastors signed a letter to Walters and a letter to Royce about DREAMers-- and the letters were followed by Sunday sermons along the same lines. The sermons will be ongoing throughout Advent.

The bishops of the Diocese of Orange are calling on their clergy and parishioners to pray for the young undocumented immigrants, and to advocate for them with their elected leaders.

Catholic leaders see an urgency in finding a permanent solution to the plight of young people brought to the country illegally as children. Their temporary legal status through President Obama’s DACA program is being phased out under the Trump administration.

Led by bishops in Orange County, San Bernardino and the San Gabriel region, 26 pastors urged Walters (R-Laguna Beach) and Royce (R-Fullerton)-- both Catholics-- “to actively support” passage of legislation that would allow the children to have a path to citizenship.

“It is essential to move beyond general statements of support,” read the Dec. 1 open letter, signed by the pastors and Rev. Kevin Vann, bishop of Orange, Gerald Barnes, bishop of San Bernardino, and David O’Connell, auxiliary bishop in the San Gabriel region of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The letter requests a meeting with the Republican leaders. It is the first time in recent memory that bishops and all pastors of an Orange County congressional district have called on legislators for action.

“It’s a somewhat unique letter,” said Greg Walgenbach, director of the Office of Life, Justice and Peace for the Diocese of Orange.

Walters, who has expressed sympathy toward DACA recipients, has seen an uptick in rallies calling for her to support one of the bills floating in Congress on the issue. Her vote is considered by some a key Republican swing vote.

Earlier this week, Walters signed a letter calling on Congress to pass legislation before the end of the year to protect those under DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

“I appreciate the passion that some members of the church have shown on this issue, and I share their urgency,” Walters said in an e-mail Friday to the Southern California News Group. “Caring for all of God’s children is at the core of our Catholic faith.

“DACA recipients enrich our community and are building their American dream,” she said. “That is why I signed a letter this week calling on Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that would allow DACA recipients to remain the United States, and continue their great contributions to Orange County.”

Royce could not be reached for comment Friday. He has previously said he supports legal residency but opposes including a path to citizenship.

Royce has been a target for years of immigrant-rights advocates, who regularly rally outside his Brea office. In 2013, some 1,500 Catholics prayed outside his closed office for the congressman to “have a change of heart” and support undocumented immigrants seeking citizenship.

As Catholics gather this month to celebrate the Christmas season, Orange County’s top bishops are calling on their pastors and congregants to pray for DACA youth and other immigrants.

A second letter, sent to parishes Friday, includes an Advent prayer which in part says: “Grant, O Lord, unto the leaders of the United States the wisdom and teachable spirit to recognize the good gifts that we receive from DACA youth and other immigrant Dreamers, the conviction to respect their life and dignity, and the courage to pass legislation to protect their stay here and offer a path to eventual citizenship.”

The same letter asks Catholics to contact their representatives, and includes a sample message. That letter was shared on the website of a national Catholic nonprofit that advocates for low-income immigrants and is headed by Bishop Vann.

Katie Porter is one of the two progressives taking on Mimi Walters. Katie told us "It's been three months since Donald Trump announced he would end protections for Dreamers and my Republican opponent Mimi Walters has continued to do nothing but offer empty platitudes. It's unacceptable. I have spent my career fighting for people who don’t have a voice in our system, and I intend to do the same in Congress by standing up for immigrant families. We must pass a clean Dream Act Now."

The other excellent progressive Democratic candidate running for the seat Mimi Walters is occupying is Kia Hamadanchy. Just a few hours ago he told us that "Right here in California’s 45th district, we have DREAMers who are doing nothing but chasing the American Dream-- whether it is as a student at UC Irvine or as an employee of a small business or tech startup. Mimi Walter’s inaction on behalf of her constituents has been so terrible that it took urging from every Catholic leader in the district to get her moving. That’s not leadership. It’s time for a Representative in CA-45 who actually cares about the people here and will really fight to protect our DREAMers."

Sam Jammal is the one non-multimillionaire running for the Orange County seat occupied by Ed Joyce. Recently Frank Schaeffer went to meet him and made this clip [below] about the race and about Sam-- a very different kind of person than Ed Royce. This morning Sam addressed the GOP's DREAMers problem. "DACA really comes down to what's right and what is wrong. It's a moral question. The right thing to do is give young people-- who only know this country and are doing everything right-- the chance at the American Dream. The wrong thing to do is fall in line with Trump and hardline anti-immigrant voices. Once again Ed is on the wrong side of the issue. Instead of focusing on what we can do to integrate immigrants and build up communities, he prefers to divide families and work against young people who are doing everything right, but have a President and politics seeking to do them wrong. Ed just doesn't share our values here in the 39th. We believe in the American Dream and are a welcoming community."

The Catholics Are Attacking... Already... Again

I love any excuse to embed one of my favorite old 415 Records songs-- my indie label in San Francisco-- "The Catholics Are Attacking" by the Pop'O'Pies. This time it has to do with a gaggle of right-wing bishops attacking Tim Kaine for not bucking under to their theocratic instincts and their bizarre interpretation of Jesus' religion as one where women are relegated to staying home, ignorant and pregnant. The Catholic Church should lose it's tax exempt status for attempting to round up votes for Trump by attacking Kaine on religious grounds.

FaithfulAmerica.org sounded the alarm:

Last night, America heard Senator Tim Kaine speak sincerely about how his Catholic faith has inspired his public service. But already, some Catholic church officials are attacking him.

While not mentioning Kaine's name, his hometown bishop used his selection as an occasion to issue a statement demanding that Catholic politicians obey the hierarchy's teaching on abortion.

Meanwhile, a Rhode Island bishop issued a statement explicitly questioned the authenticity of Kaine's faith, saying that he "has been widely identified as a Roman Catholic [but] his faith isn't central to his public, political life."

Finally, a high-ranking Catholic priest in Washington, DC was more blunt, tweeting: "Do us both a favor. Don't show up in my communion line."

This is exactly the kind of despicable rhetoric that Catholic bishops used to attack John Kerry and Joe Biden, and this year, with the stakes so high, we need to nip it in the bud.

The irony here, of course, is that Kaine is an anti-Choice Democrat who doesn't see eye-to-eye with Clinton on repealing the Hyde Amendment, which prevents Medicaid funds going towards abortions. Despite Hillary saying he would help her repeal the Hyde Amendment he told CNN (in the video below) that he has not changed his position in favor of the Hyde Amendment. NARAL called him out on it immediately, with this statement from Ilyse Hogue, president of the group:

"In this campaign, Hillary Clinton has broken new ground with her frank talk about the damaging effect of denying poor women basic reproductive healthcare. By doing so, Hillary continues to do what she has always done: fight to empower women and families and give us the tools we need to live healthy and secure lives.

"This is why Senator Kaine's statement earlier today that he opposes repealing the discriminatory Hyde amendment was deeply disappointing.

“Repealing the Hyde amendment and providing the full range of reproductive healthcare to low-income women is a top priority for NARAL. This is a principle embraced by the Democratic Party as a whole, and it was voted unanimously into the party platform that I personally worked to draft and pass.

“We appreciate Senator Kaine's commitment to upholding the nominee's position on this important issue, and we sincerely hope that he will continue to educate himself on what Hyde means to the most vulnerable women in this country and join us in fighting this injustice.

"We fully support Hillary Clinton in her commitment to repeal this law and as a champion for reproductive freedom. We will work every day to make sure that women and families are secure in this country by electing her President of the United States."

Didn't Hillary ask him when she was vetting him for the running mate slot? I guess not. Meanwhile, I can't wait to see how Trump tries to use this one against Kaine!

"I have in my heart the stories of suffering and pain of the minors who were sexually abused by priests" (Pope Francis)

"Words cannot fully express my sorrow for the abuse you suffered. I'm profoundly sorry that your innocence was violated by those you trusted."

-- Pope Francis, to a gathering of abuse survivors today, in prepared
remarks as released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

"As with all things related to the Catholic Church, you have to listen to the words and then you have to watch what they do."

-- abuse survivor John Salveson, president of the
Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse

by Ken

Earlier in the pope's visit, the victims of priestly sexual abuse and their defenders complained about his failure to squarely address the issue of the victims and of his uncomfortably consoling message of support to the assembled American bishops. The complaint seemed to me to have merit, and while it was clear that he had a heavy schedule of public appearances still to come during his whirlwind tour of Washington, New York, and Philadelphia, the absence of any comment from Vatican officialdom was hardly encouraging.

Today in Philadelphia the pope returned to the subject. Perhaps not surprisingly, the doubters aren't satisfied.

Here's the start of the report by the Washington Post team covering the papal visit (links onsite).

Pope Francis finally met with sex abuse survivors but more action is critical, activists say

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Abby Ohlheiser and Terrence McCoy
September 27 at 5:00 PM

PHILADELPHIA – Pope Francis told U.S. bishops and seminarians on Sunday that he had met with sex abuse survivors. “God weeps,” he said in remarks ahead of a prepared speech on the family.

Five adults who were abused as minors – three women and two men – were at the meeting along with their families, according to the Vatican’s press office. The survivors were abused by clergy, family members, or their teachers.

“I have in my heart, the stories of suffering and pain of the minors who were sexually abused by priests. And, it continues to overwhelm me with shame that the people who were charged with taking care of these tender ones violated that trust and caused them a profound pain. God weeps.” Pope Francis said at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, according to a translation of the Spanish remarks by The Washington Post.

“The crimes and sins of sexual abuse of minors cannot be kept in secret any longer.” he continued.

Pope Francis said he was committed to “a careful vigiliance of the church to ensure that youth are protected, and I promise that all those responsible will be held accountable.”

Survivors in the U.S. have mixed feelings on Pope Francis’s record on the topic since becoming pope, with some praising him, and others seeing his statements and actions as inadequate. Some survivor activists have been urging Pope Francis to substantively address the sex abuse crisis during his visit.

And while he has discussed the topic this week, many of those same groups found his comments lacking because he emphasized supporting the clergy’s reforms, rather than the suffering of victims.

“As with all things related to the Catholic Church, you have to listen to the words and then you have to watch what they do,” said John Salveson, a clergy sex abuse survivor, prominent activist and president of The Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse.

Salveson said the Vatican has been aware of possible solutions “for years, if not decades.” They include releasing the identity of priests who have been defrocked for abusing children; involving civil authorities when there is abuse, particularly in other countries, and extending the statute of limitations on clergy sex abuse, he said.

“The reason this all continued is that these priests don’t get prosecuted and the bishops who hide them don’t get prosecuted because they are protected by the statute of limitations,” he said.

The pope’s outreach is useful to the extent it eases victims’ suffering, said Marie Collins, a member of an advisory commission the pope set up to help him improve the church’s response to abuse.

“If it’s going to help their healing, then it’s a positive experience for them. It’s a very positive experience for them,” said Collins, a clergy abuse survivor from Ireland. But, Collins added, the meeting “really is not connected [to the] work for the future of child protection.”

Instead, she said, the pope’s decision to set up a papal commission advising him on how to handle the issue going forward was “the most positive change to happen” so far.

Robert Hoatson, who held signs in support of victims of abuse in front of Philadelphia’s basilica over the weekend, said on Sunday that he felt the pope’s comments brushed too quickly over the serious issue. “This is getting more bizarre,” said Hoatson, who works with victims. ” It’s going to cause more distress, more traumatization, re-abuse,” he said, “because it seemed like a side note.”

“It was as if he added this to his talk without telling the bishops what he is going to do, including removing some of [the bishops],” Hoatson said.

The meeting happened at the seminary at about 8 a.m., just before Pope Francis’s remarks, according to Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi. The meeting lasted for a half an hour. . . .

#

It looks as if Pope Francis -- "someone who is willing to say what others are afraid to say" -- is learning how to deal with the Vatican bureaucracy

It looks as if Pope Francis, unlike Donald Trump, doesn't have to pay people to cheer for him. Here he's seen on arrival in Turin yesterday.

"[I]t is clear that this pope is very courageous. He is not a politician. He is not a diplomat. He is someone who is willing to say what others are afraid to say."

-- Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the
Pontifical Academy of Sciences, about Pope Francis

by Ken

Now and then we get glimmerings of the internal politics of the Vatican. I don't think it's shocking that there are internal politics in the Vatican. Is there any human institution -- by which I guess I mean any purpose-driven gathering of two or more humans -- that doesn't have internal politics? What's usually so distrerssing about those insider accounts of the inner working of the Vatican is that they're so grubby. But then, aren't the inner working of most human institutions pretty grubby?

So maybe Pope Francis isn't as naive as many of the cardinals who elevated him to the papacy expected. I have no idea how much success he has had in gaining control of the vast entrenched Vatican bureaucracy, but to this casual observer it seems pretty clear that he took the job on with his eyes wide open, and that at a number of significant junctures he has taken steps to tame the people whose boss he after all is.

In which connection there's some interesting light shed in a report by the Washington Post's Anthony Faiola and Chris Mooney, "How climate-change doubters lost a papal fight."


A POPE WHO KNEW WHAT HE WANTED

It took some reading for me to have information jump out at me. Till paragraphs 9 and 10, in fact:

Papal advisers say Francis signaled his intent to draft a major document on the environment soon after assuming the throne of St. Peter in March 2013. His interest in the topic dates to his days as a bishop in Buenos Aires, where Francis, officials say, was struck by the effects of floods and unsanitary conditions on Argentine shantytowns known as “misery villages.”

In January, Francis officially announced his goal of drafting the encyclical — saying after an official visit to the Philippines that he wanted to make a “contribution” to the debate ahead of a major U.N. summit on climate change in Paris in December.

So this is our starting point -- from the moment that white smoke was released announcing his election, Pope Francis believed that his vision of Christianity obliged him to throw the moral weight of the Church behind the fight against environmental contamination. Beyond this, we learn -- it is in fact the issue that engages our journalists -- that the internal Vatican opposition was too weak or disorganized or simply too incompetent to deter the pope, perhaps even to slow him down.

For one thing, from what we've known about the Vatican bureaucracy of times only recently past, there would surely have been a powerful internal bloc of entrenched opposition capable of stifling or at least frustrating the Big Guy until he came to his senses and took it back. And as opposition mounted outside the organization, those inside allies would have known how to channel and amplify it.

Not so on climate change, it appears. According to the Post report, "several efforts by those skeptical of the scientific consensus on climate change to influence the document appear to have come considerably later -- in April -- and, maybe, too late."

In late April, the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, a free-market group that serves as a hub of skepticism regarding the science of human-caused global warming, sent a delegation to the Vatican. As a Heartland news release put it, they hoped “to inform Pope Francis of the truth about climate science: There is no global warming crisis!”

Now, to be clear, Pope Francis insists that his environmental policies are a continuation are a continuation of those of his predecessors, Pope John Paul II and Pope Cardinal Ratguts. But in terms of the internal operation of the papal palace was set up such that, as soon as there were rumblings of high-level support for an initiative unacceptable to the hard-liners -- and I'm guessing that the apparatus was tuned to pick up such rumblings right quickly -- both the inside and the outside games would have been in play and in a coordinated way. Not so in this case, at least.


"THIS WAS [THE REACTIONARIES'] WATERLOO"

The Post reporters tell the tale of a committed denier that humans are causing climate change, one Philippe de Larminat thought he had pulled a Vatican string to gain access to "a climate summit in April sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, whose attendees were to include Nobel laureates, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs and others calling for dramatic steps to curb carbon emissions."

De Larminat was able, apparently, to get "a high-level meeting at the Vatican," where "he was told that, space permitting, he could join." It's not clear from what happened next whether he was a victim of behind-the-scenes maneuvering or he was just getting a subtle brush-off.

