My previous post today refers to a statement Jan Chamberlin made yesterday on Facebook about her decision to resign from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in protest of the choir's choice to sing at Donald Trump's inauguration. As Erp notes in a comment in response to my previous posting, this Facebook statement has now gone viral. It's a public statement, and is here. I encourage you to read it.
As Jan Chamberlin says, the brand of Mormonism (and the Tabernacle Choir) will be damaged by the choir's decision to sing for Trump, since "it will appear that [the] Choir is endorsing tyranny and facism by singing for this man." And then she concludes, powerfully,
I only know I could never "throw roses to Hitler." And I certainly could never sing for him.
As I noted today, by contrast, leading U.S. Catholic intellectuals have been doing everything in their power in the past two days to silence critical discussion of Cardinal Dolan's decision to offer the blessing of the U.S. Catholic bishops to Trump by taking part in the inauguration. That decision will have equally negative implications for the already sullied (3 in 5 white Catholics voting for Trump; the abuse crisis and the bishops' spectacular mishandling of it; firing of one gay employee of Catholic institutions after another) Catholic brand — especially when Trump begins to exercise power and we see the kind of ruthless, immoral actions his administration takes.
I'm very ashamed for what lay Catholic intellectuals in the U.S. have made of themselves and of their church in recent years. It truly is appalling.
The photo — the famed Vienna Boys' Choir standing under a banner announcing that the choir is singing for Hitler in 1938 — is from the website of the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. This historical legacy is one of many in which Catholics in Germany, Austria and elsewhere lent support to the Nazi regime, a legacy that has deeply tarnished the Catholic image following the Nazi period.
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