What the hell is going on with the Catholic Church?
I have been seeing a ridiculous amount of Catholic-related news, starting with the local archdiocese announces they are closing my high school. I can remember the following exchange, at North Catholic, junior year, in Father DeMeo’s Psychology class, and how it illustrated the problem with absolute adherence to dogma:
“Children, if you use condoms and have premarital sex, you’re going to hell!”
This seemed odd. One would think that the greater sin might be bringing a child into the world that one is not prepared to care for, or passing on a venereal disease or AIDS. We pushed and pushed him, but he kept going back to the same dogmatic statement. “You’re going to hell”.
There’s also something odd about the recent full-court press by the Catholic Church.
Consider the following:
- The Diocese of Wilmington (Delaware) recently declared bankruptcy, insulating Church funds from Priest molestation suits in court.
- The Vatican began courting conservative Anglicans who were displeased with their Church’s liberal stance on gay marriage and women priests, going so far as to potentially allow Anglican priests to serve as Catholic priests while remaining married.
- The Archdiocese of Philadelphia interjected itself and $50,000 to defeat Maine’s (!) Gay Marriage Amendment.
- I’ve since come to find that the US Archbishops had largely written the Stupak Amendment that passed as an amendment to the House’s health care bill, stripping out abortion coverage for women. Our own Cardinal Justin Rigali played a part as well.
- The Vatican announces that they have resumed looking to the skies for alien life.A story appears about the director (a priest) of Duke University’s Catholic Center tut-tutting about a sex toy research project on campus could cause women to sit around and masturbate all day (Carrie Prejean video, anyone?) instead of looking for a husband.
- They’ve essentially blackmailed Washington, D.C. over gay marriage, threatening to withhold charity services from DC’s neediest.
- Today I see that Rhode Island’s Bishop Thomas J. Tobin is having a very public battle with Patrick Kennedy over abortion.
- Lastly, at some point in the near future, the Council of Bishops is going to weigh in on mandatory feeding tubes in Catholic Hospitals, vis a vis Terry Schiavo, with an opinion that no doubt will be in alignment with their Neo-Catholic theology.
If you look at the recurring themes above, the Church as an institution is not about love, compassion, or protecting and providing for the weak. An institution’s number one obligation, above all else, is survival of the institution.
In these cases, rather than opening the doors of their church to increase the congregation, they’ve decided to become more intrusive and conservative, possibly hoping to garner monetary funds, political capital, and public sympathy.
Perhaps they are anticipating or precipitating the rescission of their tax-exempt status and a subsequent Supreme Court case (with 5 Catholics on the Court), or perhaps they are heavily invested in Commercial Real Estate and need a bailout? Maybe they are hoping to rouse the congregation to throw an extra $5 on the plate to defend a church under attack?
Or maybe they have just gone batshit insane?
Tags: Benedict, Bishop, Carrie Prejean, Catholic Church, charity services, Council of Bishops, Delaware, First Amendment, Gay Marriage Amendment, Justin Francis Rigali, Justin Rigali, Maine, Northeast Catholic High School, Ordination of women, Patrick Kennedy, Philadelphia, Pope, Priest, Ratzinger, Religion/Belief, Rhode Island, Separation of Church and State, Social Issues, supreme-court, Terry Schiavo, Thomas J. Tobin, Washington D.C.
