And, to add sociological depth to what I just posted about the disconnect between Jesus, the gospels, and what some Catholics today want to do and say about issues of contraception and abortion, two significant articles that have caught my eye in the past day or so:
First, is it just me, or is this smug young priest's self-righteous certainty that his Catholic position on contraception is good and holy, while everyone else's is impure and off the track, more than a little revolting? How does one get so smug and so self-righteous (and so ignorant but self-assured) at such a young age?
And what kind of job can our Catholic seminaries be doing these days, that we're turning out young priests like this? (And what does it portend for the future of American Catholicism and the ability of the American Catholic church to retain members that it's turning out priests of this ilk, of this low pastoral quality?) But this is precisely where some of us find ourselves in the Catholic tradition right now, and I want to link to this article as a demonstration of a strong trend within contemporary Catholic discourse about these issues, at the popular level. (Thanks to Jim McCrea for sending me this link.)
Second, and again, is it just me, or is there not something rather odd about the fact that New Hampshire has had a law dating from 2000, passed by a Republican legislature, which requires contraceptive coverage in health insurance plans, and only now have "Catholics" discovered that law? And are finding it morally outrageous? Only now, after twelve years of quietude . . . .
And speaking of what's morally outrageous: isn't it just a tad bit morally reprehensible that any church group which is itself exempt from the provisions of this particular law is now assisting in the drafting of legislation that would "free any employer, be it an auto repair shop or a metaphysical bookstore, with a religious objection to birth control" from having to provide contraceptive coverage in health insurance plans?
Why is this burning moral concern only now being discovered in 2012, as an election approaches, vis-a-vis a law that has been on the books for twelve years without any peeps from those Catholics who now imagine they have a moral obligation to create laws demanding a "conscience exemption" for anyone who objects to contraception to skirt the law?
And what kind of society do we build when we permit churches to cross the line separating church and state and directly draft legislation that will enshrine in law their peculiar moral qualms which are not shared by a majority of citizens? Since recent polls indicate that there's still strong opposition to interracial marriage among many conservative evangelicals in the U.S., will the Catholic leaders who have made common cause with those evangelical groups to bash the gays now support the right of evangelical leaders to draft legislation permitting "conscience exemptions" for individuals opposing interracial marriage on religious grounds? (See also Gary Younge's recent Common Dreams article on these themes.)
Or is it right only when Catholics do it or say it?
And if that's the case, then why is it the case, I wonder? What makes it automatically right when my tribe and its tribal leaders choose to do it, but wrong when another tribe and its leaders choose to do it?
Questions I continue to consider worth asking . . . .
(The mean-spirited and race-based and very overt partisan politicking of some Catholics at this point in American history is really making many American citizens sick of the Catholic church in general, and all those laments about resurgent anti-Catholicism are failing to take into account the way in which the politicking of some Catholics and many Catholic leaders is putting the Catholic church out into the public square in the most negative way possible. It's exceptionally dishonest to blame lingering cultural anti-Catholicism for what some Catholics are accomplishing all on their own, with no help at all from anti-Catholic prejudice.)
And speaking of what's morally outrageous: isn't it just a tad bit morally reprehensible that any church group which is itself exempt from the provisions of this particular law is now assisting in the drafting of legislation that would "free any employer, be it an auto repair shop or a metaphysical bookstore, with a religious objection to birth control" from having to provide contraceptive coverage in health insurance plans?
Why is this burning moral concern only now being discovered in 2012, as an election approaches, vis-a-vis a law that has been on the books for twelve years without any peeps from those Catholics who now imagine they have a moral obligation to create laws demanding a "conscience exemption" for anyone who objects to contraception to skirt the law?
And what kind of society do we build when we permit churches to cross the line separating church and state and directly draft legislation that will enshrine in law their peculiar moral qualms which are not shared by a majority of citizens? Since recent polls indicate that there's still strong opposition to interracial marriage among many conservative evangelicals in the U.S., will the Catholic leaders who have made common cause with those evangelical groups to bash the gays now support the right of evangelical leaders to draft legislation permitting "conscience exemptions" for individuals opposing interracial marriage on religious grounds? (See also Gary Younge's recent Common Dreams article on these themes.)
Or is it right only when Catholics do it or say it?
And if that's the case, then why is it the case, I wonder? What makes it automatically right when my tribe and its tribal leaders choose to do it, but wrong when another tribe and its leaders choose to do it?
Questions I continue to consider worth asking . . . .
(The mean-spirited and race-based and very overt partisan politicking of some Catholics at this point in American history is really making many American citizens sick of the Catholic church in general, and all those laments about resurgent anti-Catholicism are failing to take into account the way in which the politicking of some Catholics and many Catholic leaders is putting the Catholic church out into the public square in the most negative way possible. It's exceptionally dishonest to blame lingering cultural anti-Catholicism for what some Catholics are accomplishing all on their own, with no help at all from anti-Catholic prejudice.)
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