Friday, September 28, 2018

Twitter Comments on Grilling of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford: "One of the Ugliest and Most Shameful Things I've Ever Seen"



Here is some real-time commentary as the crucifixion grilling of Dr. Ford takes place today — tweets that (for the most part: some have come into my feed today, but were tweeted earlier) are commenting in real time on what's happening, which I think are valuable to share:

Kavanaugh Hearing and Catholic Abuse: Overlapping Narratives — Same Catholics Who Support Viganò's Allegations Dismiss Kavanaugh's Accusers




Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Again, My Apologies for My Relative Silence in Response to Comments Here — And I Don't Intend to Play Favorites in Responding to Select Comments

It occurs to me once again to leave a note here underscoring that I am not deliberately ignoring most comments left in threads here. They are all very welcome, and I am reading and benefiting from them all.

Crux on Cardinal McCarrick's "Sexually Deviant Behavior": U.S. Catholic Church Continues to Be Unsafe for LGBTQ People


I went to bed last night more than a little troubled by something Crux reporter Christopher White states in his report on a presentation John Carr has just given at Georgetown's Initiative for Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. The presentation is entitled "Confronting a Moral Catastrophe: Lay Leadership, Catholic Social Teaching, and the Sexual Abuse Crisis." In his lecture, Carr, who was previously Director of the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Department on Justice, Peace and Human Development, and who has been a friend of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, revealed that he had been sexually abused by priests as a minor seminarian. John Carr is a married Catholic layman with children.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

More on the Jesuit Elite Boys' Club from Which Kavanaugh and Judge Emerged: Need to Rethink Jesuit Claims re: Inculcating Healthy Masculinity in Students?


Emily Witt on the (Jesuit Elite) Boys' Club That Protects Kavanaugh: Need to Rethink Jesuit Claims re: Inculcating Healthy Masculinity in Students?

Mark Judge's Page, Georgetown Prep Yearbook The Cupola, 1983

Read the following statement by Emily Witt side by side with my posting yesterday, which suggested that there may be something more than a little flawed about the magical-mystical approach to militaristic masculinity — "We're men for others, a band of brothers!" — fostered by all-male Jesuit prep schools, which have long been breeding grounds for elite males who will step from their educational years into prestigious jobs tailor-made for men like themselves by other men like themselves.

Monday, September 24, 2018

Father Kalchik and the Rainbow Flag Burning: When Evil Work Is Dressed Up in Holy Clothes



I spent a good bit of time this weekend reading hither and yon about the rainbow flag-burning priest in Chicago, Father Paul Kalchik, who has now been turned into a holy icon by the homophobic Catholic hard right (they're pushing the same narrative about him that they pushed a few weeks ago about Viganò: has had to go into hiding as a martyr because of the evil homosexuals). I have a few thoughts I'd like to share about his story.

Saturday, September 22, 2018

Chicago Priest Burns Rainbow Flag with Easter Fire: Dangerous Weaponization of Catholic Symbols to Attack Queer People

Lighting of Easter Fire by Benedictines in Morristown, NJ, in 2009 

The Catholic priest in Chicago who had announced his intent to burn a rainbow flag to "exorcise" his parish did carry through with his plans, as I think many of you will already know (and Chris Morley helpfully posted a report about this in a comment here several days ago). Though archdiocesan officials had told Father Paul Kalchik not to do so, he went ahead and burned the flag, with parishioners assisting him. Robert Shine reported about this for New Ways Ministry this past week.

Friday, September 21, 2018

Charles Marsh's Biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Strange Glory, on Bonhoeffer's (Highly Contested) Homosexuality


Here's another set of excerpts I'd like to share with you from Charles Marsh's excellent biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (NY: Knopf, 2014). Marsh ruffled feathers of conservative Christians (and the ruffling goes on and has become even more agitated with Diane Reynolds' 2016 Bonhoeffer biography The Doubled Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Women, Sexuality, and Nazi Germany) by concluding that Bonhoeffer was a gay man deeply in love with fellow Lutheran pastor Eberhard Bethge.

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Note of Apology That I Am Not Finding Time to Take Part in Conversations Here of Late

I am very much enjoying the discussions in threads here, and want you to know that. I also apologize that I have not been able to find time to participate in them very much in the past several days. Important news seems to be breaking right and left, and the time I take to try to read it and think about it is taking time away from my time to comment here. Please know that I value the thought-provoking conversation very much, even when I'm not taking part in it.

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

What Do Discussions of the Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church Have to Do with the Kavanaugh Hearing? A Lot


Ellen interviews Shelly Fitzgerald, who is threatened with firing by Roncalli Catholic High in Indianapolis for her same-sex marriage.

