Long a bouquet of shy wallflowers compared with evangelicals, Catholic bishops are at last joining the dance at the Republican party. The big step forward will be made as New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan says the closing benediction at the GOP convention this week. His appearance marks the first time in 40 years that an American cardinal has traveled cross-country for this purpose, and it comes as the churchmen reveal themselves to be more like politicians -- in style and substance -- than ever before.
The Republicans have danced to this song many times before. Since 1980, the party has used evangelicals to win elections but denied them most of what they want in policy from restoration of school prayer to a nationwide ban on abortion. With Mitt Romney's selection of the fiercely anti-abortion Paul Ryan, he signaled the party is now taking conservative Catholics for a whirl. However, everything in Romney's flip-flopping character suggests that once again, religiously motivated voters will give up their votes and get little in return.
For their part, the Catholic hierarchs are abandoning the restraint that once made them credible as moral leaders above the partisan fray. The danger in this choice is evident when you consider that a majority of Catholics disagree with their leaders. They use contraception and oppose the GOP's "no exceptions" abortion stand. Polls also show Catholics support gay rights and marriage at about the same rate as the general population. These Catholics are not pleased to see their bishops lining up with party hacks or with an evangelical movement that includes a significant number of anti-Catholic bigots.
The fact that Timothy Dolan is leading the bishops in a partisan direction is not a surprise. Take away the clerical clothes and the cardinal is the central casting version of an old pol, glad-handing and joking in one minute and deflecting and deceiving in the next. As Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times reported in May, the cardinal lied about money paid to Wisconsin priests who had been accused of sexual abuse when he was their bishop. He described the money as "charity" when it was intended to induce them to leave the priesthood as quickly as possible. When documents surfaced contradicting Dolan, local Church officials admitted as much. New York's prelate chose to attack the suggestion that something was amiss as "false, preposterous and unjust."
Of course, it was the scheme itself that was preposterous and unjust. As officials of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests asked, "In what other occupation, especially one working with families and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?"
In true political style, Dolan used an encounter with reporters to attack the press and his critics, rather than speak as a moral leader. "SNAP has no credibility whatsoever," Dolan said. "To respond to charges like that that are groundless and scurrilous in my book is useless and counterproductive." In shifting blame and dodging responsibility, Dolan sounded like a blustering partisan, not a pastor.
Dolan isn't alone on the hierarchy's march into party politics. As a group the bishops have joined the GOP in opposing the Obama health care reform program. Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria sounded a lot like someone from the political fringe when he spoke of Hitler and Stalin and added, "President Obama with his radical pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda now seems intent on following a similar path." Baltimore's Archbishop William Lori said that the bishops had reached a moment in politics "we have to draw the line in the sand."
The main thing the bishops cite when they explain their ire is the requirement that institutions that aren't churches provide contraception coverage as part of employee health insurance. Dozens of states have imposed a similar requirement for years (some don't even exempt churches) with no outcry from the Church. But when opposition to the president's health care reform act became a rallying point of the 2012 GOP campaign, the bishops used the issue to justify joining hands with the party.
With them now on the dance floor, it's hard to separate the Catholic bishops from other partisans. As men, they may feel invigorated and relevant. But religious leaders, they have lost the position that once helped others respect them.
Michele Somerville: Praying Nice With the Democrats: Timothy Dolan Gets It Right
By the way one will not find much democracy in the Bible because Rome was an empire. But if one looks closely at the history of the early church, the people chose their leaders. So here is an opportunity to strike back at the sexual abuse, the donation wasted on lawsuits and initiatives, and don't forget the embezzlement and misuse of funds by some of the bishops. This is our challenge.
Who and where are they? I know they are out there somewhere. They are not in my vicinity , but surely they must be somewhere in US. Even Canada. I go to Canada now and then and could have my cup of coffee there.
I don't have to agree with them theologically. If they tell me to believe in the virgin birth or go to hell I will believe in the virgin birth. I just want to know that the church I was assigned to has some leaders that I would want to listen to, respect, find some common ground with.
And I do not like the idea of any of them blatantly running for pope and the one in particular does not meet my criteria anyway.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120827/us-archbishop-elect-dui/
No doubt they have been captured by the emotions of the moment, driven on by evangelist extremists of today's right wing politics. I stopped attending church when they started preaching politics from the pulpit, and will not return until they stop that. My faith is not for sale to politicians.
I hope that, more than give speeches for the Republican Party to spit back at our leadership, he helps the Catholic service before the election include the true statement that the Democrats are the sworn enemy of the Catholic Church in America and those who care about their church should vote accordingly.
Oh wait, I forgot, the whole Presidential War on the Church was changed by the media to a "War on Women" because a 30-year-old "college student" complained that she could not get free birth control. Are we stupid enough as a nation to believe that stuff?
I fully support the right of the Catholic Church to teach what they believe to their congregations, but that does not give them the right to force those teachings on the rest of us.
As for your assertions of the "war on the church" they are blatantly false, it is the over-reach of the church in this case. And I don't think you paid very much attention to what that college student was saying - you let your bishop tell you what he wanted you to know.
As for birth control, I totally fail to understand how ANYONE who wants to reduce the amount of abortions can not be for teaching birth control and sex education. Yes, we should stress abstinence is the safest method and that waiting is OK, but we need to teach the rest and use actual CDC approved statistics instead of the distorted lies that the Catholic LifeChoices is using in teaching sex education in our schools.