Catholic Bashing

"Publish and be damned."
-Duke of Wellington, c.1825

Many Americans have long held that the specter of 'theocracy' is a thing to be devoutly avoided and vehemently opposed-myself among them.

Well, I got news for you: if, as noted a few days ago, the first major "all Catholic" 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court is any sort of harbinger, the United States government is now 1/3 a theocracy. This is worthy of mention in a world where (metaphoric) ink gushes in profusion whenever Angelina Jolie sneezes or Dick Cheney lies.

But, over the weekend, a spike in my readership led me to a cluster of websites, all of which, it seems, were sparked by a "Catholic" blog called "First Things."

Among the insulting and politely ad hominem attacks contained therein lay the implicit accusation that my commentary of last Thursday ("Catholics-5; The Rest of Us-Nothing" see the comments, as well) made me an anti-Catholic 'bigot.' Fine: you be the judge. We'll deal with the bigotry further on. But ....

Perhaps the most insulting formulation of all is the one which is not ever spoken, but only exists, by implication, deep within the recent Catholic formulation that abortion is an horrific sin:

That God thinks we are so stupid that we can't be allowed to control our animal passions (while maintaining, at the same time, that we MUST control our animal passions) and that every pregnancy be brought to term.

And that God prefers children to be seen as punishments, rather than blessings.

And yet that's what we have, when, beneath the smooth veneer of sacramental manners, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus writes:

The Supreme Court and Reasonable Hope
By Richard John Neuhaus
Friday, April 20, 2007, 11:04 AM

I'm not convinced that this week's Supreme Court decision on partial-birth abortion is as good as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says it is, but I certainly hope she is right. She says it is alarming; it reflects manifest hostility to the unlimited abortion license imposed by Roe; it supports judicial deference to the legislative branch; it permits moral and ethical considerations to impinge upon law; it treats sympathetically such traditional notions as a mother's love for her child; and it is a first step toward reversing the abortion regime established by Roe. As I say, I hope she is right, but I expect she may be exaggerating somewhat ....

So, by implication, the "Father" is in favor of the following LEGAL program of our government:

• Manifest hostility towards abortion
  
  
• Utter judicial deference to congress (who never formulate unconstitutional laws, evidently)
  
  
• The use of extra-Constitutional 'moral and ethical' judgments to influence, negate and control the law,
  
  
• The enshrinement of "motherhood,"
  
  
• The reversal of Roe v. Wade (an almost trivial addition to the monstrous formulation already outlined)

Gee: since I oppose ALL of those "legal" conceptions, does that make me an anti-Catholic bigot? After all, Joseph Bottums' accusations against me (and against Becky at PreEmptive Karma, among others) is fully embraced by Fr. Neuhaus. ("And I am one with Joseph Bottum on the additional points he made yesterday ...")

Bottums wrote:

A “chill wind is blowing from Rome,” announced one leftist site in a blog post titled “Catholics—5; The Rest of Us—Nothing.” The five Catholic justices on the Supreme Court formed—for the first time since Alito joined the Court—the complete majority on a decision. I think that we’re probably going to have to wait for the new fund-raising letters from NARAL and Planned Parenthood before we see the highest pitch of anti-Catholic rhetoric coming out of the Carhart decision. But for those who can’t wait, you can find the first groundswells here, here, here, here, here, and here.

[Note: the third "here" refers to my friend Becky's posting at "PreEmptive Karma"—a posting, by the by, made in the same HOUR that I posted "Catholics 5" and which now contains 75 comments, nearly ALL of which screech about "bigotry" and "bias," even as they speciously pooh-pooh Becky's point as sheerest fiction.]

Well, aside from rejecting the convenient slur "leftist" as characterizing my work and writings, I hurl the charge of bigotry back in the teeth of the anti-woman, anti-secular and anti-human church, the laughably-entitled "Catholic" church:

Of broad or liberal scope; comprehensive: "The 100-odd pages of formulas and constants are surely the most catholic to be found" (Scientific American). 2. Including or concerning all humankind; universal

-The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000.

We'll pass over the "liberal" portion. Clearly 'catholic' in this case is advertising hype, although it must be recognized that, at over one billion adherents, the Roman church is the largest religious sect in the world-an accomplishment achieved during the tenure of Pope John Paul II. But 'catholic'? Clearly not. A quick drive-by of the more prominent steeples and stupas of your community will put the lie to that claim.

When they lie to you in the title, you have to bring a whole fleet of salt trucks for the rest. This is not to say that I am 'against' Catholicism: but I am against the attempt by the papal office in Rome to meddle in the secular politics of my country.

If that's bigotry, then I'm a bigot.

And this threat is a very real one:

'Catholicism' has become the largest single Christian sect in the USA, claiming a quarter of adherents, and is RISING, due in no small part to the massive influx of immigration from the almost universally Catholic countries of the Americas south of our border. So, this is no small matter.

Then-Cardinal Joey Ratzinger prevailed upon American Catholic clergy to DENY then-presidential candidate (and Catholic) John Kerry communion for his fractured stance on abortion-as a secular officer of a secular Constitution, he was in favor of a woman's "Right to Choose" (an euphemism, itself), but personally against it, as a Catholic.

Coming from the office of the Inquisition (since renamed the kinder, gentler "Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith") this sent a chilling message to the Orthodox. This was nothing new in the papacy of John Paul II. While he was a likable chap, within the mechanism of the Church itself, he was reactionary to the core: John Paul II/Karol Wojitla personally revived the office of the Inquisition, among his other 'accomplishments':

To Catholics, I write to remind them of what each of them knows but seldom acknowledges. Karol Wojtila forced the best minds out of the Catholic Church, or at least to the extreme margins of the Church. Wojtila sanctified the baroque reproductive/sexual bugaboos that infest the Catholic Church while striving to ideologically lobotomize the Catholic clergy and laity ... The record shows that Karol Wojtila was a charming man and a master of international public relations, but he was a political and cultural reactionary to his core.

...

1. Among Wojtila's first actions as Pope was to attack freedom of inquiry and freedom of speech in Catholic universities. Progressive theology, feminist thought, and "liberation theology" were driven from accepted Catholic discourse. Catholic universities in Europe and North America have lost their best scholars in the humanities and have sunk into being miserable intellectual ghettoes with respect to history, philosophy, theology, and related fields.

2. Wojtila revived and strengthened the Office of the Inquisition under the infamous Cardinal Ratziger. The "Holy Office" was near abolition under the two previous pontiffs, but Wojtila wielded the Inquisition as his special shock troops in a relentless campaign to silence all varieties of opinion other than his own. Repression of thought at the level of the diocese and parish became commonplace again after a blessed reprieve in the 1960s and 1970s.

[...]

6. In the United States, Wojtila in 1980 forced Father Robert Drinan, one of the nation's leading elected progressive politicians, to resign from Congress (under penalty of being forced to leave the priesthood). At the same time, Wojtila fostered the alliance of right-wing American Catholic bishops with the "Christian right" on the issues of abortion, women's rights, and homosexuality. In North America and beyond, a double standard has been applied by Wojtila for Catholic clergy involvement in political causes. Advocating for progressive causes has been forbidden as impermissibly "political" while advocacy and alliances against abortion, contraception, and women's rights has been approved as necessary "witnessing" to Catholic values.

I would suggest that you read the whole article. The thrust, continued by Pope Benedict XVI/Joseph Ratzinger, cannot be denied. He was, according to some, the ARCHITECT of John Paul II's "Culture of Life" stance.

[*An interesting side note, before he became pope, Ratzinger was in charge of the pedophile priests scandals. His response? Stonewall:

... in 2001, then-Cardinal Ratzinger signed a letter sent to all bishops, asserting the Church's right to hold secret inquiries and keep the evidence confidential for 10 years after the victims reached adulthood under pain of excommunication.

The same writer makes this point:

And indeed, as far as I know, not one, not a single priestly predator has ever been excommunicated for their crimes.]

Open meddling in the politics of the United States, and the deliberate and conscious suppression of any Catholic voices not his own. American Catholics-the most notoriously free-thinking and papal disobeying-have garnered the new pope's special attention, most especially in the arena of abortion.

