Crux on Cardinal McCarrick's "Sexually Deviant Behavior": U.S. Catholic Church Continues to Be Unsafe for LGBTQ People

I went to bed last night more than a little troubled by something Crux reporter Christopher White states in his report on a presentation John Carr has just given at Georgetown's Initiative for Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. The presentation is entitled "Confronting a Moral Catastrophe: Lay Leadership, Catholic Social Teaching, and the Sexual Abuse Crisis." In his lecture, Carr, who was previously Director of the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Department on Justice, Peace and Human Development, and who has been a friend of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, revealed that he had been sexually abused by priests as a minor seminarian. John Carr is a married Catholic layman with children.

Once Again: Catholic Journalists Pushing Back Vs. Viganò's False Claims Are Not Pushing Back Vs. His Homophobia — See Austen Ivereigh's Recent Tweet re: Mary Hunt

In my last posting, I shared a Twitter conversation I had several days ago with Catholic Democrats. It was about his claim that there had been "tremendous push back" against the ugly homophobia now surfacing all through Catholic conversation circles following the McCarrick revelations and Viganò's accusations about a "homosexual network" in the church that is responsible for the abuse crisis. 

With Knights of Columbus Funding and Strong Connections to Well-Heeled Right-Wing Catholic Elite Groups, Crux Promises No Good New for LGBTQ Catholics

Last week, I commented on a recent statement by Kaya Oakes at Religion Dispatches raising critical questions about the choice of John Allen to fund his Catholic news journal Crux with Knights of Columbus funds, now that Boston Globe has announced it will no longer fund Crux. As I noted, Kaya Oakes points out that the Knights of Columbus have established quite a reputation for themselves by sending over a million dollars to California to help snatch the right of marriage from gay citizens of that state with proposition 8, and by making million-dollar-plus contributions to campaigns in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington to combat gay rights. 

Taking A Close Look at the "Church Teaching" That Vatican Media Apologists Claim U.N. Attacks: There's Their World, and Then There's the Real World

For Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), David Clohessy responds to Austen Ivereigh's claim that the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child "ambushed" the Vatican with its recent report: 

Times Editorial on U.N. and Vatican, Plus Vatican Apologists Begin Their Spin: Ten Critical Questions

An editorial in todays' New York Times responds to the U.N. report on the Vatican’s handling of the abuse crisis in the Catholic church. As the editorial notes, 

Catholic v. Catholic: Marriage Equality Debate (and Battles) Continue

And on the more ignorance, less bliss front (I'm piggybacking here on what I just posted about Krugman's latest): readers will be shocked to learn (not!) that His Holiness has once again attacked same-sex marriage--in this case, yesterday in remarks he made in an address to Catholic bishops from Minnesota and the Dakotas.  He specifically addressed the situation in the U.S., where momentum for the recognition of civil marriage for same-sex couples continues to grow.

Update on Catholic Voices Discussion of Gay Marriage: Gays Not Welcome

And speaking of the common good (piggybacking here on what I just posted about Michael Sean Winters's USCCB report for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good): I said yesterday that the story of blogger Terry Weldon's exclusion from an upcoming meeting of the British group Catholic Voices bears watching.  Catholic Voices was formed to coordinate media coverage of the papal visit to Britain in September 2010.  Its organizing members include Jack Valero, press officer for Opus Dei in the U.K., and Austen Ivereigh and Kathleen Griffin, Catholic journalists.

Terry Weldon on Catholic Voices Group and "the" Catholic Position on Marriage Equality

As I write about the U.S. Catholic bishops' crusade to protect "religious freedom" (I'm referring to what I've just posted as I make this statement), I'd like to draw readers' attention to a valuable statement about this topic at Terry Weldon's Queering the Church blog.  Terry's perspective is important, because it's the perspective of a Catholic actively involved in the movement to defend LGBT rights in a cultural context other than the American context.  Terry lives in and blogs from England, and so he brings a valuable outsiders' perspective (and one of a Catholic actively involved in the struggle for gay rights) to the American discussion.

Austen Ivereigh on Dismantling of Welfare State as Cause of London Riots: "Hard to Know"

It's interesting to read Austen Ivereigh's latest at the America blog--this posting is on the London riots--in tandem with the piece he wrote back in April about the dismantling of the welfare state and the Catholic church's interface with that process of dismantling.  In April, Ivereigh was reporting on a conference of "Catholic bishops, charity directors, politicians, Lords, academics and thinkers" gathered to consider what's being called the "Big Society" idea in Britain--and the Catholic church's response to that idea.

Mary Hunt on Royal Wedding: Theologically, "Stabilizing for the Status Quo"

As with everything she writes, Mary Hunt's recent commentary at Religion Dispatches on the royal wedding is well worth reading.  Hunt's take: in key respects, the symbolism woven into the recent wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton was "stabilizing for the status quo," in a theological sense.  And more's the pity.

From One Royal Wedding to Another: Kate and Wills Marry, and I Remember Charles and Diana

When I wrote yesterday about Austen Ivereigh's anti-gay heterosexist take on the Kate and Wills show, I said in a comment to TheraP that I had not intended to mention the royal wedding at all on this blog.  I chose to do so only after having read Ivereigh's comments, which, in my view, deserve attention as one in a series of male-entitled heterosexist blasts he has made against his gay brothers and sisters in recent years at America and elsewhere.  Blasts that baffle me, since I wonder what causes him to invest so much energy in issuing persistent reminders to his gay brothers and sisters that they do not count and must not expect to be included in his Catholic church.

Austen Ivereigh on the Royal Wedding: Not the Gays' Show

To all you gay folks who imagine the royal wedding (or marriage in any shape, form, or fashion) might have something to do with you, English Catholic blogger and America contributor Austen Ivereigh is here to set you straight.  Ivereigh posts today about how the Kate and Wills show is "a winning combination of elements which film-makers strive after: on the one hand, what is totally 'other.' -- a dreamy, fairy-tale setting: the marriage of a prince, the making of a princess -- with what, on the other, is universal and human: boy meets girl; they fall in love; they marry."

U.S. Catholic Bishops' Response to DOMA Decision: Continued Demands for the "Right" to Discriminate

Yesterday, I noted that the immediate response of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to the Obama administration's announcement that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and the administration cannot defend DOMA was this: the bishops argued that their religious freedom is curtailed by this decision.  Though the USCCB statement (which was made by the USCCB general counsel Anthony R. Picarello, Jr.) professes to decry discrimination, it precisely and explicitly rejects the definition of gay citizens as a group of citizens subject to systemic and unjust discrimination, who are therefore covered by the equal protection clause of the U.S. constitution.  

Francis X. Rocca on Berlusconi as Embarrassment: Catholic Heteronormativity Creating More Cognitive Dissonance

Yesterday, as I commented on Austen Ivereigh's recent call for the Catholic bishops of the United Kingdom to stand up against equality laws affecting gay and lesbian lives, I wrote,

Austen Ivereigh on Change in Marriage Laws in UK: "Stand Up Against Equality"

As I wrote about Ronni Sanlo's recent report noting that Jesuit-owned Marquette university is characterized by a climate of fear and harassment when it comes to LGBT persons, I noted that some members of the campus community whom Sanlo interviewed are disturbed by the discrepancy between what Jesuit institutions proclaim about social justice, and what they actually practice in the case of those who are gay.  I wrote:

Benedict on Religous Freedom: Can the Church Claim Rights for Itself While Denying Rights to LGBT Persons?

Simon Barrow's recent essay "Reform, Persecution and Future Church" at the Ekklesia website provides a brilliant response to Pope Benedict's growing insistence that religious freedom is a foundational human right, the foundation for all other human rights and freedoms.  Benedict developed this theme in his new year's statement for World Peace Day.

Kevin McKenna on the Defensive Posture of Shrill Catholic Evangelicals and Pious Ecclesiastics: The Scottish Case

I wrote recently about how misplaced, on the whole, the defensive posture being encouraged in the Catholic church today from on high appears to be.  In the posting to which I've just linked, I was referring to Austen Ivereigh's view of things, from a British perspective.

The Defenders of the Church and the Apologetic Challenge of Catholicism Today

And, building on what I have just posted: it strikes me that Austen Ivereigh at America continues to get it all wrong, when he writes today* about the need of loyal Catholics to defend the church.  What the church needs is not to be defended, but to recognize the extremely serious apologetic situation its own shortcomings have created for it at this point in history, and to begin the path of addressing those shortcomings honestly and with humility.  Its loyal defenders are doing a disservice to the Catholic church, when they deal with any question or challenge that comes along with a clenched fist, as though being a good Catholic is akin to hopping into a rugby scrimmage and pummeling one's opponent into submission.

Kings, and Queens, and Awe-Filled Restorationist Catholicism: We're Baaack!

The headlines alone are almost worth the rollercoaster ride.  I'm talking about the rollercoaster ride of yet another top-dollar, resplendent-theater,* papal visit, with hundreds of thousands of papal cheerleaders rooting for God against the dirty, filthy secularists and their rag-tag band of gay supporters, survivors of clerical sexual abuse, women with countless reasons to find the Catholic church repulsive.  To show the world, you know, that Catholicism is not only alive and well: it's kicking some major butt in some major theatrical shows these days, just when its enemies are prematurely writing its obituary.

*On theatrical Catholicism, see Colleen Baker's latest incisive posting at Enlightened Catholicism.

Saving the Male-Female Binary Model: Mating Is Fundamental Reason for Marriage

Meanwhile (and as a counterpoint to what I just posted about how much Catholics have to learn from Christians of some other faith traditions about what it means to be authentically catholic), look who's funding the National Organization of Marriage, with its vociferous broadside attacks on the humanity of gay and lesbian citizens of the U.S.: