Gerald Beyer on Strange Bedfellows: U.S. Bishops' Religious Liberty Crusade and Neoliberalism

There was one other valuable article of which I intended to take note in the posting I just uploaded, and I lost sight of it in the thicket of other commentary I was summarizing.  And perhaps it's better that it has a separate notice, since it's an article that deserves serious attention (but no less than he others to which I just linked).  This is Gerald Beyer's commentary at National Catholic Reporter on how the bishops' faux religious liberty crusade is really a crusade promoting a neoliberal philosophy antagonistic to the rights of workers and the poor.

Beyer teaches Christian social ethics at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia.  To my mind, his analysis dovetails with Andrew Sullivan's critique (see my previous posting) of the "the Republican fusion with the Vatican" and how that fusion threatens "core priorities of Christianity"--though I'm not entirely sure Sullivan would agree with Beyer's critique of neoloberalism.  (I do agree with it wholeheartedly.)

As Beyer notes, 

While the bishops are waging their battle against the Obama administration, Republicans in Washington and throughout the land are dismantling a century's worth of workers' rights and social protections. The bishops have at times recently spoken up for the rights of workers and the cause of the poor, but their statements have been muted by their more vociferous efforts in the fight over religious liberty and the media clamor surrounding it.

And as he also observes, 

How can a Catholic institution claim its religious identity is being threatened when Catholic teaching itself has unequivocally upheld the right to unionize? 

The answer is money. It's all about money. 

Should Catholic institutions be exempt from their own teaching on just wages and the right to unionize? The answer is yes, if you are a neoliberal Catholic. 

If the bishops want to continue to fight for religious liberty, it is incumbent upon them to recognize the ways in which the case for religious liberty is being abused. Where does the right to religious liberty end? Will the bishops, or other Catholic employers, argue that Catholic universities, even though they are formally corporations run by secular boards -- which places them under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Act -- have the right to fire professors who do not attend Mass and go to confession? Should Catholic hospitals be able to fire employees who are openly gay? What about the conscience rights of those who disagree with Catholic doctrine? Do the bishops yearn for a return to the "error has no rights" era?

Beyer is absolutely correct with this analysis.  To an extent many journalists do not recognize, the U.S. Catholic bishops' political stance in recent years has been driven not by a commitment to Catholic social teaching, but by advice provided by their legal counsel and corporate executives that is centered on protecting the assets and coffers of the church.

This is a motivation that it would be foolish to ignore as we look at the supposedly united front of Catholics and Catholic institutions against the Obama administration's intrusion on religious freedom.  What unites the bishops and groups supervising Catholic health care systems is, unfortunately, the fear of both Catholic church leaders of all sorts and all political complexions that when laws curbing their ability to discriminate are enforced, they'll be in for lawsuits.

And for financial demands that will begin to dip into their coffers.  The overriding commitment determining "the" Catholic response to the enforcement of nondiscrimination laws in Catholic workplaces at this point in history is not a commitment to Catholic social teaching and its principles.

It's a commitment to safeguarding the financial assets of dioceses, religious communities, and Catholic institutions.  And this is the long and short of the bishops' decision to make common cause with the religious right and to fuse the Catholic church at an official level with the Republican party.

It's because this objective is so clear to so many of us that I find the inability of their liberal co-belligerents to see what's going on with the bishops' faux religious liberty crusade so intently frustrating.  As Jamie Manson rightly noted several days ago, it's hardly any secret that the bishops have ginned up this crusade in recent months precisely to attack gay and lesbian citizens and women--and to erode the rights of both groups in the workplace.  

This is hardly a secret.  This handwriting has been written on the public wall in loud, bold typeface for some time now.

So how do the bishops' "liberal" Catholic co-belligerents imagine that they can be convincing when they try to tell the rest of us, with a straight face, that they're supporting the bishops in order to safeguard all the good that Catholic institutions and Catholic leaders do in the world?  And to protect Catholic social teaching--which the bishops themselves grossly belie in their behavior towards gay and lesbian Catholics (among others) working in Catholic institutions?

I have to conclude that many "liberal" Catholics never did care and do not intend to care about gay and lesbian human beings, about survivors of clerical sexual abuse, and, frequently, about women and women's rights.  The "liberal" Catholics colluding with the bishops in their ugly attacks on the human rights of workers and minorities in recent days are really unmasking themselves for who and what they are in recent days. 

And who and what they are is not and never has been liberal (though it has been neoliberal, which is another kettle of fish).  Despite their self-appelation to the contrary.