In the posting I just uploaded, about shutting down the GayTM, I noted that the Catholic church in the U.S. has mounted a nationwide attack on LGBT human beings.As I noted this, I offered a link to a 23 October financial statement that the Portland Catholic diocese provided, listing donors to its attack on gay citizens of Maine and their human rights. This link points to a report of the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices listing contributors to the Portland diocese's attack on gay persons and our human rights.
This report makes clear where that mysterious money came from that the Portland diocese kept finding to carry on its attack on gay people in the recent Yes on 1 initiative. It came, in fact, from all over the United States--from Catholic dioceses across the nation.
While it has been closing Catholic churches and schools, the Catholic diocese of Portland has been passing the hat around among bishops all over the place to collect money to attack a vulnerable minority. And bishops all over the place (many of whom are facing financial constraints similar to those of the Portland diocese, and many of whom are also closing churches) willingly put money into the hat for this cause.
Money given by Catholics in their dioceses to support schools, churches, programs to feed the hungry and heal the sick. Money Catholics around the nation have not given to attack their gay children, brothers and sisters. Tax-free money given as donations to churches, without any political intent other than healing the wounds of the world in the mind of many Catholic layfolks donating that money.
Make no mistake about it: the Catholic bishops in the United States, many of them, are involved in a full-scale, take-no-prisoners attack on gay lives, gay human beings, gay brothers and sisters. This is a cynical, cruel, calculated attack.
And it will not end until Catholics who put money into the collection plates of Catholic churches across the nation stop supporting this attack on their LGBT brothers and sisters by refusing to donate.
You can read the list of dioceses donating to the Portland diocese's attack on gay citizens of Maine at the Maine Ethics Commission website. But just so that the names receive as much attention and distribution as possible, here's the Hall of Shame of dioceses that gave financial support to the Portland diocese's anti-gay initiative:
Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown
Diocese of Arlington
Diocese of Atlanta
Catholic Foundation Archdiocese of Baltimore
Diocese of Baton Rouge
Diocese of Biloxi
Bishop Lori of Bridgeport
Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn
Diocese of Cincinnati
Diocese of Colorado Springs
Diocese of Columbus
Diocese of Crookston
Diocese of Erie
Bishop of Fall River
Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend
Diocese of Fort Worth
Diocese of Gary
Diocese of Grand Island
Diocese of Green Bay
Diocese of Hartford
Diocesan Center for Family Life Jacksonville
Diocese of Jefferson City
Diocese of Joliet
Catholic Foundation of Northeast Kansas, Kansas City
Diocese of LaCrosse
Diocese of Las Cruces
Bishop Kurtz of Louisville
Diocese of Metuchen
Diocese of Mobile
Diocese of Newark
Diocese of New Orleans
Bishop LeVoir of New Ulm
Diocese of Parma
Diocese of Philadelphia
Diocese of Phoenix
Diocese of Pittsburgh
Diocese of Portland, Oregon
Diocesan Assistance Fund of Providence
Diocese of Rockford
Diocese of Rockville Center
Diocese of St. Louis
Diocese of St. Thomas Virgin Islands
Bishop Brevard of St. Thomas
Diocese of San Angelo
Bishop Gomez of San Antonio
Diocese of Savannah
Diocese of Scranton
Bishop D'Arcy of South Bend
Bishop of Springfield
Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau
Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston
Diocese of Wilmington
Diocese of Winona
Diocese of Yakima
Diocese of Youngstown
Know any of these places? Know Catholics in any of these places? If you do, do you suspect that many Catholics who put money into their churches' collection baskets in these places in the past year had no idea they were donating to a political cause? That their money would be used to mount a mean-spirited attack on their gay brothers and sisters?
There will come a day when historians will take note of this list for what it really is: a hall of shame of American Catholic dioceses which, in the first decade of the 21st century, chose to use the resources of their faith community to make the lives of a targeted minority harder than they already are.
