Commentary on Respect for Marriage Act and How Religious Groups — Notably, U.S. Catholic Bishops — Are Dealing with This Issue

PRRI, "Support for Nondiscrimination Protections for LGBTQ People, by Religious Affiliation, 2015-2021"

An offering of interrelated articles commenting on the Senate vote to advance the Respect for Marriage Act and how religious groups — notably, the U.S. Catholic bishops — are dealing with this issue:

German Catholic Bishops on Dismal Failure of Predecessors in Nazi Period; Anne Barrett Doyle on Anniversary of Vos Estis Lux Mundi

Writing in The Tablet yesterday, Christa Pongratz-Lippit reports on an in-depth study the German Catholic bishops recently commissioned in preparation for the 75th anniversary of World War II. The study, which is entitled in English "German Bishops During World War II," focuses on the role of the German bishops during the Nazi period. I'm highlighting this article as a footnote to my recent discussion of Susan Neiman's book Learning from the Germans.

German Catholic Bishops on Abuse: Church Is at "Point of No Return" and Has Been Exposed as "Perpetrator Organization" — What Now?

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt, "Bishops must open archives to 'independent experts'":

Charles Marsh, Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, on the Sordid History of German Church's Response to Hitler: We Forget at Our Peril

I've just finished reading Charles Marsh's Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (NY: Knopf, 2014), and would like to share some passages with you. These all have to do with the ease with which the Lutheran church in Germany capitulated to Hitler and his propagandists' claim that he was reviving a manly-man Christianity that would rehabilitate Germany's tarnished reputation. Marsh focuses on the Evangelical (i.e., Lutheran) (and Confessing) church and not the Catholic church because Bonhoeffer was situated within the Lutheran world. 

Why Was "This Mixture of Arrogance and Hankering for Advantage Breaking Out in Germany, of All Places?": The Testimony of Joachim Fest's Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood As Donald Trump Rises to Power

In his memoir entitled Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood (NY: Other Press, 2012) (trans. Martin Chalmers), Joachim Fest talks about how his family in Berlin chose to resist Hitler and the Nazi regime, while all around them, people acclaimed Hitler and regarded him as a savior figure who would make their nation great again. Among other dissenters with whom they talked as Hitler rose to power — always with great caution — the burning question was how this could happen in Germany, a nation devoted to law and order. 

Irish Vote for LGBT Equality Continues Rippling Out to Other Nations: Chris Morley's Update

Chris Morley left two wonderful reports (and here) in the comments section of this blog today, about the ripple effect (already) of the Irish vote last weekend. To make sure that more readers have a chance to see these reports, I'm lifting them from the combox and posting them as a posting as this work day ends: Chris writes,

After Ireland, Heat On in Many Other Countries to Respect LGBT Equality: Australia, Italy, Germany, Etc.

As I've noted in a number of postings in the past few days, a theme now emerging following the remarkable Irish vote for LGBT human rights has been the example the little island of Ireland now sets for many other places in the world. There's a venerable trope of talk about Ireland as the surprising little place that makes a huge and unanticipated splash in the rest of the world — as when Irish missionaries, monks who had preserved Greek and Roman texts destroyed in the rest of Europe, tramped across Europe in the early Middle Ages to Christianize many places in the continent, a story explored by Thomas Cahill in his popular book How the Irish Saved Civilization. Much of the commentary about the possible effects of the Irish vote on other countries implicitly builds on that trope.