He bought a plane ticket from Paris to Rome. But five days before the April 28 summit, de Larminat said, he received an e-mail saying there was no space left. It came after other scientists — as well as the powerful Vatican bureaucrat in charge of the academy — insisted he had no business being there.

De Larminat says, "They did not want to hear an off note." That's one way of looking at it. Another is that they didn't want to waste time with pseudo-intellectual bullshit.

De Larminat had a cordial meeting in March with Cardinal Peter Turkson, a senior member of the clergy and a key supporter of the pope’s encyclical. At the meeting, both men said, Turkson promised to try to secure a space for the Frenchman at the April summit.

However, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences — a body of luminaries, religious and not, dating back decades but with roots in the 17th century — effectively vetoed de Larminat's presence. Asked why, Sánchez Sorondo responded in an e-mail, “because he’s not an academic authority in this field, neither a religious authority nor a U.N. authority.”

Turkson, however, said that he was told only that the summit was “well overbooked.”

"The incident," say the Post reporters, "highlights how climate-change doubters tried and failed to alter the landmark papal document unveiled last week — one that saw the leader of 1 billion Catholics fuse faith and reason and come to the conclusion that 'denial' is wrong." (See also our Gaius Publius's pre-release post, "Pope News: Humans Are Causing Climate Change. Have We Crossed a Tipping Point?" and my subsequent post, "Evoking the image of St. Francis: E. J. Dionne Jr. on Pope Francis's environmental encyclical.")

It marked the latest blow for those seeking to stop the reform-minded train that has become Francis’s papacy. It is one that has reinvigorated liberal Catholics even as it has sowed the seeds of resentment and dissent inside and outside the Vatican’s ancient walls.

Yet the battle lost over climate change also suggests how hard it may be for critics to blunt the power of a man who has become something of a juggernaut in an institution where change tends to unfold over decades, even centuries. More than anything, to those who doubt the human impact of global warming, the position staked out by Francis in his papal document, known as an encyclical, means a major defeat.

“This was their Waterloo,” said Kert Davies, executive director of the Climate Investigations Center, who has been tracking ­climate-change deniers for years. “They wanted the encyclical not to happen. And it happened.”

THE BADDIES HAVEN'T VANISHED, IN THE VATICAN OR OUT

Talk about "seeds of resentment and dissent inside and outside the Vatican’s ancient walls" confirms my assumption that the resenters and dissenters haven't simply vanished into the woodwork, inside or outside of the Vatican. And so does the tale told of the event staged by "the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, a free-market group that serves as a hub of skepticism regarding the science of human-caused global warming," which was also shut out of the Vatican's scientific conclave," put on in competition with it.

Seven scientists and other experts gave speeches at the Heartland event, raising doubts about various aspects of the scientific consensus on climate change, even as several also urged the pope not to take sides in the debate. It’s impossible to know how that influenced those in the Vatican working on the pope’s document — which one Vatican official said was at “an advanced stage.” But Lakely said his group did not see much of its argument reflected in the final document.

“We all want the poor to live better lives, but we just don’t think the solution to that is to restrict the use of fossil fuels, because we don’t think CO2 is causing a climate crisis,” Lakely said. “So if that’s our message in a sentence, that message was not reflected in the encyclical, so there you go.”

Possibly, Lakelyl, the message is that you and your kind -- so many of you so generously supported by the corporations dedicated to plundering and befouling our planet -- are scientific ignoramuses, frauds, liars, and general scumbags, so fuck you the whole pack of you.

The Post reporters tend to be more on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand even-handed. For example:

Based on the people he recently appointed to his council for science, Francis was also seen to have made up his mind on the question of global warming. Some prominent conservatives — particularly economic and environmental conservatives — were consulted by the Vatican during the process, but “many were sort of shocked that none of their contributions made it in there,” Raymond Arroyo, news director at the Catholic mega-channel EWTN, said Friday.

Instead, the pope sought to build on the progressive environmental platforms established by his immediate predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II. For advice, he turned to a number of scientific advisers who support the consensus that human activity is warming the Earth.

"IT IS CLEAR THAT THIS POPE IS VERY COURAGEOUS"

Assuredly, though, we haven't heard the last from the reactionaries, and neither has Pope Francis. The Post report speaks of "something of a conservative resistance" that "has formed to his more progressive tone," citing the October skirmish over the "document that would have recognized 'the gifts and qualities' of gay people." It struck me at the time, though, that the pope had managed to smoke many of his detractors out, forcing them to take positions that may wind up isolating them from the Vatican decision-making process.

There are those who attribute the leaking of a draft of the envirnomental encyclical to "an anti-Francis cabal inside the Vatican walls." But Bishop Sánchez Sorondo, the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences who is said to have "effectively vetoed [Philippe] de Larminat's presence" at the Vatican science conclave, says otherwise.

He insisted that rather than from inside Vatican City, the primary pressure against [the encyclical's] message had come from climate-change deniers — particularly in the United States.

“But it is clear that this pope is very courageous,” said Sánchez Sorondo, who, like Francis, is an Argentine. “He is not a politician. He is not a diplomat. He is someone who is willing to say what others are afraid to say.”

#

Evoking the image of St. Francis: E. J. Dionne Jr. on Pope Francis's environmental encyclical

"Like his namesake saint, he believes in the transformative power of simplicity and compassion." (E. J. Dionne Jr.)

" 'We are not God,' the pope declares, and should not act as if we are 'usurping the place of God, even to the point of claiming an unlimited right to trample his creation underfoot.' Believers who disagree with the pope will have to grapple with his religious understanding and not simply dismiss his embrace of a thoroughly orthodox view that places the spiritual and the ethical ahead of the material."

-- E. J. Dionne Jr., in his Washington Post column
"The pope, the saint and the climate"

"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."

-- Pope Francis, in his environmental encyclical "Laudato Si,
on the care of our common home," as quoted by E.J.

by Ken

It was a strange question posed in the title of Janell Ross's washingtonpost.com "Fix"-blog post yesterday, "Will the pope sway Catholics on climate change? Not if evangelicals are any indication."

We're talking, of course, about the now-released papal encyclical "Laudato sì, on the care of our common home," which our Gaius Publius wrote about Tuesday ("Pope News: Humans Are Causing Climate Change. Have We Crossed a Tipping Point?"), drawing on the leaked draft of the encyclical. But why on earth would the doctrinal beliefs of Roman Catholics be affected by the views of evangelicals?

You'd think that the question only comes about because in so many social areas Catholics and evagelicals, who once had so little in common, have come so much closer as joint cogs in the Religious Right's mad race to the political Far Right -- an even starker coming together if by "Catholics" we understand the U.S. Catholic hierarchy. But Janell isn't thinking about evangelicals' response to the pope's encyclical. She has in mind their grappling with their own leadership.

[I]f the way evangelical Protestants have responded to similar guidance from their own leadership is any guide, the encyclical might not mean much at all.

The National Association of Evangelicals, which describes itself as an organization representing more than 455,000 local congregations, began pushing for climate change-conscious policies during George W. Bush's time in office. And the New York Times reported that The Christian Coalition, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, fought unsuccessfully for a climate change bill in Congress in both 2009 and 2010.

In 2008, 45 members of the Southern Baptist Convention, a network of more than 50,000 churches and missions, signed a letter describing their previous stance on environmental matters as, "too timid." And, that same year the entire convention approved a resolution declaring “it is prudent to address global climate change." However, it later also emphasized the uncertainty of scientific evidence on the cause of global warming.

Nevertheless, interesting as it is to be reminded that once upon a time evangelical leaders took environmental issues seriously, what possible connection could there be between evangelicals' current attitudes and Catholics' attitude toward the word of the pope? Evangelicals can believe any damn thing they want, whereas Catholics don't have any choice, right? Isn't that what they always tell us? They have to obey the teachings of their church, don't they?

Well, it turns out, only if they agree with him. His encyclical on the environment has the shitheadiest elements of American Catholicism in a tizzy. I love Ian Welsh's first response, in an itsy-bitsy post called "Burn In Hell?":

I am amused how many American conservative Catholics are now ignoring the official teachings of the church on the environment.

It is, I suppose, lucky for them that official teachings now define hell as “the absence of God’s love.”

But it’s good to know that they actually do believe that one can pick and choose teachings.  Given that this is the case, can we now just ignore them every time they talk about abortion or birth control?

A commenter wrote: "Today, for the first time, I ran across the term Cafeteria Catholicism. Apt, that."

But of course we already knew this -- that American Catholic muckety-mucks get to pick and choose their doctrinal loyalties. Remember when the sainted Pope John Paul II made it clear that the Church's reverence for life included not just opposition to birth control but opposition to the death penalty? It turned out that if you were a lying-scumbag Catholic muckety-muck, you could just ignore the old coot, reserving your doctrinal fealty to areas that suited your deeply ingrained bigotries and psychoses. And any other area in which a modern pope took issue with the dirty underside of modern capitalism -- fuck him! Let him mind his own beeswax. God gave us this world to despoil, and we still haven't finished the job!

The environmental encyclical is going to be a lot harder for the Catholic shitheads to ignore. But a lot of Catholics, GP suggested Tuesday, are ready for the pope's message.

The welcoming part of the world is, I think, the larger part by far, and the reaction to this encyclical will demonstrate that. The denier and delayer side will offer much fire from a very small number of flame-throwers.

Most of the rest of the world, however, will cheer his leadership. I'll have more to say about the place and benefit of actual leadership in fighting climate change. Bottom line: It's huge and the people are hungry for it.

Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square Wednesday

Which brings me back to E. J. Dionne Jr.'s beautiful column.

The pope says flatly that a “very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system,” that “things are now reaching a breaking point” and that greenhouse gases are “released mainly as a result of human activity.” This can mean only that humanity “is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption.”

There is no ambiguity in what the pope is saying, which is why the critics will descend upon him. Even before Thursday’s formal release of the document (and Monday’s leaked draft), they accused him of meddling in political and scientific questions that are beyond his purview.

This critique is coming especially from conservatives who have welcomed the intervention of the Catholic Church on some political issues but not others, and particularly not this one. Yet progressives and conservatives alike should attend to what motivates Pope Francis here — not the usual left-right politics but a theological concern for our obligation to care for our “common home,” a skepticism of a “throwaway culture,” and an insistence that a belief in God means that human beings cannot put themselves at the center of the universe.

In fact, the first point E.J. makes is about Pope Francis's framing, beginning with a homage to his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi:

He was a mystic and a pilgrim who lived in simplicity and in wonderful harmony with God, with others, with nature and with himself. He shows us just how inseparable is the bond between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.

"It's worth focusing first," E.J. writes, "on the pope's tribute to the holy man who revered animals and all of nature."

St. Francis’s worldview, the pope insisted, should not be “written off as naive romanticism.” His paean to the saint placed his declaration in a spiritual context even if its content was uncompromising.

"All of the pope’s trademark qualms about modern capitalism and his rejection of 'a magical conception of the market' are sounded here," E.J. writes.

[A]nd there is a biting comment aimed at those who use the word “freedom” to offer blanket defenses of a system that leaves many behind: “To claim economic freedom,” he writes, “while real conditions bar many people from real access to it, and while possibilities for employment continue to shrink, is to practice a doublespeak which brings politics into disrepute.”

E.J. has a ready answer for "any who claim that Francis is ignoring the Catholic past and inventing radical new doctrines."

[They] will have to reckon with the care he takes in paying homage to his predecessors, particularly Pope Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II. He cites them over and over on the limits of markets and the urgency of environmental stewardship. “Laudato Si (Praised Be)” is thus thoroughly consistent with more than a century of modern Catholic social teaching, and if it breaks new ground, it does so within the context of a long tradition — going back to St. Francis himself.

"Pope Francis poses a challenge to those of us in the wealthy nations," E.J. writes, "and he speaks specifically about how 'opinion makers, communications media and centres of power are far removed from the poor.' "

Ouch! He demands payment of an “ecological debt” between “north and south.” Again and again, he returns to the twin ideas that the world’s poor face the largest threat from climate change and that the world’s rich have a special obligation to deal with it. The pope who immersed himself in the most marginalized neighborhoods of Buenos Aires has not forgotten where he came from.

I suspect that this argument from economic predation will drive the conservative Catholics especially crazy. And there's no question that the theme is important to this pope. But E.J. insists that there's more than "a social agenda" behind Francis "making himself the Green Pope."

Like his namesake saint, he believes in the transformative power of simplicity and compassion. “We must,” he writes, “regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it.” This is precisely where the personal and the political must meet.

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The Vatican calls an early end to -- but doesn't abandon -- the old regime's inquisition into American nuns

NYT caption: "Pope Francis met with a delegation from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious at the Vatican on Thursday. Pool photo by L'Osservatore Romano"


"Women are not capable, in the Vatican's mind, of governing others or even themselves. Is it any wonder so many nuns have left the orders or avoided joining them? Who wants to be bullied?"

-- Garry Wills, writing in NYRB in 2012

by Ken

As of now, it looks as if you can choose your spin on the Vatican's sudden wrapping up, two years ahead of schedule, of its inquisition into the bad behavior of American nuns, which most rational observers was the only organized part of the Catholic Church that could be seen pursuing Jesus's mission under the increasingly medieval papacies of Pope Francis's predecessors, the monstrous John Paul II and the even more monstrous Pope Cardinal Ratguts.

It seems clear that the present pope wanted the matter put to rest, and it's perfectly plausible that if the inquisition, pushed elements of the unspeakably vile scum that had accumulated power under the authority of John Paul II and Ratguts, had proceeded to term under the regime of a pope in the same mold -- some of whom, like the unspeakable Cardinal Raymond Burke, have in fact been purged by Pope Francis -- the results would have been worse, that those people would have known how to really put those uppity bitches in their place.

As it is, however, it looks to me as if the reactionaries have gotten an awful lot of what they were crusading for, and the uppity bitches have indeed been put in their place.


HERE'S HOW THE NYT HAPPY-SPINS THE STORY

Laurie Goodstein's report, headlined "Vatican Ends Battle With U.S. Catholic Nuns' Group," sees sweetness and light emanating from Pope Francis's happy-days Vatican.

The Vatican has abruptly ended its takeover of the main leadership group of American nuns two years earlier than expected, allowing Pope Francis to put to rest a confrontation started by his predecessor that created an uproar among American Catholics who had rallied to the sisters’ defense.

Anticipating a visit by Francis to the United States in the fall, the Vatican and the American bishops were eager to resolve an episode that was seen by many Catholics as a vexing and unjust inquisition of the sisters who ran the church’s schools, hospitals and charities.

Under the previous pope, Benedict XVI, the Vatican’s doctrinal office had appointed three bishops in 2012 to overhaul the nuns’ group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, out of concerns that it had hosted speakers and published materials that strayed from Catholic doctrine on such matters as the all-male priesthood, birth control and sexuality, and the centrality of Jesus to the faith.

But Francis has shown in his two-year papacy that he is less interested in having the church police doctrinal boundaries than in demonstrating mercy and love for the poor and vulnerable — the very work that most of the women’s religious orders under investigation have long been engaged in.

Ending the standoff with the nuns is one of several course corrections that Francis has set in motion. He has also worked on reforming the Vatican Curia, the Vatican’s central administration, instituting tighter oversight of Vatican finances, and has created a commission to deal with sexual abuse by clergy members.

He has made no changes in doctrine — on Wednesday, he reiterated the church’s teaching that marriage can be only between a man and a woman — but Catholics worldwide say he has done much to make the church’s tone more welcoming.

On Thursday, that included calling an unexpected meeting with four of the leaders of the Leadership Conference. The four women were photographed in his office and said afterward in a statement that they were “deeply heartened” by Francis’ “expression of appreciation” for the lives and ministry of Catholic sisters.

“He met with them himself for almost an hour, and that’s an extravagant amount of papal time,” said Eileen Burke-Sullivan, a theologian and consultant for women’s religious orders and vice provost for mission and ministry at Creighton University, a Jesuit school in Omaha. “It’s about as close to an apology, I would think, as the Catholic Church is officially going to render.”

Francis has never talked explicitly in public about the imbroglio with American nuns. But he has spoken about creating “broader opportunities” for women in the church, and the value of nuns and priests in religious orders. He is a member of the Jesuit order.
A clear signal that the Vatican under Francis was taking a more conciliatory approach to American sisters came in December with the announcement of the conclusion of another, separate investigation of American women’s orders, which was known as an apostolic visitation. That process involved sending questionnaires to 350 religious communities and teams of “visitors” to 90 of them, asking about everything from their prayer practices to living arrangements.

Both of these investigations of American women’s religious orders began at the urging of American and some foreign prelates who accused the sisters of disobeying the bishops and departing from Catholic doctrine. It set off protests by Catholic laypeople across the country, who signed petitions and sent letters to the Vatican in defense of the sisters. . . .

BUT USA TODAY SAYS "THE HONEYMOON MAY BE OVER"

Cathy Lynn Grossman's report, headlined "Pope Francis to keep Vatican reins tight on U.S. nuns," begins:

The honeymoon between progressive Catholics in the USA and Pope Francis -- cheered for his humble ways and dedication to the poor -- may have ended Monday when he "reaffirmed" last year's stinging rebuke of most U.S. nuns.

Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella group of religious order leaders who represent 57,000 American nuns and sisters, were told Pope Francis supports the Vatican takeover of the LCWR initiated by Pope Benedict XVI last year.

A controversial report issued last spring by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) ripped into the sisters for allegedly spending more energy on social justice causes than on promoting church doctrine and for espousing "radical feminism."

In June, Archbishop James Peter Sartain, archbishop of Seattle, and two other bishops were assigned to revamp the group's structure and programming. Although the sisters called the original CDF report a "scandal" based on "misconceptions," their members voted in August to prayerfully participate in the Vatican-run governing structure while maintaining what they called "mission integrity."

Monday, the nuns' top leaders and Sartain met with Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller, head of the CDF, in Rome. Muller told them that while the pope "expressed his gratitude" for their contributions to "schools, hospitals, and institutions of support for the poor," Francis also "reaffirmed" the Vatican takeover.

Muller told the sisters their job is to promote "cooperation" with local bishops and bishops' conferences, according to Religion News Service.

After Monday's meeting, the LCWR issued a statement calling their conversation "open and frank." . . .

WOULDN'T IT BE NICE TO KNOW WHICH IT IS?

Because this is one of the eye-poppingest smackdowns of the Ratguts regime. I wrote a couple of posts about it in May 2012 (most recently this one), heavily under the influence of a remarkable New York Review of Books blogpost by Garry Wills, later published in the NYRB of June 7, 2012, "Bullying the Nuns," which I had reposted here, in which, as I wrote, Wills "stood up for American nuns under attack by the Vatican (its dirty work done by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' designated pit bull, Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain)."

The Wills piece, I recalled, began:

The Vatican has issued a harsh statement claiming that American nuns do not follow their bishops' thinking. That statement is profoundly true. Thank God, they don't. Nuns have always had a different set of priorities from that of bishops. The bishops are interested in power. The nuns are interested in the powerless. Nuns have preserved Gospel values while bishops have been perverting them. The priests drive their own new cars, while nuns ride the bus (always in pairs). The priests specialize in arrogance, the nuns in humility.

As I wrote, "I reread the piece when I plucked the [June 7 NYRB] out of the mailbox, and it seems to me if anything more remarkable than it did orignally, and as always with Garry Wills, it defies -- no, positively mocks at -- the impulse to compress. It includes, among many other things, a stunning tribute to his seventh-grade teacher -- 'Sister John Joseph when I met her, but she recovered her real name after the [Second Vatican] Council, and as Anne O’Connor congratulated me on anything I wrote,' having 'kept in touch with me for all the years until her death in 1996."

If, as it appears, the Vatican has knuckled under to the troglodytes, and returned to the John Paul II-Ratguts attitude toward women, "Them Bitches Be Hos," it might help them begin to develop a glimmering of the appropriate sense of shame to reread Wills's tribute to his old teacher.

Anne O'Connor was just the kind of nun the Vatican is now intent on punishing. She had been a social worker before she became a nun, work that she loved and went back to several times as a Dominican. She was quick to shed the old habit (which was designed to disguise the fact that there was a woman somewhere in that voluminous disguising of hair, breasts, and hips), and quick to take back her own name. After she took on several high offices in her order, she became the mother provincial of the California branch of the Dominican order during the 1960s, coping with the changes of that volatile era on her college campuses.

Now the Vatican says that nuns are too interested in "the social Gospel" (which is the Gospel), when they should be more interested in Gospel teachings about abortion and contraception (which do not exist). Nuns were quick to respond to the AIDS crisis, and to the spiritual needs of gay people-- which earned them an earlier rebuke from Rome. They were active in the civil rights movement. They ran soup kitchens.

"This," I wrote, "is vintage Garry Wills, reminding us seemingly offhandedly that what the bishops are denouncing as 'the social Gospel' is in fact the Gospel, whereas the things that now obsess the Church fathers and their bully-bishops, like abortion and contraception, have never had any place in the actual Gospel." Small wonder, then, that the Vatican, as Wills wrote --

stripped the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, representing most American nuns, of its powers of self-government, maintaining that its members have made statements that "disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals." Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle has taken control of the Conference, writing new laws for it, supplanting its leadership, and banning "political" activity (which is what Rome calls social work). Women are not capable, in the Vatican's mind, of governing others or even themselves. Is it any wonder so many nuns have left the orders or avoided joining them? Who wants to be bullied?

I hope American Catholics, and American Catholic women in particular, are paying close attention.

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Father Theodore Hesburgh (1917-2015)

"Father Ted," president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, in his office at the school's Hesburgh Library in 2012 (see the full photo here)

I met a blind priest at the airport. Father Ted taught me to take a leap of faith.

Father Theodore Hesburgh, who died Thursday at 97, was no longer Notre Dame’s president by the time I enrolled in 1994, yet he remained a campus legend, instantly recognizable in his crisp black shirt and clerical collar and with his shock of white hair. I knew he’d done important things — advised six presidents, chaired the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights under Nixon until his policy disagreements got him demoted, and transformed Notre Dame into an academic powerhouse, independent from Rome.  Read full article »

by Ken

"Father Ted" Hesburgh -- more properly the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh CSC, though he signed himself "Father Ted Hesburgh") -- served as president of Notre Dame so long (1952-87), and was so visible in that position, that it would have been hard for anyone who lived through any significant part of that period not to have been aware of him. I don't know a whole lot more than that about him; I just remember him as being a highly decent and compassionate individual, and about as good a public face as American Catholics had in my memory -- note the end of the paragraph quoted above, crediting him with "transform[ing] Notre Dame into an academic powerhouse, independent from Rome."

Beyond that, I wouldn't be "remembering" Father Ted now if I hadn't encountered the above blurb and link in this morning's Washington Post "Headlines" e-mail.

I can't speak for you, but I couldn't resist. The blurb turns out to be the first paragraph of a "PostEverything" piece by Jenny Shank, identified as "a faculty mentor at Regis University in Denver and the author of The Ringer." In the piece Jenny tells us about her 2001 encounter with Father Ted, which began at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, and the impact it had on her life, an impact that seems fairly represented in the title of her piece. This part is interesting, and I can imagine you'll want to read about it. However, I'm not as interested in the life lesson as in the encounter itself.

On one level, it's just a conversation two strangers had during a three-hour plane flight, but I think it's pretty darned charming just on this level. For me at least, the interest compounds considerably when you consider the formidable history Jenny's travel companion carried with him, and who he was at the time of this encounter.

After that opening paragraph, sketching Father Ted's Notre Dame history and her own, Jenny writes, "Father Ted remained an abstraction to me until I recognized him at O’Hare airport in 2001."

I was 24, waiting for a plane home to Denver. He would have been unmistakable even without his blue and gold Notre Dame bag, bedecked with shamrocks. I introduced myself, and he asked whether the flight attendant could switch my seat to be next to his. He told me he suffered from macular degeneration, was blind in one eye and could barely see out of the other. Despite near-blindness, he was traveling across the country without an assistant.

I helped him present his ticket and find our row. I stowed his leather Mass kit, and sat quietly as he said a blessing as our plane taxied down the runway. “How’s that?” he asked me.

“Good,” I said.

“No one on an airplane has ever refused it,” he said.

When our food was served, Father Ted asked me to identify his fork, napkin, mustard and macaroni salad. He placed the fork in his right vest pocket and the napkin in his left so he could keep track of them.

My three-hour conversation with Father Ted took on a “My Dinner with Andre” quality. He described the time he was a guest on a nuclear submarine and a ride he’d taken on the fastest airplane ever built. He spoke 20 languages “with varying levels of fluency.” He gently interrogated me about my love life and advised me to marry a Notre Dame alumnus. “Fifty percent of marriages don’t work out,” he said, “but 93% of Notre Dame marriages last.” (He didn’t mention the source of these statistics.)

He had known all the presidents since FDR, and gave me his opinion of Kennedy and Carter. Father Ted met Condoleezza Rice for the first time when she was 19, an accomplished ice skater and pianist. He advised her to learn Russian so she’d be a step ahead of the competition in the field of foreign affairs. “I always wondered why she never got married,” he added, “with her cute dimples and all.”

He’d met Mother Theresa in the Seychelles once: “It’s stupid that the Church doesn’t go ahead and make her a saint, but you have to wait five years before anything begins to get done.” I asked whether people needed to attribute miracles to her before the canonization process could begin and he waved this off, as if impatient with the thought, and said, “Her whole life’s a miracle.”

He asked me what I did, and when I told him I was a writer, he said, “That’s a hard business.”

When we arrived at the Denver airport, Father Ted had to find the gate for his flight to Vail, where he was going to visit his brother. I was eager to assist him make his way through the terminal, but then a young man came up and said, “Father Hesburgh!” He was a Notre Dame alum, too. Father Ted explained that this happens to him all over the world. I left them so the young man could have his own encounter with the illustrious priest.

It struck me then what an act of absolute faith it was for Father Ted to travel across the country alone with faltering sight. He trusted that if he carried that Notre Dame bag, someone would approach and provide any help he needed.

I don't suppose there's anything earth-shaking here, just a charmingly human encounter. It made me feel better about . . . well, maybe just better. I think perhaps I'm less impressed by Father Ted's "act of absolute faith" in traveling alone than by his act of humility in not availing himself of special privileges that almost certainly would have been readily available to him. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that for this trip to visit his brother in Vail he could easily have had every manner of VIP assistance the whole way.

That just doesn't seem to have been who he was. Thanks for sharing this, Jenny, and good luck with the new book!

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Ever Think About Converting To Catholicism?

I've always been a spiritually-inclined person, even-- or especially-- when I was taking acid and wandering around the world from Sufi sites in Turkey, Hindu sites in India, Buddhist sites in Thailand to Jesus' birthplace in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve and a Jewish synagogue in Yangon. I worked in a non-sectarian meditation center in Amsterdam for four years and experienced all I could in the way of spirituality. Organized religion, on the other hand, has never been for me. My father, a devout atheist, told me they were all run by hucksters looking to enrich themselves with a minimum amount of work. That analysis has worked pretty well for me... until I started following Pope Francis. If I thought if Catholic popes going forward would be anything like him-- instead of making him into an outlier as soon as they can-- I would probably become a Catholic. He's my spiritual guide in any case.

Saturday we looked at some of the Pope's efforts to reform the church he heads. And The Guardian was focusing in on his efforts on behalf of inspiring decisive action on climate change. "In 2015," wrote John Vidal, "the pope will issue a lengthy message on the subject to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, give an address to the UN general assembly and call a summit of the world’s main religions. The reason for such frenetic activity, says Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, chancellor of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, is the pope’s wish to directly influence next year’s crucial UN climate meeting in Paris, when countries will try to conclude 20 years of fraught negotiations with a universal commitment to reduce emissions."

“Our academics supported the pope’s initiative to influence next year’s crucial decisions,” Sorondo told Cafod, the Catholic development agency, at a meeting in London. “The idea is to convene a meeting with leaders of the main religions to make all people aware of the state of our climate and the tragedy of social exclusion.”

Following a visit in March to Tacloban, the Philippine city devastated in 2012 by typhoon Haiyan, the pope will publish a rare encyclical on climate change and human ecology. Urging all Catholics to take action on moral and scientific grounds, the document will be sent to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops and 400,000 priests, who will distribute it to parishioners.

According to Vatican insiders, Francis will meet other faith leaders and lobby politicians at the general assembly in New York in September, when countries will sign up to new anti-poverty and environmental goals.

In recent months, the pope has argued for a radical new financial and economic system to avoid human inequality and ecological devastation. In October he told a meeting of Latin American and Asian landless peasants and other social movements: “An economic system centred on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it.

“The system continues unchanged, since what dominates are the dynamics of an economy and a finance that are lacking in ethics. It is no longer man who commands, but money. Cash commands.

“The monopolising of lands, deforestation, the appropriation of water, inadequate agro-toxics are some of the evils that tear man from the land of his birth. Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness,” he said.

In Lima last month, bishops from every continent expressed their frustration with the stalled climate talks and, for the first time, urged rich countries to act.

Sorondo, a fellow Argentinian who is known to be close to Pope Francis, said: “Just as humanity confronted revolutionary change in the 19th century at the time of industrialisation, today we have changed the natural environment so much. If current trends continue, the century will witness unprecedented climate change and destruction of the ecosystem with tragic consequences.”

According to Neil Thorns, head of advocacy at Cafod, said: “The anticipation around Pope Francis’s forthcoming encyclical is unprecedented. We have seen thousands of our supporters commit to making sure their MPs know climate change is affecting the poorest communities.”

However, Francis’s environmental radicalism is likely to attract resistance from Vatican conservatives and in rightwing church circles, particularly in the US-- where Catholic climate sceptics also include John Boehner, Republican leader of the House of Representatives and Rick Santorum, the former Republican presidential candidate.

“A papal encyclical is rare. It is among the highest levels of a pope’s authority. It will be 50 to 60 pages long; it’s a big deal. But there is a contingent of Catholics here who say he should not be getting involved in political issues, that he is outside his expertise.”

Francis will also be opposed by the powerful US evangelical movement, said Calvin Beisner, spokesman for the conservative Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, which has declared the US environmental movement to be “un-biblical” and a false religion.

“The pope should back off,” he said. “The Catholic church is correct on the ethical principles but has been misled on the science. It follows that the policies the Vatican is promoting are incorrect. Our position reflects the views of millions of evangelical Christians in the US.”

That's why they call him "the peoples' pope. What an incredible role model among all that religionists my father warned me about!

Don't be so sure that Pope Francis lost this round of squabbling with the bishops

The pope at the now-concluded Vatican synod on the family.

by Ken

On Friday I poked around the pushback being felt within and without the special synod of bishops gathered in the Vatican to ponder family issues. The synod seems clearly an initiative of Pope Francis to see where the boys in the hierarchi he inherited are standing on his initiatives to imbue Catholic family values with some measure of humanity.

