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| Bishop Lori Testifying Before House Judiciary Subcommittee, 25 Oct. 2011 |
Other read-worthy articles from the previous week I'd like to recommend to readers:
At National Catholic Reporter, Brian Cahill asks what might happen if the "good guys" among the American Catholic bishops stood up and apologized--"for the disrespect our church has shown to gays and lesbians, sometimes blatant, sometimes nuanced, but always felt, and for the pain intentionally or otherwise inflicted on gays and lesbians by church teaching and how it has been presented."
Also at NCR, Joshua McElwee reports on the grilling Mr. Lori, bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut, underwent in Congress this week when he testified that respect for "religious liberty" demands that public officials who object on grounds of conscience have the right to refuse to assist same-sex couples in obtaining civil marriages where such marriages are illegal. But Mr. Lori simultaneously argued that respect for "religious liberty" does not entail the same right to refuse on grounds of conscience for those whose religious beliefs do not countenance interracial marriage.
Some members of Congress did not buy the invidious distinction between same-sex marriage and interracial marriage. Nor do most readers of this NCR article, who demonstrate, by their hostility to the bishops' attack on gay and lesbian persons, the validity of the recent study Catholics in America: Persistence and Change in the Catholic Landscape, which finds that almost 9 in 10 American Catholics maintain that one can be a faithful Catholic and disagree with church teachings. And that more than half of American Catholics believe that the question of the morality of homosexuality should be decided by individuals' informed consciences, and not dictates of church officials.
Readers interested in reading more about Mr. Lori and his activities as a bishop in recent years may follow my own trail of postings about him by clicking his name in the list of labels below.
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