Readers and Links: Bilgrimage Readers on Abuse Crisis, USCCB Attack on Girl Scouts, Clerical Celibacy, and the Purity Trap

As a new work-week begins, I want to take a moment to catch up to some links good readers of Bilgrimage have posted here in recent weeks.  For me, things have been a bit hectic lately, in terms of communication and information sharing, because of my constant work on the draft of the book I'm now finishing (I hope to have it complete by the end of this week).

The constant work on the book draft has caused me to fall behind with a great deal of my usual blog reading, and I'm slow to read some of the links that valued readers post here, which point to their own equally valuable work.  Though I always try to read the linked material eventually, and always profit tremendously from doing so . . . . 

Here are several items that readers of Bilgrimage have linked here in comments lately, all written by these readers (and in one or two cases, links I gleaned by following other links to their own work they posted here in recent days).  Each keeps some of the conversations we've been having at this and other blogs alive, and I highly recommend each essay:

1. At NCR, Sr. Maureen Paul Turlish, who has been indefatigable in working for truth to be known and justice to be accorded to victims in the abuse crisis in the Catholic church, points out the pitfalls inherent in permitting religious groups to self-police themselves--pitfalls what are, as she notes, exceedingly evident as we listen to testimony in the Philadelphia trial.

2. Hot off the press at This Cultural Christian, Mike McShea looks at Kevin Rhoades, the bishop carrying water for the religious and political right on the USCCB's current astonishing attack on the Girl Scouts,  and finds it's all about . . . politics: the bugbear of Planned Parenthood that the USCCB hopes to keep waving in front of conservative Catholic voters' faces in swing states this fall, to throw the election to the GOP (as Andrew Rosenthal notes in a New York Times blog piece to which Mike points, those using the bishops as handlers in these unholy culture wars are even trying to throw the First Lady into the Girl Scouts-Planned Parenthood bag of scare goodies to appeal to Catholic conservatives).

3. At Queering the Church, Chris Morley thinks about the story of Fr. Martin McVeigh of Co. Tyrone, Ireland, who accidentally flashed gay porn images to parents at a Catholic school presentation in March.  Chris's sane take on the tragicomedy: the Catholic church really, really needs open, truth-oriented discussion about issues like human sexuality, obligatory priestly celibacy, and sexual orientation.

4. And last but very far from least, at Heresy & Humor, TheraP wonders provocatively about the link between the kind of purity fantasies driving the leaders of the Catholic church today, and the decline of civilizations who get themselves into purity traps like the one the Catholic church now finds itself in, due to the abysmal leadership of its current pastoral leaders.

Many voices.  A rich mosaic of conversation.  All saying important things.  Each one worth hearing.  I recommend these and the many other links provided by very much-appreciated readers of this blog in an ongoing basis at the links here.