Falling Behind, Determined to Catch Up

I'm slightly behind in acknowledging your wonderful comments here, folks — and in saying all I'd like to say about what's happening right now vis-a-vis marriage equality in the U.S., and my great disappointment that, to all intents and purposes, the leaders of the U.S. Catholic church (as opposed to many lay Catholics) are standing with those who want to defy the Constitution and trample on human rights at this point in American history.

As I've said before, when I chose to become Catholic in the 1960s, I did so in large part because the Catholic church seemed to have taken a much more courageous stand in defense of the rights of an oppressed minority group than my family's evangelical church did. And so if anyone had told me then that by the first part of the 21st century, the leaders of the church I was choosing would stand squarely against the human rights of another oppressed minority group and with the descendants of those trampling on the rights of this group (see: Alabama), I would not have believed them. And yet this is exactly where we find ourselves today in the U.S. Catholic church, whether the bigotry is the raw bigotry of many of our bishops or the muted, intellectually gussied up bigotry of our "centrist" intellectuals who are closer in their commitments to the right-wing anti-gay Catholics of First Things than to their fellow Catholics who are gay.

I must attend a family funeral this morning. In recent weeks, children of two first cousins of my mother have died, and the husband of a daughter of a first cousin of my father has died, and my time for and attention to blogging have been divided between the internet and being with grieving relatives. Last evening, as Steve and I drove for me to give a presentation on the book I published in 2013, I spoke by phone to one of those first cousins of my mother, whose daughter died suddenly in late December. This is the second daughter that cousin has lost in five years, and I feel her grief sharply.

I will try to catch up very soon, but in the meantime, did not want you to think I'm not reading and appreciating your many valuable comments here. Thank you for them, as always.