By then the vocal and power-grubbing coterie of scumbag bishops had already begun watering down the draft document circulated on Monday, and the power-grubbers in the hierarchy as well as their power-grubbing movers in the laity were flexing their backward-looking muscles. On Saturday the final document that was released fell a heckuva lot short of that the Holy Father had in mind.

As the Washington Post's Michelle Boorstein reported:

A major meeting Pope Francis convened to help the Catholic Church improve its outreach to diverse modern families ended Saturday with a summary paper that removed earlier, revolutionary language that cited the value of same-sex and divorced families.

Critics of the pope were celebrating Saturday, with conservative Catholics cheering the reaffirmation that God prefers the traditional family.

The two-week meeting in Rome hadn’t been expected to result in changes to traditional doctrine, but the rare sight of cardinals from around the world debating matters such as whether same-sex couples can be called “partners” floored many Catholics. More liberal Catholics said Saturday that it was a victory for the church to even have such conversations, though many expressed disappointment with the paper.

This doesn't sound so bad.

But then we get:

“The language of compromise was eviscerated from Monday’s summary,” said Patrick Hornbeck, chair of theology at Fordham University, a Catholic institution. “The bishops who were more prophetic and progressive have found themselves drowned out by a chorus of hesitation and concern.”

Saturday’s summary reflected deep divisions in the world’s largest Christian church as it tries to reconnect with 21st-century families while sticking to its doctrine. Traditional bishops had spoken publicly and angrily in the past few days against the more open language in Monday’s draft document, saying it was a dangerous betrayal and potentially heretical. Some said the church could eventually be headed for division.

And even this is down-the-middle treatment that's a good deal more generous to the old pope than a lot of the noise being heard from the Catholic right-wing war parties, who seem positively exultant at kneecappping the puling pontiff.

Except that may not be what happened. It was, after all, the pope who pressed the synod to a swift conclusion, denying the bishops the opportunity to stall, obfuscate, and stultify, and it was the pope who insisted that in the interest of transparency, vote totals be released for every section of the proposed document, whether voted up or down -- and bear in mind that a two-thirds vote was required for adoption.

As Michelle Boorstein reports:

The Vatican on Saturday released the vote tallies for each section of the report, and [the international traditionalist conglomeration] Voice of the Family noted that the most contentious sections — encouraging a more welcoming attitude toward families who don’t conform to orthodox norms — weren’t overwhelmingly defeated.

“The voting numbers reveal that most Synod Fathers remain open to proposals contrary to Catholic teaching,” the statement said. “There has been much talk about ‘welcoming’ and ‘accompanying’ people, but this is impossible without the clarity of the truth.”

And of course it's the Inquisitionaries who are in sole possession of "the truth," and the clarity thereof.

Of course individual votes weren't made public, but everyone who participated in the voting is now answerable for his vote. (Isn't it handy that we don't have to worry about inserting gender-inclusive formulations like "his or her vote"?) Now I can't claim to speak for the pope, but a few things seem fairly clear:

• The pope has a lot of power, but he really can't take the Church anywhere it doesn't want to go, and he can hardly be unaware that the hierarchy isn't exactly the most enlightened. After all, for almost 35 unbroken years, his vile predecessors, the fake-saintly autocrat John Paul II and his even more unspeakable henchman, Cardinal Ratguts, later Pope Cardinal Ratguts, exercised total and ruthless control over hierarchical promotions, meaning that the whole shebang is now made up with their dregs -- a combination of reactionary power-grubbers and self-promoting toadies. As our friend John Puma pointed out in a comment on my Friday post, that very day one of the bulwarks of Catholic reaction, Cardinal Raymond Burke, was squealing like a pig about having been forced out of his high-level Vatican post.

• It's going to be some time, though, before Francis can have any significant impact on the overall makeup of the hierachy, and he doesn't know how much time he has. He has to be aware of the example of his great predecessor John XXIII, who was elevated to the papacy with a mandate to die soon but didn't, and caused all manner of trouble. Eventually he did die, though, and while it took the traditionalists decades to move the theological clock back, eventually they managed it. Both Francis and his enemies know that time can be a powerful obstacle to any meaningful reform.

So maybe it's time for the current pope to shake things up, to get people talking, and to make sure those people are aware that other people are listening.


WELL WORTH A LOOK ON THIS SUBJECT --

is the take of the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart ("Pope Francis and gays will win by losing this round on synod draft"), which begins:

Headlines called it a “setback” for Pope Francis that the initial draft of the synod of bishops released last week that spoke of “welcoming homosexual persons” was silent on them in the final document. But I don’t see it that way at all. The pope let the genie out of the bottle. And, as we all know, it’s difficult to put him back in once released.

And Jonathan concludes:

I’m not saying the church or the pope will become a champion of LGBT rights. And I’m definitely not saying they are going to support marriage equality. What I am saying is that by talking about the humanity of gay and lesbian Catholics and worrying about their place in the church, Pope Francis is openly recognizing them as children of God. After centuries of demonization, that’s a revolutionary act that can’t be undone.

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The theological "gradualism" being talked about in the Vatican has nothing to do with (shudder) "political" change -- ha-ha!

With "The Company Way" update (see below)


"The Company Way": "Whoever the company fires, I will still be here." (That's Sammy Smith as mail-room chief Mr. Twimble and Bobby Morse as newly assigned mail-room flunky J. Pierrepont Finch, both holdovers from the 1961 Original Broadway Cast, in the 1967 film version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, music and lyrics by Frank Loesser.) For more of "The Company Way," see the Update below.

by Ken

Let's say you're in charge of a big old church and you love the ancient dear but you've got the feeling that in some ways it's kind of stuck in, you know, the Dark Ages. Now you have a shot at doing something about it, and not that large a window. You have to know that one of your problems -- heck, probably your biggest problem -- is your large cohort of faithful insiders, for whom "the company way" is working just fine, thank you. After all, they're faithful insiders.

Okay, so maybe I'm not speaking entirely hypothetically, and have in mind the latest wrinkle in Pope Francis's apparent wish to shake his church out of its reflexively medieval ignorance and bigotry. That wrinkle is some indication of possible doctrinal "flex," not from the pope himself this time, but from what the Washington Post's Michelle Boorstein the other day, in "Church must show more compassion, respect for same-sex couples, Vatican document says," called "a top Vatican panel assisting Pope Francis." That panel, Synod 14, Boorstein wrote,

went further than the Church has gone before in affirming non-traditional relationships, saying Monday that the Church must “turn respectfully” to couples such as those who live together unmarried or are of the same-gender and “appreciate the positive values” those unions may have.

The comments blew away some longtime Vatican experts because they put the Catholic Church – the world’s largest – squarely in the middle of the mainstream public discussion about sexuality and marriage, rather than in one corner focused mostly on unchanging doctrine. What changes to doctrine or practice might follow from the suggestions, if any, weren’t at all clear.

The comments came in a document a small handful of clergy — including DC’s Archbishop Donald Wuerl — prepared to summarize what has happened during the first half of a two-week long “synod” Francis called in order to confront the Church’s most contentious issues. The document was the first real information the Vatican has released on what’s gone on in the rare high-level meeting of 190 top clergy, who are launching a deeper look at church teaching and practice around family issues. It’s meant to guide further talks for this week and in coming months.

"The document," Boorstein noted, "reaffirmed that traditional teachings are the 'ideal' but was remarkable to some in its openness and lack of emphasis on condemnation of untraditional relationships."

The Rev. James Martin, a Catholic writer with the Jesuit magazine America, wrote that the document was “stunning.”

“The Synod said that gay people have ‘gifts and talents to offer the Christian community.’ This is something that even a few years ago would have been unthinkable, from even the most open-minded of prelates–that is, a statement of outright praise for the contribution of gays and lesbians, with no caveat and no reflexive mention of sin,” Martin wrote. “That any church document would praise same-sex ‘partners’ in any way (and even use the word ‘partners’) is astonishing.”