As I said yesterday, how the abuse situation in the Catholic church is discussed — with an obsessive focus on homosexuality, with little attention at all to the overwhelmingly dominant social (and ecclesial) problem of male abuse of vulnerable women — is not in the least disconnected from the conversations now going on about Brett Kavanaugh as a potential Supreme. Here are some statements that, to my mind, need to be read side by side, if we're going to gain a glimpse of the bigger picture facing us in these discussions:

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Charles Marsh, Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, on the Sordid History of German Church's Response to Hitler: We Forget at Our Peril



I've just finished reading Charles Marsh's Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (NY: Knopf, 2014), and would like to share some passages with you. These all have to do with the ease with which the Lutheran church in Germany capitulated to Hitler and his propagandists' claim that he was reviving a manly-man Christianity that would rehabilitate Germany's tarnished reputation. Marsh focuses on the Evangelical (i.e., Lutheran) (and Confessing) church and not the Catholic church because Bonhoeffer was situated within the Lutheran world. 

Monday, September 17, 2018

Once Again: Catholic Journalists Pushing Back Vs. Viganò's False Claims Are Not Pushing Back Vs. His Homophobia — See Austen Ivereigh's Recent Tweet re: Mary Hunt



In my last posting, I shared a Twitter conversation I had several days ago with Catholic Democrats. It was about his claim that there had been "tremendous push back" against the ugly homophobia now surfacing all through Catholic conversation circles following the McCarrick revelations and Viganò's accusations about a "homosexual network" in the church that is responsible for the abuse crisis. 

Joelle Casteix's Clear, Informed Response to Viganò Crowd: Feeds Old Stereotypes, Silences Victims, Minimizes Abuse, Encourages Cover-Up

Joelle Casteix has written the clearest, most informed response I've yet seen regarding the allegations of Viganò and his followers about the sexual abuse horror show in the Catholic church. Her essay, "'It’s a Gay Problem,' and Other Myths From the Catholic Church's Sexual Abuse Crisis," is at Religion Dispatches this morning. An excerpt:

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Important Statement from Catholic Women Speak re: "Letter to Pope Francis from Catholic Women": Who's Promoting It and Why


This is an important statement from Catholic Women Speak in response to the "Letter to Pope Francis from Catholic Women" being pushed by EWTN and other hard-right homophobic Catholic media outlets and websites:

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

At Moment of Increasing Homophobia in Catholicism, Remembering Fr. Mychal Judge

On the "Light Handed" St. John Paul the Great and the "Mild" Benedict: Anti-Francis Catholic Right and "Dinesh DeSouza School of Church History"


Monday, September 10, 2018

The "Why I'm Leaving" and "Why I'm Staying" Statements After Pennsylvania Report: My Theological Take on Them



There was an interesting discussion thread here several days back about the spate of articles after the Pennsylvania grand jury report with titles like "Why I'm Leaving" and "Why I'm Staying." American Catholics are openly discussing why they're leaving the Catholic church or why they're committed to remaining in it.

Saturday, September 8, 2018

Latest Viganò Commentary: "Vatican Receives a Letter in *November 2000* Detailing a Mess of Allegations Against McCarrick. Three Months Later, Instead of Sanctions, St. JPII Gives McCarrick a Red Hat"


In case you haven't been following every last bit of news about the Viganò story, I've done you the service of gathering a selection of recent commentary that updates what we've already discussed here. The story continues to develop right up to the present, with the denial published yesterday by Napa Institute co-founder Timothy Busch that he was involved in drafting Viganò's statement — Napa Institute, which gave shelter to disgraced St. Paul-Minneapolis archbishop Nienstedt after Viganò sought to shut down investigation of allegations that Nienstedt had been involved in activities very much like those for which Viganò is now scoring McCarrick. Here's more commentary:

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Fordham Theology Professors: "We Categorically Condemn the Vile Slander That the Crisis in the Catholic Church Is Due to the Presence of Gay Men"



Andy Staron, who is an assistant professor of theology at Wheeling Jesuit University, has shared a letter written by two members of Fordham University's theology department, Patrick Hornbeck and Fr. Bryan Massingale, to their colleagues. Since Andy Staron has shared this in his public feed, and I see it now being shared on Facebook, I am assuming it can be shared here, too — and that he shared the letter with the permission of the authors. 

My "Final" Take on the Viganò Narrative: I Am Frankly Not Sure That Catholicism Can Be Cleansed of Hatred of Queer People



I don't know about you, but I'm worn out from trying to make heads nor tails of the Viganò story — and most of all, from the cynical post-truth, fake news games being played by him and his co-conspirators, and the ugly use being made of his narrative by some very nefarious groups of people. Here are a few late-breaking tidbits for you to chew over: 

Saturday, September 1, 2018

NCR Editorializes: John Paul II "Provided the Model for the Hierarchy's Approach to the Growing Scandal"



The National Catholic Reporter has made an editorial statement on the current crisis in the Catholic church following the McCarrick revelations, the Pennsylvania report, and the Viganò attack. It's entitled "Editorial: It's time to choose the painful path of purification." Here are some excerpts: