If I Were a Young Person Seeking a Church Home for Myself, Why Would I EVER Want to Consider a Church in Which….

If I were a young person seeking a church home for myself, why would I EVER want to consider a church in which

Joanna Moorhead in The Guardian on Pope's Letter re: Sexual Crimes of Clergy and Cover-up by Church Officials — "[H]ow Dare You Ask Ordinary Catholics Like Me to Atone?"

Joanna Moorhead for The Guardian on papal letter about clerical abuse crimes and their cover-up by church officials:

Revisiting Cahill and Wilkinson's Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church As Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report Is Released

Dallas Morning News, June 2002

This is a posting from this blog dated 20 October 2017 that I'd like to re-post this morning, as we wait for the Pennsylvania grand jury report to be made public. When Cahill and Wilkinson's Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church was published last year, it was widely applauded as the most comprehensive report ever published on this subject. In recommending the Cahill-Wilkinson study  with that assessment, the noted authority on the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic church Kieran Tapsell also stated that this study is of paramount importance because of the attention it directs to the systemic causes of the abuse crisis in the Catholic church.

Cahill and Wilkinson's Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: "Most Comprehensive Report Ever Published on the Systemic Reasons Behind Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church"

Several days ago, when I blogged about Desmond Cahill and Peter Wilkinson's study Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: An Interpretive Review of the Literature and Public Inquiry Reports, I told you I planned to say a bit more about this ground-breaking study after I had read it thoroughly. My previous posting looked at one of the systemic roots of the abuse crisis in the Catholic church: how the encyclical Humanae Vitae has undermined the credibility of any official Catholic teaching about human sexuality by ignoring the wisdom of lay Catholics as it seeks to impose, from the top down and with no consultation of lay Catholic experience, a ban on contraception widely rejected by the laity. 

Cahill and Wilkinson's Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church on How Humanae Vitae Undermines Sexual Ethic of Catholic Church

As a complement to what I just posted about how the U.S. Catholic bishops and Republican party brought right-wing white evangelicals on board the anti-contraception and anti-abortion bandwagon, I'd like to share a posting I made yesterday to my Facebook friends. I'm now reading the recent ground-breaking, exhaustive study of child sexual abuse in the Catholic church entitled Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: An Interpretive Review of the Literature and Public Inquiry Reports by Desmond Cahill and Peter Wilkinson's of Melbourne University's Centre for Global Research. (Thanks to Sarasi1 for inviting me to do that). When I've finished reading it, I'll have more to say about it, but for now, here's something that leaps out at me as I read:

How Right-Wing White Evangelicals Fixated on Birth Control and Abortion: Answers from Tara Isabella Burton, Fred Clark, and David Gushee

Mike Pence protests NFL protest, but stays silent on white supremacist rally https://t.co/Vee4E9rGnr pic.twitter.com/vPmWuIFNZQ

— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) October 9, 2017

At Vox this past weekend, Tara Isabella Burton asks how birth control became a part of the conservative evangelical agenda, when even the most conservative evangelical churches never had a peep to say about this matter until fairly recently. She writes:

Faith Defined as Dogma Is Weaponized Faith: A Theological Footnote to Father Jenkins' Response to Senator Feinstein re: Catholic Dogma

I'd like to add a theological footnote to what I posted yesterday reflecting on the recent claim of Notre Dame University president Father John Jenkins that "'dogma lives loudly' . . . is a condition we call faith." As I noted, Father Jenkins makes this assertion in an open letter to Senator Diane Feinstein criticizing her statement to Notre Dame law professor Amy Coney Barrett, who is being vetted for a federal judge's position, that "dogma lives loudly" in Barrett and might impede her ability to uphold the law when the law conflicts with her dogmatic religious positions.

Notre Dame President Father Jenkins Responds to Senator Feinstein: "'Dogma Lives Loudly' . . . Is a Condition We Call Faith" (But No, It's Not)

At a hearing last week, Senator Diane Feinstein grilled federal judge nominee (and Notre Dame University law professor) Amy Coney Barrett about a paper she co-authored in 1998 with John Garvey, who is now president of Catholic University of America. Senator Feinstein suggested that the position Barrett took in her 1998 paper is tantamount to proposing that, for someone sitting on a court bench, religious faith should trump law when the two appear to be in conflict. 

Archbishop Charles Chaput Attacks Joe Biden and Tim Kaine, Shills for GOP with Call for "Silent Apostates" to Leave Catholic Church

David Gibson writes, 

Question "What Is Church For?" Emerges Again with Polling Data About Who Supports Trump and Who Thinks Anti-Gay Discrimination Should Be Allowed If Business Owners Cite Religion

Johann Baptist Metz,  "Communicating a Dangerous Memory"

For your consideration:

Wijngaards Declaration: Catholic Scholars Respond to Humanae Vitae on Use of Contraception — Implications for Gay Catholics

As the fiftieth anniversary of the Catholic encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reiterated the Catholic magisterium's ban on the use of artificial contraception, approaches, Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research has released a statement of a group of Catholic theologians calling on the pastoral leaders of the Catholic church to reassess this teaching, which has not been received* by lay Catholics. Regarding the natural law argument that Humanae Vitae makes as its primary reason for ruling that the use of artificial contraceptives is gravely wrong, the statement notes:

Commentary on U.S. Catholic Bishops and "Religious Liberty" Crusade As "Fortnight for Freedom" Begins: "Fair to Say Religious Liberty Has a Damaged 'Brand' These Days"

This week, the U.S. Catholic bishops began their latest "Fortnight for Freedom" shindig, whose purpose is to drive Catholic voters to the polls to vote Republican (as they claim) to defend a "religious liberty" now under siege because gay people have the legal right to marry civilly, because the Obama administration is mandating contraceptive coverage in its Affordable Care Act, because denying rights, goods, and services to targeted others while claiming that one has a religious warrant to discriminate is increasingly distasteful to more and more Americans, etc. 

Supremes Hand Zubik v. Burwell Mess Back to Little Sisters of the Poor, U.S. Catholic Bishops, and Obama Administration: Good Commentary

Andrew Glass, "Supreme Court Upholds Segregation, May 18, 1896, " Politico

As the Supremes hand the Zubik v. Burwell mess back to the Little Sisters of the Poor, the U.S. Catholic bishops, and the Obama administration — despite seven of eight lower court rulings which have found that the spurious "religious freedom" complaint of the bishops hiding behind the habits of the sisters are entirely confected, here's some commentary I've found worth reading:

Want to Know Why "Pro-Life" Democrats Are Vanishing Breed? Go See "Spotlight," Fred Clark Advises: On the Catholic Bishops, the Culture Wars, and Mr. Trump

Want to know why the "pro-life" Democrats have vanished, Fred Clark asks? And then he recommends: "Go see 'Spotlight.' " Fred writes,

Not Voting When the Supreme Court Hangs in the Balance? Not Morally Defensible — A Response to Anderson Cooper and Others Who Choose Not to Vote

Powerful image of Susan B. Anthony's gravestone from today's NY primary pic.twitter.com/SnS8MtQ97X

— Adam Blickstein (@AdamBlickstein) April 20, 2016

Out gay journalist Anderson Cooper stated yesterday that  he does not vote, and that journalists should not vote because taking sides compromises their integrity.

Three More Takes on Amoris Laetitia: Danger of Continuing "Toxic Patterns of Dissemblance at Every Level of Church Life" As Poison Enters the Church's Bloodstream

Peter Steinfels at Commonweal: 

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "When Cardinals Say That Church Teaching Can Only Be Further Developed but Not Changed They Are Playing a Power Game"

I'm glad to see this insightful comment by reader rdp46 featured today at National Catholic Reporter as the top comment in response to NCR's initial set of comments about Amoris Laetitia. I think it's at the top of the queue of comments because it has move like votes than any other comment in the thread.

Again with the Claim that Critics of Catholic Bishops' "Religious Freedom" Crusade Use Scare Quotes to Attack Religious Freedom: Michael Sean Winters' Continued Misrepresentation of Discussion of Bishops' Betrayal of Religious Freedom

As I've noted previously, National Catholic Reporter's Michael Sean Winters just doesn't get it when it comes to understanding why many of us commenting on the "religious freedom" crusade of the U.S. Catholic bishops and of their right-wing white evangelical allies place the phrase "religious freedom" or "religious liberty" in quotation marks as we issue our comments. Again yesterday, Winters repeated what he's said about this before: he maintains that people are using quotation marks in such commentary because they want to put the notion of religious freedom itself into "scare quotes."

Supremes Hear Zubik All-or-Nothing "Religious Liberty" Arguments: Commentary Worth Noting

The Supreme Court hears arguments this morning in the case of Zubik v. Burwell.  At issue in this case: a number of religious groups including the Little Sisters of the Poor of Denver (i.e., where the current archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, used to hang out) want to maintain that the accomodation provided by the Obama administration to employers objecting to the Affordable Care Act's requirement that employers include contraceptive coverage in employee healthcare plans burdens their religious freedom. The Little Sisters and others are arguing that even writing a letter stating that they object on grounds of conscience to providing contraceptive coverage to employees, and thereby allowing another entity to provide the coverage, infringes on their religious freedom.

A Footnote to Previous Posting: Trump's Appeal to White Catholic Voters Demonstrates Colossal Pastoral and Intellectual Failure of U.S. Catholic "Leaders"

To put the point of my previous posting very succinctly: the people who profess to "lead" the U.S. Catholic church — its bishops and its lay leaders in the media and academy — have, to a great extent, not been leaders at all in the past several decades. If they had exercised any pastoral and intellectual leadership in the U.S. church, we wouldn't be confronting what's so unimaginable to these leaders, namely, wide white Catholic support for an out and out racist and xenophobe.