Father Frank Pavone's extreme actions were personally endorsed by John Paul II, and one of Benedict XVI's first actions was giving Pavone's "Priests for Life" a special dispensation-cutting them loose from priestly responsibilities to engage in full-time anti-abortion work, and to get involved in politics, as I reported here.

Their first political act was to have been a "Terri Schiavo" style initiative in Nebraska, but a lack of enough signatures stopped the effort-until 2008. Here's some pictures of his January 2006 trip to Nebraska, by a WEIRD coincidence, EXACTLY as they were setting up the state for the "Schiavo" initiative ballot petition and signature drive.

[*Now go to http://www.cuf.org/news/index.asp and look at the the 'official' photo of the new pope, and please TELL ME whether you think that this face was created by a lifetime of charity and Christian love, or by something else. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding, or, "Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face." - Albert Camus]

So, mentioning any of this is "anti-Catholic"?

Indeed, one of the best examples of the "new" Catholicism is Fr. Richard John Neuhaus himself, whose blog initially attacked me (and Becky, and four other bloggers).

According to his Rightweb profile:

"Father Richard," as he is known to President George W. Bush and many others, is a Catholic priest and the president of the neoconservative-aligned Institute on Religion and Public Life (IRPL). He has been a leading figure for decades in what some observers view as a conservative, Catholic-driven culture war against progressive and mainstream Protestant churches. Neuhaus has also been a close, if unofficial, adviser to the George W. Bush administration. Described by an administration official in a 2005 Time magazine article as having "a fair amount of under-the-radar influence" on policies ranging from stem cell research to cloning, Neuhaus has apparently had a significant impact on Bush's thinking. The president once said that the priest "helps me articulate these [religious] things" (Time, February 7, 2005; Andrew Weaver, "Neocon Catholics Target Mainline Protestants," MediaTransparency, August 11, 2006).

He is a "political" priest, given a political appointment. Wikipedia notes:

Neuhaus supported the mainline (ELCA) wing of American Lutheranism before converting to Catholicism on September 8, 1990. A year later, he was ordained a priest by John Cardinal O'Connor. He was a commentator for the Catholic television network EWTN during the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI.

He promotes ecumenical dialogue and social conservatism. Along with Charles Colson, he edited Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission. This ecumenical manifesto sparked much debate; some Catholics and evangelicals claimed that Neuhaus and Colson had compromised major doctrines to promote a neoconservative agenda and unfairly demanded that both branches of Christianity stop trying to convert the other's members.

Ordination ONE year after converting? One can safely conclude that's less doctrinal than political.

An example of both Neuhaus' doctrinal fanaticism and his politesse can be found in his essay "Is Mormonism Christian?"

Neuhaus makes the clear distinction:

For missionary and public relations purposes, the LDS may present Mormonism as an "add-on," a kind of Christianity-plus, but that is not the official narrative and doctrine.

A closer parallel might be with Islam. Islam is a derivative of Judaism, and Christianity. Like Joseph Smith, Muhammad in the seventh century claimed new revelations and produced in the Qur'an a "corrected" version of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, presumably by divine dictation. Few dispute that Islam is a new and another religion, and Muslims do not claim to be Christian, although they profess a deep devotion to Jesus. Like Joseph Smith and his followers, they do claim to be the true children of Abraham. Christians in dialogue with Islam understand it to be an interreligious, not an ecumenical, dialogue. Ecumenical dialogue is dialogue between Christians. Dialogue with Mormons who represent official LDS teaching is interreligious dialogue.

But he's slick enough to recognize that he's talking to Mormon readers, and adds this conclusion:

As for the rest of us, we owe to Mormon Americans respect for their human dignity, protection of their religious freedom, readiness for friendship, openness to honest dialogue, and an eagerness to join hands in social and cultural tasks that advance the common good. That, perhaps, is work enough, at least for the time being.

But, perhaps, only a fool would ignore the clear implications: If you're working with us, you're our buddies ... until we don't need you anymore. Then, watch out!

