Tuesday, December 1, 2009

John Carroll is Concerned About Right Wing Fundamentalist Catholic Bishops

Why oh why do newspapers think it is wise to publish these rants. Do we learn any reality from them or does it just reinforce certain readers views and the bubble they live in. I thought newspapers were against that.

The horrific John Carroll has written another screed against his Catholic Church. The Deacon Bench has "The bishops are at home with the heirs of a know-nothing fundamentalism".

He throws around all the "scare" terms and of course the word "Fundamentalist" makes an appearance and is again incorrectly used.

The bishops define the public face of Catholicism-and that face is now marked by a scowling moralism. In days past, the immigrant Church was defined by its core commitment to serve workers, the poor, and the marginal. Catholicism was a powerful partner in the New Deal, Labor, War-on-Poverty, and Civil Rights coalitions, and though there were always conservative bishops (like Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York), the Church did not make doctrinal or ethical conformity a precondition of its participation in the struggle for equal justice.

That is why, across the 20th century, it was a force for progressive social change. That is over. For the first time in its history, the American Catholic hierarchy is solidly right wing. There is not one liberal voice among its members. The bishops are at home with the heirs of a know-nothing fundamentalism that once, by every measure of theology and social policy, embodied the Church's opposite.

This realignment is the consequence, within Catholicism, of the conservative appointments made to the episcopate over 27 years by Pope John Paul II, but it also reflects the broader, post-Ronald Reagan phenomenon of the arrival of the Religious Right as an establishment force in American politics.

What in Heavens name is he talking about. If anyone can get me some info on the famous Gay marriage supporting, Abortion supporting Bishops of the 50's I will print a retraction.

Carroll seems to forget the American Catholic Church at this time also was in the front lines against the war on communism. Something I am sure would make Carroll shudder if they were so out on that front today.

The Church was much much more diverse in political and social thought too than is portrayed in Carroll's fairy tale.

What should a Catholic liberal be? I think Carroll is more upset that the Catholic Bishops are the democrat party in robes as they were in the 70's , 80's , and 90's. Why can't we go back to the good ole days when could get reassuring smoke signals that George H Bush on State execution was equivalent to Dukakis views on abortion. They were so much more useful back then.

Where oh where are all these far right Bishops. I guess the Catholic Bishop's support of immigration reform that Bush proposed is like so yesterday.

Lets face it what offends him is that the Catholic Bishops engage both parties and they have not published a Catechism that declares Republican thought evil and the Democrat Party Platform as having fallen from Heaven. Don't the Bishops realize that talking to Conservatives and Republicans is uncooth. I mean would Jesus do that?

1 comment:

Patpacer said...

Illegal immigration is definitely a big problem created by Liberal Corruption and illegal’s here in Corrupt Luzerne County Pa. Please read on;

Here in Luzerne County we have a large population of disabled veterans & elderly which depend on the pitiful yearly COLA increase. Just here we have on Social Security: Retired workers benefit recipients 48,770 elderly retired living here + 38,067 Veterans, 11,000 of which returned home here to this small corrupt county from Vietnam. We are American tax payers which built this area, and we no longer have the safe & quiet comfort of our homes which we worked our whole lives to achieve The property tax reassessment county wide during this recession recently raised mortgages & rent at least $100 a month. Pa. lost the price cap on electricity, minimum $35 dollars a month increase only if you do not have any electric heat. Sewer & water both another hefty increase following the 2009 increase of $80 dollars, soon another minimum of $40 dollars a month. Millions have been stolen here, a few hundred thousand here, five hundred thousand there, embezzlement, and missing sewer authority funds. The only ones doing fine here are the Clans of high school drop out illegal border jumpers, nine to 12 adults in one house all still working 16 hours a day. It is costing me a $137 more a month just from the tax reassessment to view the Clan living in the rental property next door. Even though the FBI busted our Court house all the low income older homeowners must pay again, and pay so much more just to keep their family home. Many of us have nothing left but our blood, and those of us who use VA healthcare can not even sell our blood because no one in their right mind would want to buy it. As a house bound Catholic disabled veteran with a Clan of illegal border jumper’s right next door I ask why just a few million Veterans are made to live in H E LL while our government helps 23 million illegal border jumper swine.

P S - Don't think for one minute that just because we have a black dude as our new president that it is illegal or racist too deport them all. And do not tell me it is a hate crime to hate watching so much of our Country, and the old neighborhoods we still reside and pay taxes in be destroyed!