As Cardinal Pell Is Buried, He's Acclaimed a "Saint for Our Times," While Abuse Survivors and LGBTQ People Protest

As Rod McGuirk reports, as Cardinal Pell's funeral is held today, police have refused to permit LGBTQ-rights protesters outside the Catholic cathedral in Sydney, and have sought a court injunction against them.

Pope Francis on Women Priests and Related Recent News Items: "I do not know whether to laugh or cry at Pope Francis’ suggestion about women’s position in the Church"

Altar of Veit Stoss, descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, St. Mary's Church, Krakow, Poland, photo by Robert Breuer at Wikimedia Commons

As Virginia Saldanha, "Why I find pope’s ideas on women priests disturbing," notes, Pope Francis recently nonsensically (and all over again) said that men in the Catholic church are meant to follow a "Petrine principle" that allows men — but not women — to be ordained, run things, and mirror Christ. Women are called to follow a "Marian principle" and mirror the feminine church, not — heaven forfend! — the male Christ. (Translation: women are called to serve). 

Nation with Soul of a Church on Eve of Historic Election: Weaponized Bibles Brandished with Guns as Nuns Choose to Be Photo Props for Trump

Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone, "God and the GOP: Will evangelicals stay loyal to Trump?" 

Charles Pierce writes, 

Just in case you were concerned that this election wasn't crazy enough, and I know you were, here's the lieutenant governor of Idaho, featured in a demonstration with some militia crazies, waving a Bible and a firearm out the window of her truck.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: "In Reality, Evangelicals Did Not Cast Their Vote [for Trump] Despite Their Beliefs, but Because of Them"

I recently read Kristin Kobes Du Mez's book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (NY: Liveright, 2020), and thought the following passages were significant. Du Mez grew up in the household of a Christian Reformed theologian teaching at Dordt University, her alma mater, and knows the white evangelical world inside out. As her book notes, her own Christian Reformed church has in recent years moved inexorably in the evangelical direction, as have wide swathes of American white churches including the Catholic church — hence Amy Coney Barrett. She knows whereof she speaks, in other words, in Jesus and John Wayne.

Cameron Altaras's "Voice of the Residue": The Intergenerational Trauma of Growing up Female in a Patriarchal Religious Context

In the past, I have shared here some of the valuable work of Cameron Altaras, a scholar working to combat sexual violence based in patriarchal religious traditions. Cameron speaks from the experience of someone who has roots in the Amish-Mennonite tradition. I have shared her work here and here.

Now I'd like to share another statement by Cameron pointing to a new project on which she is working, and to a website she has set up to share material for the project, which is linked below. I hope readers of this blog may be interested in Cameron's work and her new site. Here's her essay:

More on Forgiveness and Clergy Abuse Situation: Kaya Oakes on Need for New Understandings

finally starting to directly reckon with how white evangelicalism taught 'forgiveness:' what it is, who it serves, how it's offered or received.

tl;dr: in many contexts, what white evangelicalism teaches as forgiveness is merely an affirmation of the status quo.

— Blake Chastain (@brchastain) March 3, 2020

A month ago, Ruth Krall offered us a valuable statement about the "sin or crime" dilemma facing religious bodies as they deal with sexual abuse of vulnerable people by religious authority figures. Should a community frame sexual abuse of the vulnerable by pastors, priests, religious authority figures primarily in terms of forgiveness? Or should religious communities begin from the starting point of recognizing that sexual abuse of minors is a crime, as they deal with these issues?

Quote for Day: "Church's Radically Patriarchal Leadership Structure and Theology Are at the Root of Most Sex Abuse Cases in the Church"

Jamie Manson writes, "No, Jean Vanier is not 'like all of us'":

Two Mass Shootings in Texas in One Month: Who Owns Guns in the U.S? (Answer: White Republican Evangelical Men Above All)

Latest mass shooter in Texas from Odessa American

1/ Texas has just had two mass shootings in one month. In both, aggrieved white males who had easy access to guns went on rampages and killed multiple people. In light of this, we need to review — all over again — who owns guns in the U.S., where they're far too easy to access.

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) September 2, 2019

"Ladies, You'll Never Have to Use a Washing Machine Again When You Get to Heaven": I Report on a Funeral Sermon

Maytag Ad 1959

"Ladies, just think! You'll never have to use a washing machine again when you get to heaven."

Then the preacher sidled his head around and gave an impossibly cute look-at-me grin to the "ladies" in the church, which was designed to communicate that he thought he was the niftiest thing since sliced bread, and quite the lady-killer.

"We Must Call the El Paso Shooting What It Is: Trump-Inspired Terrorism" — Commentary on White Supremacist Roots of Recent Mass Shootings

El Paso Shooter:
Not an immigrant.

Parkland Shooter:
Not an immigrant.

Tree Of Life Shooter:
Not an immigrant.

Las Vegas Shooter:
Not an immigrant.

Borderline Bar Shooter:
Not an immigrant.

Sandy Hook Shooter:
Not an immigrant.

Charleston Shooter:
Not an immigrant.

