There are days I find Clerical Whispers one of the best blogs going. There are other days I wonder why Sotto Voce, its editor, chooses some of the reactionary—even outré—articles he picks to print. I sometimes wonder if there is pressure from on high (from clerical circles higher than that occupied by Sotto Voce) for him to give "balanced" treatment to controversial issues. At its best, this fine blog does an outstanding job of picking up news all too often overlooked by our American mainstream press, including the mainstream Catholic press—particularly news having to do with the Catholic church, but also with the Anglican communion and other churches, particularly in the British Isles.I was struck yesterday by an article noting that a Dutch MEP, Sophie in ‘t Veld, has written the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, calling on Barroso to issue a statement condemning remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that incite hatred towards gays and lesbians (http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/01/dutch-mep-seeks-condemnation-of-popes.html). I’m struck by this article—and by in ‘t Veld’s action—because the majority of mainstream American news outlets soft-pedaled the pope’s Christmas slam against gays and his opposition to seeing gays included in the United Nations human rights covenant.
Our media are, frankly, craven when it comes to the religious right, whether in its Catholic or its evangelical manifestations. They are so in large part because well-organized and strongly funded pressure groups like the Institute on Religion and Democracy, about which I’ve blogged repeatedly here, lean on the media and threaten them if they pursue stories about how religious rhetoric fuels hate (unless, of course, that rhetoric happens to emanate from Islamic fundamentalists).
People connected with groups like the IRD have managed to capture plum positions as “the” spokespersons for their religious communions. When any controversy arises, the media turn to these spokespersons, never adverting to the fact that their testimony is highly politically charged, always in a right-wing direction, and represents only the extreme right wing of the church for which they claim to speak.
Former Lutheran pastor turned Catholic priest, Richard John Neuhaus, who died last week, was influential in the formation of IRD. In fact, he authored its founding document, “Christianity and Democracy” (www.theird.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=215&srcid=213). Through his influence with the Bush administration, IRD and other right-wing Christian groups played a disproportionate role in the Bush administration. Neuhaus is now being remembered in glowing eulogies all over the internet, which speak of the good things he did for the church.
Since I can hear my mother’s voice in the back of my wretched conscience whispering that, if one has nothing good to say of the dead, one should say nothing, I’ll refrain from sharing my reflections on Neuhaus and his legacy. I pray he rests in peace. Meanwhile, I think Andrew Sullivan’s remarks about the need for balance as we remember the legacy of this highly placed Catholic mover and shaker are on target, and deserve careful consideration: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/01/neuhaus-and-gay.html.
Since our media, with its cushy ties to groups like the IRD (several Neuhaus eulogies speak of the wining and dining reporters did with him and do routinely with groups like IRD, as the media’s conscience is bought, piece of silver by piece of silver, by those groups) did almost nothing to address the pope’s Christmas statement adequately—since our media, indeed, chided those foolhardy enough to suggest that the pope had stepped over a line in depicting gay persons as a threat to human ecology akin to threats to the rain forest—I want to give attention to Sophie in ‘t Veld’s reflections on Benedict’s Christmas message to LGBT human beings.
Her letter to Barroso notes that while the European community values free speech, it also deplores and opposes hate speech. in ‘t Veld argues that that the pope’s designation of LGBT persons in his Christmas remarks as “a threat to mankind” is hate speech, pure and simple. She notes that someone occupying a position as a world religious leader has an even stronger responsibility than a private citizen to refrain from such hate speech. She calls on Barroso to speak out, concluding, “The Pope’s statements contribute to a climate in which discrimination, homophobic hate speech and violence become socially acceptable.”
Benedict’s recent attacks on gay human beings are drawing negative press not only in Holland. Clerical Whispers notes in a posting today that a university lecturer in Malta, Patrick Attard, formally excommunicated himself at the office of the Chancellor of the Curia yesterday (http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/01/university-lecturer-excommunicates.html). Attard is openly gay, and says he took the step of publicly renouncing his membership in the Catholic church because of the Vatican’s opposition to the UN resolution calling for decriminalization of homosexuality, and because of the pope’s Christmas attack on gays and lesbians.
Oh, and by the way: as all this goes on, the Vatican continues to talk about human rights and the dignity of all human beings. The article immediately preceding the one about Sophie in ‘t Veld on Sunday’s Clerical Whispers notes that Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, recently stated that violating the dignity of other human beings is at the root of all social conflict (http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/01/violating-human-dignity-is-root-of-all.html).
Martino is apparently aware of the disconnect between his noble defense of human rights and the actual track record of the Vatican towards gay persons. Addressing the Vatican’s recent opposition to adding gay persons to the human rights statement of the UN, Martino notes that some people choose to use the freedom God gives them to sin . . . . That old canard of the chosen gay lifestyle, the one drenched in sin, about which I blogged yesterday.
One doesn’t know whether to weep or to laugh—at the brutal irony of people denouncing human rights violations while engaging in human rights violations, or the ludicrous expectation that anyone will listen as one preaches about human rights for all while using that same mouth to bash those whose "chosen" lifestyles disqualify them from access to human rights.
The graphic accompanying this posting is from a Clerical Whispers article today, noting that Benedict XVI's personal secretary Georg Gänswein has just received Austria's Great Golden Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria award (http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/01/austria-awards-popes-right-hand-man.html). The photo shows Gänswein attending to the pope's sartorial needs.
