[Photo of Joseph Naumann from Catholic.org]Once again, in recent days, we have seen a Roman Catholic archbishop flex his godly muscles in an attempt to extort piety from one of the Roman Catholic faithful.
First of all, we should note that according to the most recent polls, Catholics by and large, view things like abortion, birth control, homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, gambling, etc., in a more liberal fashion than their non-Catholic neighbors.
Secondly, it is important to reiterate that studies have shown at least 25% of Roman Catholic priests/seminarians are homosexuals, and some insist the figure is probably closer to 50%, in spite of the fact that the Church considers homosexuality a "disorder," and believes homosexuals should not be priests.
Thirdly, we cannot forget that literally thousands of Roman Catholic priests have abused little children, both boys and girls, for decades. The Roman Catholic bishops and other poohbahs have known all about this abuse, but instead of reporting it to the authorities, they deliberately covered it up, and then fought every attempt to bring it to light and take appropriate action.
They didn't even remove these pedophile priests from the ministry. What they did do was move them from one parish to another, without informing the parish leaders or telling them that they should watch their children as they had a predator priest in their midst.
With those three points before us, we can now consider the case of the Archbishop of the Kansas City, Kansas, archdiocese, one Joseph Naumann.
Naumann is pissed off at the governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, who is a member of the Roman Catholic Church. Sebelius, you recall, has been nominated by President Obama to head up the Department of Health and Human Services.
[Rightwingnuts everywhere are up in arms about Sebelius and have innundated our Senators with dire warnings of disaster to come if they dare vote in her favor!]
The reason? Abortion, of course. Sebelius is pro-choice and thinks women should be able to choose relative to abortion without government interference or priestly dictates. Thus, she has seen fit to veto at least a couple of bills which would restrict abortion rights in Kansas.
The Archbishop is unhappy because Sebelius won't kiss his ring on this issue. According to Joshua Holland at Alternet, the archbishop was interviewed by Catholics for Faith and Family. In this intervew he explains his efforts to get Sebelius to toe the party line.
For example, the Archbishop conducted a "long dialogue" with Sibelius after which he wrote her a letter telling her she must not partake of the magical cracker. She did it anyway, and some dipshit priest tattled on her to the Archbishop.
So Naumann "went public," and told the whole world that the governor had been banned from the altar until she accepted the RC teaching on abortion.
I don't know that Governor Sebelius intends to do. Probably the same thing that John Kerry and Joe Biden do - ignor the rantings of the hyper hierarchical keepers of the keys to the Kingdom.
Also, consider this: Forty percent of American Catholics reject the official Catholic teaching on abortion! They simply don't hear the rantings of their skirted pontificators of piety, having recognized long ago that many of them don't have a clue as to what real life is all about.
What is especially poignant about all this is the fact that an archbishop of the Roman Church, in spite of the fact that 25-50% of the priests of the Church are in flagrant disobedience of the church's teaching on homosexuality, and in spite of the fact that the church has disobeyed the law and its own teachings by protecting thousands of pedophile priests, believes he has some moral authority to exert over the governor of Kansas or anybody else.
In his view, Governor Sebelius is unworthy to take Communion at the altar of a Roman Catholic Church where the odds are about even the priest is a homosexual, or in some cases, a pedophile, because she rejects the right of a church run by celibate (more or less) men to tell women what to do with their bodies.
There's something radically wrong with that picture.
Maybe there are too many archbishopricks in the Roman Church.
2 comments:
Being filled with pedophiles, the "church" has NO moral authority to tell anyone anything. They need to STFU and clean their own house first.
The former bishop of the Milwaukee, Timothy Dolan, was recently appointed to become the archbishop of New York. This is one of the idiots that kept moving the pedophiles around. There have been six or seven of them from Wisconsin who have been charged and found guilty or are still going through court. One of these jerks was in Delavan, which is about 12 miles away from where I am. I grew up with some of the kids whose parents attended there. I have often wondered if any of them were abused by him.
So when does each religion stifle discourse? Maybe we do need a real Taliban type movement to take over in the name of one of our many religions. I would pick Judaism as it has more holidays that take a day off than most and is tolerant enough to allow us to have Christmas, Xmas, the Easter bunny chocolates, etc/ We could have our cake and eat too. Catholics are free to learn or teach what they wish. They do not have the right to tell me what to learn, discuss etc. I think it better to explore, accept and reject etc. Universities are where we learn and learn what others think. Church is where we go to see or learn whatever our religion wants to expose us to. Hopefully we are able to change if we want to. It should not interfere with our government or pressure it. Religion is between God and the people. He doesn’t need our help but people do!!!!
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