On that, the document said “Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners.”

But Boorstein also quoted Fordham University Theology Department Chair Patrick Horbeck sounding a note of caution:

Some questions were asked here that have never been asked publicly by bishops: What good can we find in same-sex unions? In many ways for the first time in a long time the Catholic Church is saying it wants to ask really hard questions about how people truly live their lives. But the fact that the question is being asked doesn’t mean the answer will be what progressive and liberal Catholics want it to be . . .it would be a mistake to see this document as in any way definitive or significantly revolutionary.

Then came a press conference yesterday when, ThinkProgress's Jack Jenkins reported, "the Vatican reversed course."

[O]fficials announced the release of an edited English version of the report that alters passages that affirm gay people. For example, the new version changes the translation of the Italian phrase “Accogliere le persone omosessuali,” which was initially rendered in the English version as “to welcome homosexual persons,” a literal interpretation of the text. Although the original Italian document remains unchanged, Thursday’s revision edited the English version to read, “providing for homosexual persons,” a shift that Thomas Reese of the National Catholic Reporter said was “clearly … not an accurate translation.”

The new document includes other subtle alterations as well, although virtually all of the edits deal with the Catholic church’s position on homosexuality. Thursday’s version of the report, for instance, changed a phrase that previously referred to same-sex unions as “precious support in the life of the partners” to “valuable support in the life of these persons.”

The revisions appear to be an attempt by the Vatican — or at least English-speaking bishops — to control the media narrative surrounding the release of the original document. After various outlets and reporters heralded the inclusive stance of Monday’s document, conservative Catholics began publicly lambasting the report, with one South African Cardinal condemning some of its statements as “irredeemable.” Although there is speculation that Francis hinted at the release of the document during Mass on Monday morning, the Vatican quickly backtracked on Tuesday, explaining the report was a “working document” and saying that they did not want to give “the impression of a positive evaluation” of homosexuality, according to CNN.

Oops!

I don't think you have to be Kreskin to intuit that there's some fairly fierce political infighting going on inside church ranks, and American Catholics must be proud to know that their very own U.S. bishops are once again in the thick of the fight to keep the Church safely mired in the medieval muck.

Wait! Did I just say "political"? "Politics" inside the Church of Rome? What could I have been thinking of.

At least that's what a gentleman named David Cloutier, who we're told "is on the theology faculty at Mount St. Mary’s University and is the editor of the blog 'Catholic Moral Theology,' " is here to tell us, with an absolutely straight face, in a WaPo op-ed piece whose title asks and answers its own question: "Is the Vatican evolving on sex and marriage? Not the way politicians do." Normally I wouldn't go out of my way to make fun of a person's faith. (Usually you don't have to. It comes pre-made-fun-of.) But when the person mounts his high horse spinning bullshit into pseudo-moral and pseudo-philosophical jibber-jabber, well, sometimes you have to take the shot.

"In American politics," says our man, " 'evolution' has become the term of choice to describe shifting attitudes, especially toward same-sex marriage."

President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) are among those who have talked about their views evolving or having evolved.

At the Vatican this past week, “gradualism” was the term emphasized by the bishops and cardinals from around the world meeting to discuss issues of sexuality and family that have divided the church.

The bishops and cardinals didn’t use the term to describe a shift in their thinking. Rather, in the provisional report of the Synod on the Family, they invoked gradualism in recognition that even those who strive toward a moral ideal tend to fall short; for all of us, morality takes time and practice. They urged appreciation of the good in relationships that don’t meet the church ideal of monogamous, til-death-do-us-part marriage.

In accordance with the “law of gradualness,” unmarried couples living together might be encouraged to find deeper commitment in a relationship that has obvious value. Individuals who have remarried after divorce may perhaps be able to take Communion if, for example, the second marriage is stable and clearly benefits the children. Some of the church leadership talked about affirming long-term, committed same-sex relationships in the same way the Catholic Church affirms the virtue in other religious traditions. “One simply cannot say that a faithful homosexual relationship that has held for decades is nothing,” Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich elaborated to a reporter. . . .

Our David goes on, and on, but you can read that for yourself. Let's fast-forward to where he really puts his finger on it. "Clearly, something is happening within the church."

Church leaders and members, like the members of any other community, have been influenced by the experience of having friends, relatives and neighbors who are living admirable lives after divorce, or who are in committed, loving same-sex relationships. The pope and the bishops meeting in Rome are also acutely aware of increasing secularization and decreasing membership.

But this is not the same as what happens when individuals or societies “gradually” change their views on a given issue.

You see, "Unlike secular political movements, the church is not staking out positions on social issues with the goal of effecting — or blocking — legal or cultural change."

It does not see social change (however important) as an end in itself. Instead, the goal is to facilitate the encounter with God, in the person of Jesus and the community of the church. The deliberations of the synod make clear that Francis and many other bishops worry intensely that a focus on certain moral ideals, especially when they sound like a simple “no” to many people, constitutes a barrier to that fundamental spiritual encounter.

Thus, unlike secular advocacy of this or that stance on an issue, gradualism rests on the more important theological conviction that God is really at work in the world. . . .

At this distinction I imagine the all-Catholic bloc of thug-justices on the U.S. Supreme Court would nod sagely. They too would never engage in "secular advocacy of this or that stance on an issue." It just comes out looking this way -- the, er, "company way."

And you know how they're always portrayed as bad guys when they have to once again just say no when they have benighted appellants asking for what might be called "the comfort of a little extra personal freedom and liberation"?

You could say that, in highlighting gradualness, the synod is saying something very, very old, and not all that political: We are all sinners, and we must rely on God’s grace, not just our own resources. That’s not a gradual realization on the part of the church but something ancient. And it arises not out of a kind of laxism, but out of a recognition of how demanding and challenging Christianity is. I myself need gradualism whenever I read about loving enemies, forgiving people over and over, letting go of the illusory security and charm of possessions. How fortunate we would be if we applied gradualism toward high ideals of sustainable energy use, care for the poor and the immigrant, and sexual respect and discipline — all of which are vigorously proclaimed by the church. Instead, we often sacrifice such ambitious ideals, perhaps for the comfort of a little extra personal freedom and liberation.

The church wants much more than these private victories. God wants nothing less than love out of us. But God also knows: It takes a long time.

This actually sounds strikingly like the kind of gradualism one of the small band of remaining non-thug-justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was talking about not long ago when she spoke the virtues of, well, gradual change in the area of same-sex marriage as opposed to, say, the thunderbolt of Roe v. Wade on the issue of abortion. Of course Justice Ginsburg was talking about gradual change in law, not religion, and in any case not being, you know, Catholic, she probably wouldn't understand. Probably Justice Scalia or Alito could explain it to her.

And of course the suggestion that there might be politics in the inner workings of the Church, why, that must seem practically blasphemous -- assuming, that is, that you know nothing whatsoever about the inner workings of the Church. Some people would say that it's one of the most intensely and viciously political institutions on the planet. Perhaps Justices Scalia and Alito can explain it to them when they finish explaining to Justice Ginsburg.


UPDATE: "THE COMPANY WAY" REPRISED (WITH REPRISE)



As I mentioned up top, Sammy Smith (doubling Mr. Twinble and World Wide Wicket Company board chairman Wally Womper) and Bobby Morse (J. Pierrepont Finch) were in the Original Broadway Cast of How to Succeed. Here they are in 1961, along with the reprise of "The Company Way" sung by Ponty's new archrival, Bud Frump (the nephew of WWW president J. B. Biggley), played on Broadway by the one and only Charles Nelson Reilly.

"The Company Way": Mr. Twimble (Sammy Smith) and Ponty (Robert Morse)

"The Company Way" reprise: Bud Frump (Charles Nelson Reilly), Sammy Smith, and company

Original Broadway Cast recording, Elliot Lawrence, cond. RCA-BMG, recorded Oct. 22, 1961

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