Money Talks: More Critical Commentary on the Recent Testimony of Cardinal Pell in Australia

As a footnote to what I just wrote about the patent Catholic connection to yesterday's Supreme Court McCutcheon ruling, which is the kind of ruling one has to expect powerful white Catholic men who are both well-connected to the 1% and well-connected to the Catholic hierarchy to hand down, when the Catholic hierarchy itself is increasingly indistinguishable from the 1%:

The Supremes' McCutcheon Decision: Surprise! White Men Who Own Things Count Most of All!

What was I saying just the other day about how money talks? Especially for the U.S. Supremes, a majority of whom are themselves (white) men who own things? 

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: Mother Jones Article about Hobby Lobby Not Gotcha Journalism — It's Just Journalism

At Commonweal, Grant Gallicho responds to Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's claim that the Mother Jones article about Hobby Lobby's retirement plan (with its heavy investments in companies producing contraceptives and abortifacients) is "gotcha journalism"--I blogged about this discussion earlier today:

Quote of Day: Vatican Punishes Gender Equality More Swiftly Than Sexual Abuse

Patricia Miller on the alacrity with which the Vatican moves to punish priests supporting gender equality, as contrasted with the snail's pace at which it moves to deal with pedophile priests:

Wrinkle in Hobby Lobby Case: Company's Retirement Plan Heavily Invested in Manufacture of Contraceptive Pills, IUDs, and Abortifacients

With the case Sibelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, the Green family who own the Hobby Lobby chain have brought to the highest court in the United States a claim that their tender consciences are violated when they are required by the government in any way to cooperate with activities they regard as evil. Specifically, they object to being required to provide contraceptive coverage to female employees in their healthcare plan under the Affordable Care Act. They also insist, contra scientific evidence, that the emergency contraceptives they will be indirectly providing to employees under the ACA are abortifacients.

A Review of David I. Kertzer's The Pope and Mussolini by Father Emmett Coyne

I'm pleased to share with readers the following review of David I. Kertzer's book The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe (NY: Penguin, 2014) by Father Emmett Coyne. Emmett is a retired priest of the diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire. His review of Kertzer's book follows:

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: They Have Plenty to Say about Their Purity But Little to Say That's Good News for Gays

Ryan, writing in response to my posting yesterday about Brother Dominic Mary Verner's musings about why the gays don't always feel the love when Christians hold forth about us, and about the astonishing (and love-challenged) recent remarks Brother Dominic Mary's fellow Dominican Sister Jane Dominic Laurel made about us in Charlotte recently: