More on Catholic Leaders' Loss of Moral and Pastoral Credibility Due to Handling of Abuse Crisis: Protecting Children, Really?!

Frank Schindler of Baltimore writes the Baltimore Sun, "Bishops show lack of interest in pedophile victims":

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.

Will Newark Archbishop John Myers Be at Papal Events in U.S. Next Month? Yet Another Sordid Tale of Clerical Abuse (and Cover-Up) from Newark Diocese

Archbishop John Myers

A question that comes to my mind as I read Mark Mueller's article at Religion Dispatches Religion News Service* about New Jersey priest Manuel Gallo Espinoza, who is now being sought by New Jersey authorities after he has admitted raping a 15-year-old boy, Max Rojas Ramirez: 

New Ways Ministry on Catholics Responding to Anti-Gay "Religious Freedom" Laws: Bishops Continue Advocating for "Right to Discriminate" Laws

At the New Ways Ministry blog, Bondings 2.0, today, Bob Shine summarizes various Catholic responses to the anti-gay "religious freedom" laws in Indiana and Arkansas:

Easter Monday Collage: "They Wanted to Silence the Voices of Love, but the Words of the Resurrected . . . Hammered Upon Their Minute Brain"

An Easter Monday collage for you: articles I've read and shared this morning with friends on Facebook, all of which seem to me to have Easter pertinence, since, as Julia Esquivel writes in her magnificent Easter poem Threatened with Resurrection, 

Quote for Day: "Letter to Congress from Cardinal O'Malley and Archbishop Lori . . . Seems to Me to Violate the First Amendment"

Religious Freedom Hearings, Feb. 2012, D.C.

About that 26 September letter the USCCB sent to members of Congress, Ken Briggs tells it like it is:

Fred Clarkson on Christian Right's Determination to Renew Itself by Alliance of Catholic Leaders and Evangelical Right: Important Discussion

As one week ends and another begins, I want to take note of a very important new article by Fred Clarkson  at the Political Research Associates' website. It's entitled "Christian Right Seeks Renewal in Deepening Catholic-Protestant Alliance." Fred's thesis is that, far from being moribund, as many political commentators keep suggesting, the religious right is alive and well in American politics, and is now renewing itself via an alliance between the U.S. Catholic bishops and right-wing evangelicals.

End-of-Week Commentary: Catholic Bishops' Fortnight for Freedom, DOMA and Future of the U.S.

At his Spiritual Politics blog, Mark Silk maintains that "[t]he USCCB ought to be embarrassed" about the bizarre sideshow into which the Fortnight for Freedom circuses degenerated under the one-man-show leadership of the bishops' religious freedom point man, Archbishop Lori. Silk notes that Lori has just released a statement on behalf of the USCCB, "Standing Together for Religious Freedom," which contains an odd assortment of signatories from the "right fringe of American Catholicism" as well as from "the usual suspects from the conservative evangelical world." Hardly any names outside those two circles, which continue to be energized to an astonishing extent by animosity towards the Obama administration disguised as piety, are represented on this document.

New Round of USCCB Fortnight for Freedom Bashes Starts on Summer Solstice, Runs to Independence Day: Y'all Be There, You Hear?

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Andrew Sullivan on Bishops' Opposition to Violence Against Women Act: "Looking for Bigger Rocks"

As last week ended, I noted the vocal opposition of a group of key U.S. Catholic bishops to the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act--because that act affords protection to lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women, who are, it appears, worthy of assault in the minds of some pastoral leaders of the Catholic church. How else to construe these bishops' opposition to an act that seems, to many of us as we read the gospels and think about Catholic moral teaching at its best, a no-brainer?

Think Progress Chooses Picture from Religious Freedom Hearings as One of 12 Memorable Photos of 2012

I'm not the only one, it seems, who thinks this picture crystallizes some really important recognitions about the agenda of the religious right in its involvement with the American public square: Think Progress has just chosen the photo as one of the 12 most memorable images of 2012. 

