Recent Religion + Politics Commentary: "Pro-Life" Movement, Christian Nationalism, Southern Baptists and United Methodists, Leonard Leo and New USCCB President

Here are some valuable articles I've read in the past week or two about religion and politics and their intersection:

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

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.

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.

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. 

A Week Out from Irish Marriage Equality Referendum, NOM's Behind-the-Scenes Work to Assure a No Vote Receives Increasing Scrutiny

In his weekly recap this week of global LGBT-and-religion news at Religion Dispatches, Peter Montgomery points to a BuzzFeed article by Lester Feder in which Feder says that marriage equality advocates in Ireland are increasingly nervous about high polling numbers (78%) indicating that the Irish people will vote to alter the Irish constitution to permit same-sex marriage. Feder notes that polls also suggested that proposition 8 in California, which yanked away gay citizens' right to civil marriage, would be defeated, but on election day, the polls were proven wrong.

Frank Cocozzelli on Opus Dei Ties of Supreme Catholic Men: "I Am Concerned about the Strong Influence of an Ultra-Traditionalist Catholic Mindset on the U.S. Supreme Court"

In light of the recent Hobby Lobby ruling of the five Supreme Catholic men, Talk to Action has chosen to republish an outstanding series of articles Frank Cocozzelli posted at that site in 2007, about the close ties of most of these five Supreme Catholic men to the ultra-secretive, wealthy, and very influential right-wing Catholic movement Opus Dei. Here are some excerpts from each of the three articles in the series:

New "Secret, Shadowy Version of NOM" Formed: Continuing Thick Ties of National Organization for Marriage to Secret, Shadowy, Rich and Powerful Catholic Group Opus Dei

Interesting news about the National Organization for Marriage, which is staging the "March for (Some People's) Marriage" in Washington, DC, today: Jeremy Hooper of the Good as You blog site has obtained a copy of an invitation to a meeting of what Hooper calls "some sort of secret, shadowy version of NOM (Super NOM?)" called the Princeton Group hosted on June 13 by NOM dignitaries. These include NOM president Brian Brown, co-founder Maggie Gallagher, board chair emeritus Robert George, founding board member Luis Tellez and, oh — surprise! — none other than the archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, whose determination to attend NOM's "March for (Some People's) Marriage" today has proven so controversial.

Cardinal Dolan's Recent Paean to Free-Market Capitalism Ghost-Authored by Former Reagan Administration Official Larry Kudlow

At Religion Dispatches, Patricia Miller writes, 

Colleen Baker on Opus Dei's Spin-Doctoring of John Paul II's Record, Father Tom Doyle on What John Paul Knew When

At her Enlightened Catholicism site, Colleen Baker points out that the Vatican spin doctors who are now trying to spin Pope John Paul II's abysmal record vis-a-vis the abuse crisis prior to his canonization (I wrote about this yesterday) are Opus Dei folks: they belong to the powerful, exceptionally wealthy, secretive right-wing Catholic organization that has had increasing influence on the governance of the Catholic church from the papacy of John Paul II forward. Here's Colleen on this:

Frank Cocozzelli on Continuing Spectacle of Convicted Criminal Bishop Robert Finn: "He Has Become the Symbol of Ongoing Institutional Intransigence"

Frank Cocozzelli on the continuing spectacle of convicted criminal Bishop Robert Finn, who refuses to relinquish his bishop's seat in Kansas City despite calls of Catholics in many places, including his own diocese, for him to do the right thing and step down after his conviction on charges of endangering children by protecting a pedophile priest:

John Corvino, What's Wrong with Homosexuality?: "Man on Man, Man on Dog, or Whatever the Case May Be"

I was reminded of John Corvino's book What's Wrong with Homosexuality? (NY: Oxford UP, 2013) as I read Erik Eckholm's report this past weekend in the New York Times about the ongoing efforts of the religious right to depict tolerance of gay folks as the first step onto a slippery slope that will lead God knows where. Corvino takes the cue for his chapter discussing this slippery-slope argument from Rick Santorum's infamous statements to an AP reporter in 2003 that tolerance for homosexual people will lead everywhere--everywhere bad--in any society that extends such tolerance to gays. Corvino entitles the chapter "Man on Man, Man on Dog, or Whatever the Case May Be."

End-of-Week News Roundup: Archbishop John Myers Back in News, Now for Bling-Bling Retirement House

Archbishop John Myers

As this work week ends, an offering of observations from news of the week that will, I hope, inspire you to read the whole article from which the amuse-gueule is taken: these are all about the absolutely stunning decision of Newark, New Jersey, Archbishop John Myers to expand his 4,500-square-foot retirement house by adding to it a 3,000-square-foot addition (with the $500,000 renovation bill being footed by the archdiocese's lay Catholics):