But he is happy, through his lackey, Joseph Bottums (editor of Neuhaus' magazine First Things), to attack me, and other bloggers. We must be quite a threat.

This neatly parallels Fr. Frank Pavone's willingness to work with the most extreme of anti-abortion fanatics (see the Village Voice article cited above).

All of which leads to a few inexorable conclusions:

First, that the "culture of life" is actually anti-life: children are viewed as a punishment from God, which the Church must enforce by WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY, and

Secondly, that ANY MEANS NECESSARY is the ruling agenda.

So, if I note that the Roman decree has been faithfully adhered to by the five Catholic jurists of the Supreme Court, in rationalizing a complete about-face (just as politely shielded with legalisms and euphemisms as Neuhaus' statement on Mormon apostasy), then I am merely noting that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night.

I do not claim that Pope Benedict XVI ORDERED the jurists to vote in their peculiar manner and that they obeyed, but the connection cannot be said to be merest coincidence.

It is irrefutable that: The Vatican has attempted to interfere in US politics over the issue of abortion. Both directly and indirectly.

That the selection of Samuel Alito, Jr. and John Roberts to the Supreme Court was undertaken in consultation with Catholic representatives, such as Fr. Neuhaus.

That the outcry against the "Catholic" Supreme Court decision was muted at best, and almost non-existent (proof: that they would have to dig ME up as the prime exponent of "anti-Catholic" bias).

That a sect with 25% of all United States Christians claiming "bias" and "bigotry" and anti-Catholic witch-hunting cannot be operating from a rational base, but, rather, is playing the equivalent of the "race card," so famously invoked in the O.J. Simpson trial.

WERE there a strong anti-Catholic strain in American politics, HOWLS would have been heard when Ronald Reagan established a diplomatic mission at the Vatican on January 10, 1984.

Yes, the US maintained diplomatic relations from 1797 to 1870, because the Papal states were legitimate STATES. When they lost their land, we ceased our relations, unwilling to, essentially, have diplomatic relations with a Church. In 1984, Reagan overturned this ancient American precedent and thought.

Similarly, Bush's remarks at the 2001 dedication of the "Pope John Paul II Cultural Center Dedication* and his "visit" to the Pope in March 2002 fly in the face of American (Protestant) tradition and an unwillingness to intermingle church and state politics in an avowedly SECULAR nation.

It is, politically, every bit the abomination that Bush's appearance in uniform was: a deliberate sneer at a cherished political tradition -- that no president since Washington has ever donned military garb, to remind all and sundry that the "Commander-in Chief" is ALWAYS a civilian, and that the military is always under civilian authority. And we've had more than our share of generals in the presidency: it was under President Ulysses S. Grant that diplomatic ties to the newly-landless papal state were dissolved.

[* "The pope reminds us that, while freedom defines our nation, responsibility must define our lives. He challenges to live up to our aspirations. To be a fair and just society, where all are welcomed, all are valued, and all are protected. And he's never more eloquent than when he speaks for the culture of life."]

The charge that these moral authoritarians who brook NO dissent, who believe that a secular nation is merely misguided and MUST adopt Catholic dogma ... the charge that THEY are being oppressed is laughable on the face of it.

I cheerfully fling the charges of 'bigotry' and 'bias' laid out here-and elsewhere-back in their collective teeth.

If you're on the side of the angels, why adopt the tactics of the Opposition?

And how come the "Vicar of Christ" has a face that belies that eponymous allegiance so disturbingly?

Were this Catholic bashing, I would have prominently mentioned that Ratzinger had once been a member of the Hitler Youth-a charge neatly explained away in a thousand pro-papal articles. I do not dispute their arguments.

No: the only bashing here is coming FROM Catholics, not from my quarter.

Courage.

Postscript: Here's a smattering of blogs that are calling for my head over " Catholics -5; The rest of us - Nothing":

• first things dot com
• constitutionallycorrect.com
• noleftturns.ashbrook.org (I am "others")
• cornerstone-forum.blogspot.com
• amywelborn.typepad.com

Let 'em know what YOU think.