— Michael Skolnik (@MichaelSkolnik) August 4, 2019

Peter Baker and Michael D. Shear, "El Paso Shooting Suspect's Manifesto Echoes Trump's Language":

Ruth Krall, Historical Meandering: Ideologies of Abuse and Exclusion (2)

Vasily Polenov, Le droit du Seigneur (1874), in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow

The essay below is the second part of Ruth Krall's essay entitled "Historical Meandering: Ideologies of Abuse and Exclusion." The first part was published on Bilgrimage several days ago. As the introduction to the essay at the link I have just provided explains, the essay is one of a series of essays Ruth has published on Bilgrimage, under the series title "Recapitulation: Affinity Sexual Violence in a Religious Voice." Links to the previous essays in this series appear at the link I've just given you above. The common theme binding these essays together is the endemic natural of religious and spiritual leader sexual abuse of followers. The current essay explores this theme by arguing that clergy sexual abuse is a global public health issue whose noxious presence can be found inside multiple language groups and national identities. The secong part of Ruth's essay, "Historical Meandering," follows (note that footnotes begin with xiii because this essay is a continuation of the first part published previously):

Southern Baptist and U.S. Catholic Leaders Meet in Same Week, Both Confronting Serious Sexual Abuse Problems: A "Gender Hurricane" Results

It's a gender hurricane out there this week. Come Holy Spirit. https://t.co/ebDdAKIsEc

— Natalia Imperatori (@nimperatori) June 11, 2019

At the same time, the Southern Baptist Convention is holding its annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, and the Catholic bishops are meeting in Baltimore. High on the agenda of both sets of gentlemen: what to do about sexual abuse of minors and other vulnerable church members? What to do about the fact that the public knows and will not now unknow? 

Tara Westover's Educated: "What my father wanted to cast from me wasn't a demon: it was me."

Having finished reading Tara Westover's Educated several weeks ago, I've been thinking about what I'd like to say as a concluding statement about it. I've blogged about Educated previously — here and here — noting that Westover grew up in a survivalist Mormon family in Idaho. Educated recounts the story of her attempt over the course of years to emerge from the prison in which her upbringing put her. It tells us about her father's wild delusions of grandeur, his belief that he was directly guided by God and watched over by angels — and of his danger-courting and relentless attempts to control his daughter with threats of damnation when she sought to move beyond his control.

Miriam Toews' Irma Voth and Tara Westover's Educated: On Patriarchal Religion and Misogynistic Violence

It's by accident — or synchronicity — that I happen to have read Miriam Toews' novel Irma Voth at the same time that I'm reading Tara Westover's Educated. Toews' book explores the lives of several young women and girls in a Mennonite family in Mexico, which previously had roots in Manitoba (and before that in Russia). Westover focuses on her experiences growing up in a survivalist Mormon family in Idaho.

"Everything in This Spreading Crisis Revolves Around Structural Mendacity"; "Poland's Most Senior Nun Has Been Banned from Further Media Contact": Talking Abuse

Poland's most senior nun has been banned from further media contact after condemning the sexual abuse of religious sisters by Catholic priests in her country https://t.co/Jrf8GRhDFi

— Pope news (@Pope_news) February 19, 2019

 

Talking abuse, Catholic context and Southern Baptist context: good things I've been reading and want to share with you:

McCarrick Defrocked, Abuse Summit Convening, and NY Times Lets Gay Priests Speak: My Twitter Commentary

For years, Roman Catholic Church leaders have driven gay congregants away in shame. And yet, thousands of ministers are gay men.

Two dozen gay priests have shared with us the stories of their lives in the Catholic closet. https://t.co/BN0Dy6Zn0i

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 17, 2019

Like the man in the White House, I've been tweeting this morning — but what preoccupies my attention is perhaps quite different from what preoccupies his. Here's a selection of tweets from this morning that, to my way of thinking, tell a certain story when they're read together.

Stephanie Krehbiel on Religious Groups Facing Abuse Revelations: "Godly Men, Be Quiet"

This map shows routes of several Southern #Baptist "travelers;" men who preyed on people in one church role & went on to another church to do it again. Please read part 2 in @HoustonChron @ExpressNews series #Abuse of Faith. https://t.co/QuyuuKRr3N @John_Tedesco @RobDownenChron pic.twitter.com/ZMoTTbYPwL

— Lise Olsen (@chrondigger) February 12, 2019

I have written here in the past about Stephanie Krehbiel's important commentary on abuse in religious communities. If you click her name in the tags below this posting, the string of other posts in which I've featured or mentioned her will pop up. Stephanie is a scholar with a background in American studies and gender and sexuality studies. She's executive director and co-founder of Into Account, a group that provides resources and advocates for survivors of abuse as they seek accountability.

Southern Baptist Abuse Report, Next Installment: "Preying on Teens"

The third installment in the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News investigation of abuse in Southern Baptist churches is out today. It's entitled "Preying on teens: More than 100 Southern Baptist youth pastors convicted or charged in sex crimes." An excerpt:

Southern Baptist Abuse Report, Next Installment: "Offend, Then Repeat"

The next installment in the Houston Chronicle (and San Antonio Express-News) ground-breaking report on abuse within Southern Baptist churches and institutions has just come out. It's entitled "Offend, then repeat":

Houston Chronicle Invites Readers to Share Stories of Abuse in Southern Baptist Churches: My Commentary

Houston Chronicle is not playing, with its exhaustive investigation of abuse within Southern Baptist churches. On a page attached to its exposé report yesterday, the Chronicle invites readers to reply directly via an online form and share their own experiences of abuse in Southern Baptist churches with the Chronicle reporting team: