As the news is again reminding us, Catholics are part of a secretive and abusive church, built on “homosocial” power: men governing men and excluding women; men in a culture of homoerotic images too often and too loudly denying genuine life beyond heterosexuality; and willing to go to almost any length to protect this coven of masculine narcissism.
As I say to the U.S. Catholic bishops in my October 2008 open letter calling on them to denounce the escalating verbal violence in our political sphere, including verbal violence by people claiming to represent pro-life positions, the credibility of the bishops depends on whether they speak out. Their outspoken rejection of the health care bill obligates them to condemn the kind of violence Bart Stupak is now experiencing.
And when it's clear that at the center of this kind of pathological secrecy and shame is the current Pope, then it is clear that the entire institution is corrupt from the top down.
These men are too objectively disordered to run a church. They bask in self-denial, while they wage a culture war against gay men who have actually dealt with their sexuality, who have owned it, and celebrated it and even found ways to channel it into adult relationships and even civil marriage.
C Street is where power, money, sex and religion meet. So am I led to believe that Bart Stupak lives in a brothel and belongs to a cult? He says he was just renting a room there. But that just doesn't ring true. Something stinks to the high heavens here, and Stupak sees no irony in taking his holier-than-thou position while living in a house that should be dubbed "Hypocrites' Hideaway."
If Stupak were truly pro-life then he'd vote for this bill. Right now, a mother in the U.S. has a ten times greater chance of dying in childbirth than a mother does in Ireland. If you really wanted to reduce abortions, you'd have to ask yourself this question: Why does godless France, where abortion is nearly free (it's covered by their universal health insurance), have 20% fewer abortions per capita than we do?
Simplex writes: “Right on, John Allen -- and Archbishop Chaput! Will the Church have the imagination to put aside ecclesiastical politics for once and make him Coadjutor Archbishop of Los Angeles? I pay that this may be.”
And frère charles responds: “and apparently many others also pay that this may be, and in the brave new 21st century church as in the middle ages it is who pays who wins, not the people of God.”
In these exciting times, what with the pope whipping himself, children raped in churchs everywhere, the popes brother slapping singing children, chaput (R-DEN) has to try harder than ever to stay in the limelight.
Perhaps, in fact, there’s a line of continuity between slapping children in the face and sexually abusing them, and refusing to see Jewish citizens outside our window being carted off to gas chambers.
Stupak is carrying water for the U.S. Catholic bishops, who are doing incalculable harm to American society as well as to the church by their behind-the-scenes arm-twisting and bullying tactics.
Where does hate go? What happens to it, when it’s done its dirty work, had its field day, and been temporarily vanquished?
I suspect more and more “ordinary” Catholics are troubled now, as the pastoral leaders of the church seem not to be troubled, about the pain we inflict when we:
6. Destabilize families headed by same-sex parents raising children, thus inflicting misery not only on the parents of such families, but on their children, as well . . . .
