Opening to "Dialogue" in U.S. Catholicism and the Fracas Involving Father James Martin and Austin Ruse: My Take

I see mention online of some kind of fracas involving Father James Martin and Austin Ruse — or perhaps "fracas" is not the right word. What seems to have happened is that Ruse attacked Martin in an exceptionally ugly way on social media. That's not surprising: Austin Ruse is an exceptionally ugly man representing an exceptionally ugly iteration of Catholicism that has considerable sway within the U.S. Catholic church.

Who Really Set Up Papal Meeting with Kim Davis? Enlightening Comments at Catholic Blog Site

Yesterday at the National Catholic Reporter site, Tom Gallagher posted an article focusing on something about which I spoke briefly in a posting here on the same day: namely, that in the wake of the Kim Davis-Pope Francis debacle, the mainstream media are finally saying out loud what many of us have known and been saying for some time now — that the outfit giving legal advice to Ms. Davis, Liberty Counsel, is an anti-gay hate group. I find the comments in response to Tom Gallagher's article especially enlightening.

Damon Linker on the Foolish Cruelty of Catholic Conservatives Who Want Gays to Disappear, and the Continued Fence-Sitting of Catholics of the Liberal Center

Conservative commentator Damon Linker gets the foolish cruelty of Catholic conservatives who want gay people to disappear absolutely right in his column in The Week today:

In Catholic News: Austin Ruse's Call for Violence, Censorship of Sister Teresa Forcades (and of Me, Again, by NCR)

As Sister Joan Chittister says in her recent stellar statement now running at the National Catholic Reporter website (to which I pointed yesterday), it behooves none of us to be complacent about legislation (like the recent anti-gay bill in Arizona) targeting a scapegoated minority group, because we ourselves may be the next group to be targeted. Nonetheless, both in response to Sister Joan's article and throughout the Catholic blogosphere, there are, in fact, scads of Catholic voices calling quite precisely for the targeting of this or that segment of the human community--uppity women, gays and lesbians, even university professors.

Catholic Families and Human Rights Institute Simultaneously Defends Putin's Anti-Gay Regime and Attacks U.N. Committee Report on Vatican: Making the Connections

In my posting earlier today about Jeff Sharlet on the lives of gay Russians, I linked to Peter Montgomery's latest Religion Dispatches roundup of weekly global news stories about LGBT rights. There's a detail in Montgomery's article to which I'd like to draw readers' attention:

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "You Admire Some of the Things They're Doing in Russia"

Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute on what's happening to gay folks in Russia right now: