Janelle Wong on How We Are All Evangelicals Now: "Evangelicals Embody U.S. Racial Attitudes on Steroids"

As I reminded us yesterday, it's not just white evangelicals: white U.S. Christians — of all confessional stripes, right and left, across the board — are chiefly responsible for preventing a much-needed national conversation about race that is necessary if American culture is successfully to negotiate its Trump-era political-religious crisis. 

James Cone, Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody, on What It Is to Be Black in America Today: What U.S. White Christians Refuse to Hear

Here is more from James Cone's book Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2018) which glosses what I posted earlier today about the conversation white American Christians, who are singularly responsible for the nightmare that is the Trump presidency, refuse to allow the nation to have:

Yes, More on Catholic MAGA Boys: Conversation White Americans (& Especially White Christians) Refuse to Have, or Why Trump Is in the White House

Nothing has changed, essentially, since Robert P. Jones offered us the analysis of our serious cultural-political-religious crisis in 2016 in the passages highlighted below.

This is a crisis in which white U.S. Christians are singularly, critically implicated. /1 pic.twitter.com/AObT14hixb

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) January 30, 2019

Some Final Takeaways from the Covington Catholic Story: "Conservatives Have Realized They Can Construct a Parallel Reality and Have It Accepted," but "I Know What I Saw"

The Twitter gods and social media gurus and faux-liberal nannies have decreed that We Shall No Longer Talk of Covington Catholic. Since I have been out of commission due to my tooth extraction, however, I'm behind the curve. I still have things to say, and am of a mind to say more. Here's a selection of commentary I want to bring to your attention today:

Apologies for Being Behind in Responding to Comments Here

My apologies to all of you good readers who have left comments here in the past several days, to which I have failed to respond. This is another of those periods when I find myself falling behind — too much to read and write about, all happening too quickly. I have also been wrestling with tooth pain which should, I hope, abate after the offending tooth is yanked out tomorrow — and the dull, constant ache leaves me a bit lethargic (and also prone to mistype words here, for which I also apologize). I surely do appreciate your comments and am reading and learning from all of them.

P.S. If you have read my posting earlier today, please note three important footnotes I have now added to it as documentation for some of its assertions.

Have Watched Additional Footage of Covington Catholic Boys, and People Are Right: Such Questions It Raises! — Here Are Mine

Are we really going to debate whether those kids shouting ‘build the wall!’ in the face of a Native American while attending the March for Life in MAGA hats were just misunderstood?

Seriously?

— Joshua Holland 🔥 (@JoshuaHol) January 20, 2019

I've watched the additional footage of the Covington Catholic boys and Nathan Phillips circulated on social media yesterday, and it has really shifted my perspective. Now I have so many questions:

Viral Video of KY Catholic Teen "Pro-Life" Marchers Taunting Native American Elder Puts "Pro-Lifers" in Spotlight: "A Feature Not a Bug" of "Pro-Life" Movement

Imagine if Catholic schools made racism and not abortion the centerpiece of their moral education.

— Natalia Imperatori (@nimperatori) January 19, 2019

Kentucky Catholic Students at Pro-Life March Mock Native Americans; Michael Sean Winters Chides Catholics Lukewarm to Pro-Life Movement — Side-by-Side Stories

After Michael Sean Winters shook his finger at liberal Catholics for being insufficiently pro-life as the March for Life was staged, will he now address the "pro-life" behavior of the group of students from a Catholic school in Covington, KY, who came to D.C. for that march? /1

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) January 19, 2019

Celebrating Mary Oliver & Asking: Do We Want to Be the Kind of People Celebrating Mary Oliver, or the Kind Celebrating Karen Pence & John Finnis?

That's the big question, the one the world throws at you each morning, "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?" 

     ~ Mary Oliver, Long Life (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2004), p. xiv. 

On McCloskey's & Opus Dei's "Outsize Impact on Policy & Politics," & Attempt of Right-Wing Religionists & Journalists to Veil That Influence

In the statement by Terry Mattingly to which I linked yesterday, a statement which argues that the media have been much more focused on the story of Opus Dei priest John McCloskey's fall from grace than they have been on the fall from grace of Cardinal McCarrick, Mattingly states,

McCarrick Story Continues to Chug Along, While McCloskey Story Loses Steam: Why?

Number of articles Religion News Service has posted featuring the McCarrick story: at least 20, by my count.

Number of RNS articles featuring the McCloskey story: ZERO.

Why, one wonders? Why the discrepancy? Or, more precisely, why the total silence re: the McCloskey story? /1

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) January 16, 2019

Two More Valuable Resources re: Opus Dei: Betty Clermont's and Penny Lernoux's Books

I'd like to add two valuable resources to the primer of books and articles about Opus Dei I posted this past weekend. That primer was not intended by any means to be an exhaustive list of the wealth of good commentary on Opus Dei that one can easily find by a Google search or a conventional search of library resources. It was, in fact, a recycling of something I had shared in the past, written for a specific purpose at that time. Because of its contextual nature, it missed some resources I did not think to share, but now want to recommend, after a good comment by Betty Clermont spurred my memory of these items:

This Has Happened: What to Make of Recent Chain of Events from Opus Dei-McCloskey to Cardinal Burke to Peter Steinfels to Archbishop Viganò?

So this has happened:

1. Jan. 7: Washington Post breaks Opus Dei-McCloskey story.

2. Jan. 8: Cardinal Burke mounts an attack on Pope Francis on German t.v., saying his response to the abuse crisis is "confusing." /1

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) January 14, 2019

Front Page News Today in Charlotte, North Carolina: "PRIESTS ACCUSED OF SEX ABUSE — The Charlotte Diocese Has Not Released Lists"

On the front page of today's Charlotte Observer: a headline reading, "PRIESTS ACCUSED OF SEX ABUSE," with a notice that the Catholic diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, still has not released names of priests credibly accused of child sex abuse. The headline points readers to an article inside the front section of the paper that appeared several days ago in the online copy of the paper, but is being published in the print-media copy for the first time for today's Sunday edition. 

Opus Dei, Its Wealth, Power, and Widespread Hidden Influence: A Primer of Informative Resources

I'd like to propose the following — an intuition of mine, rather than a proven conclusion:

News Continues to Break re: McCloskey + Opus Dei: "Catholic Right … Does Not Want to Grasp the Gravity" of Catholic Church's Sex-Abuse Crisis

The Opus Dei-Rev C John McCloskey story is turning into an emblem for the covering-up of clergy sex misconduct https://t.co/Ky3GApWNUi

— Michelle Boorstein (@mboorstein) January 10, 2019

As I have mentioned in my several previous postings about this story, I happened to be scanning Twitter right around the time Michelle Boorstein broke the McCloskey story on Twitter this past Monday evening, 7 January. I shared Michelle Boorstein's link breaking the story, and almost immediately, got pushback from a young Catholic whose Twitter profile states that he's connected to the right-wing Catholic publication First Things.

Catholics Who Have No Problem with a President Boasting About Grabbing Women's Genitals Appear to Find It Refreshing When a Priest "Only" Assaults a Woman

Isn't it interesting that the same set of Catholics who have no problem with a president boasting about how he likes to grab women's genitals, or with a Supreme Court justice accused of assaulting a young woman, also find it refreshing if a priest "only" assaults a woman? /1

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) January 9, 2019

How did Catholics get to this point, many of them? How did some U.S. Catholics get to the point at which they find it refreshing when a priest "only" assaults a woman, and when revelations about a superstar politically prominent priest sexually molesting a women become the occasion for yet another outpouring of homophobic discourse blaming gay priests for the abuse horrors?

Addendum to McCloskey Story: Opus Dei Priest Speaks Out: "He Was Around for a Year After We Were Informed. … It's Not Good. But We May As Well Own It"

More is coming out now about the McCloskey story. A few minutes ago, Michelle Boorstein tweeted out a link to a new Washington Post article entitled "In emotional interview, Opus Dei spokesman said he 'hated' how prominent priest’s sexual misconduct case was handled." Here are some pertinent passages in this article — which I encourage you to read in light of my previous posting about the McCloskey revelations earlier today:

Opus Dei Reveals It Paid Nearly $1 Million to Settle Suit vs. D.C. Superstar Priest John McCloskey: Questions We Should Ask

One of today's big stories: Opus Dei has revealed that it paid nearly $1 million in 2005 to settle a sexual misconduct lawsuit filed against the superstar Opus Dei priest John McCloskey. Michelle Boorstein broke this story in Washington Post last evening. As she reports, McCloskey has been well-known in religious and political circles due to his close association with such luminaries of the political right as Newt Gingrich, Sam Brownback, and Larry Kudlow, all of whom he ushered into the Catholic church.

Commentary re: Religious Issues, Hot Off Press: Catholic Abuse, Evangelicals & Trump, LGBTQ People & Church, U.S. Catholic Resistance to Pope Francis

"Whom Would Jesus Shoot?," Karen Fiorito

From the graphic above through the tweets and article excerpts below, some valuable commentary on a wide range of matters religious (and political) I've gleaned from social media or browsing the internet in the past several days. Hans Zollner's good statement on the spiritual damage done by sexual abuse of minors dates from a year ago, but is receiving attention right now because Mark Stephen Murray tweeted this article again today.

As U.S. Bishops (Some of Them) Pray Together, Twitter Comments: "Through It All, and Still Today, the Bishops Have Attempted to Deflect Blame for the Crisis Onto Others"

Demonstrators lined up outside a Catholic bishops' retreat in suburban Mundelein to protest church officials’ handling of sexual abuse allegations. https://t.co/SlIFES370u pic.twitter.com/Qvzz4sRlw8

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) January 6, 2019

Twitter keeps talking about the pray-and-repent retreat of the U.S. Catholic bishops this past week, and I keep finding tweets I think are worth sharing with you. In the thread below, I've repeated one I've already shared from Michael J. O'Loughlin, in tandem with ones from Michael Bayer and Legionary of Christ priest Father Matthew to illustrate a point one constantly encounters in discussions of Catholic matters online: where does the truth lie? When one person's set of facts appears flatly to contradict another person's set of facts — and those peddling false information almost never apologize for doing so and retract their, em, well, perhaps it's uncharitable to call them lies, but….

Tweets About the Bishops' Retreat: "Secrecy, Hypocrisy, and an Arrogant Refusal to Be Held Accountable"

Things are likely to be tense when the US Catholic bishops meet at their closed-door retreat near Chicago this week. The credibility of the president of the U.S. bishops' was just called into question with the leak of a Vatican letter. https://t.co/myU3QVCBx1

— Laurie Goodstein (@lauriegnyt) January 2, 2019

Here's a selection of tweets commenting on the U.S. Catholic bishops' retreat in Chicago — with one or two comments focusing on the state of the U.S. Catholic church in general:

U.S. Catholic Bishops Meet for Prayer-and-Repentance Confab: Some Valuable Responses

DiNardo, who is credibly accused of declining to report abuse in his own diocese, is currently US Bishops president. @pontifex’s entire effort means nothing unless every prelate who enabled a priest to assault a child is removed. #TheFishRotsFromTheHeadhttps://t.co/TTe5q5JgDL

— Indie Theology (@IndieTheology) January 4, 2019

As the American Catholic bishops meet in Chicago for their prayer-and-repentance confab, here are some responses/commentary I have read in the last day or so that catch my eye, and which I want to pass on to you:

Garry Wills on How Celibacy Is Not the Cause of the Sex-Abuse Crisis — The Priesthood Is: "The Priesthood Is Itself an Affront to the Gospel"

Responding to a prediction by Father Tom Reese that the Catholic church will begin relaxing its celibacy requirement for priests this year,  I wrote, 

Father Tom Reese's Prediction for 2019: Catholic Church Will Loosen Celibacy Requirement for Priests — My Response

The series that Religion News Service is now running with predictions of what will happen in the world of religion in 2019 from various religion gurus in the U.S. has a statement by Father Tom Reese entitled "Catholics will loosen up on clerical celibacy — but for real thi …" Father Reese notes the growing shortage of priests in Catholic communities around the world (a problem that has been with the Catholic church for quite some time now), and predicts that there will be a loosening of the requirement that priests vow themselves to celibacy as a way of addressing this crisis.

End of Year Takes & Hot New Year Takes on Religion in American Politics & Culture: Evangelicals White & Black, Exvangelicals, & King Cyrus in the White House

Lisa Sharon Harper via Eliza Griswold, "Evangelicals of Color Fight Back Against the Religious Right""

They're more white than Christian.