Catholic Bishops Meet: People of God Talk about Dumb Doubling Down, Laughing, and Crying

On her Posner Show, Sarah Posner interviews Anthea Butler about the U.S. Catholic bishops' "takeaway" from the recent U.S. elections.  Do the bishops get what's wrong?  Will they get it?

Midweek News: Maryland Marriage Equality, Mel White, Sr. Simone Campbell and Romney-Ryan

A midweek miscellany of articles commenting on topics we've been discussing here of late--the following religion-and-politics themed:

The Paul Ryan Selection and Spectacular Pastoral Failure of U.S. Catholic Bishops

The New York Times on Romney's selection of Paul Ryan: after weeks of hearing nothing but vague, mendacious, marshmallow blather from Romney about the (non-)specifics of how he would govern, with the Ryan selection "voters will now be able to see with painful clarity just what the Republican Party has in store for them":

John Wojnowski: In Solitary Witness

Abuse survivor and activist John Wojnowski is a remarkable man.  I think I first became aware of him and of the solitary witness he has given for years now as he calls the Catholic hierarchy to accountability, when I read this account of his interaction with the papal nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, at Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish site in 2010.

Catholic Identity Again: More on Joan Chittister and Christiane Amanpour

Benedict and Curia, December 2008

I keep hearing in my head snippets of Joan Chittister's dialogue this week with reporter Christiane Amanpour, to which I linked yesterday.  Amanpour says she needs to "push" Chittister, and then she voices what she hears the Vatican and U.S. bishops saying to American religious women: 

You are a part of the Roman Catholic church. 

You either stay in line or you get out of Dodge. 

It's back to basics. 

Toe the line.

Archbishop Lori Spins Religious Freedom Initiative as Non-Partisan: Reality-Based Catholics not Buying Spin

Archbishop William Lori, head of the GOP organizing committee Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Freedom of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, announced to the Catholic Press Association yesterday that the U.S. bishops are "not trying to throw the election" through their Catholic-GOP machine politics religious freedom campaign.  This two days before the GOP rallies "Stand Up for Religious Freedom" rallies the USCCB is sponsoring around the U.S. tomorrow.

Puppet Masters of Attack on American Nuns Revealed: No Surprises, Continuing Deep Corruption in Catholic Leadership

2007 Knights of Columbus Annual Convention: Supreme Knight Anderson Gives Gaudium et Spes Award to Cardinal Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, with Bishop William Lori, KC Chaplain

I'm quite a ways behind with preparing postings these days (and with reading material about which to blog with any coherence or intelligence).  Still immersed in footnote-checking for my book, and discovering--a disconcerting discovery--that one after another reference cited by other texts I'm using turns out to be wrong, when I head to the original source.  

Lori in the Limelight: What about Those "Large Anonymous Gifts" Used to Fight Disclosure of Sex-Abuse Files?

And speaking of the USCCB religious freedom guru, Bishop William Lori and the increasingly high-profile role he's playing in American politics and the public square (I have been speaking of these matters lately, haven't I?):

Does it strike anyone other than me, I wonder, as . . . more than coincidental . . . that Lori's precipitous rise to power within the structures of the USCCB was preceded by his announcement in 2009 that his Bridgeport diocese had been given "large anonymous gifts" to enable it to fight against opening its files about priests sexually abusing minors to public inspection?

Bishop Lori Responds to America Editorial re: Obama Accommodation: This Is Pro-Life?!

Recently, I wrote that liberal Catholics who immediately signed onto the U.S. Catholic bishops' religious freedom crusade against the Obama administration quickly lost me, when I saw that their underlying rationale for supporting the U.S. bishops in this crusade was, in most cases, a slippery-slope pro-life argument.  I noted that, for many of these liberal Catholics, the issue at stake in the argument with the Obama administration really is abortion.