Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: Contraception? Open to Discussion! Homosexuality? Closed Discussion! Gays Are Welcome to Confess Their Sins

Here's an interesting set of comments at Catholic blog sites recently, for your edification:

The Danger of the Single Story (with Implications for American Catholic Experience)

Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses "the danger of the single story":

Quote for Day: The Clear, Publicly Stated Goal of Christian Right's "Religious Freedom" Crusade — Taking Control of Senate

Frederick Clarkson on the clear and publicly stated goal of the Christian right's "Values Voter" Summit with its claim (which I discussed yesterday) that "religious freedom" is under attack in the U.S. right now:

Gay Music Director of Parish Who Marries? Scandal; Priests Who Engage in Sexual Improprieties Sitting on Marriage Tribunals? Not So Much

How's this for news? A headline in yesterday's Star Tribune (Minneapolis) reads, "Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis Assigns Accused Priests to Marriage Annulment Panel." Jean Hopfensperger reports that the marriage tribunal for the archdiocese, which makes rulings on the fate of the troubled marriages of Catholics who turn to the tribunal for annulments, has had sitting on its judgment bench priests known to have engaged in sexual improprieties.

More Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "This 'Religious Liberty' Fiction of the Hierarchs Is a Thinly Veiled Political Gambit"

And, in contrast to the previous posting, this is one of the good birdcage droppings — the non-stinky ones: at the Commonweal blog, Paul Moses notes that the U.S. Catholic bishops have a "long way to go" to convince Catholics to get on board their "religious liberty" train. As Moses notes, a new poll done by the Public Religion Research Institute shows that a majority of U.S. Catholics (51%) do not share the bishops' perception that religious freedom is under attack in the United States today.

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "Shocker — LGBT Is Incompatible with Being Catholic"

This is one of the stinky sort: someone calling himself 3DeadInChi-cah-goh logs into the National Catholic Reporter thread discussing Bob Shine's article about the plethora of firings of LGBT employees in Catholic institutions of late to say sarcastically: 

End-of-Week Commentary on Growing Gap Between Super-Rich Elite and Everyone Else: Erosion of Democratic Values, Democratic Societies

More end-of-week tidbits: I'll leave it to you to spot the common theme of this batch.