Conflicted Catholics

I know many thinking Catholics, and 98% of these people what I would term "conflicted Catholics." When I'm together with more than one of them, they often spontaneously express their frustration, embarrassment and even rage regarding the Church. What drives this frustration? Many things, including more than a few of these questions raises by Adam Lee at Alternet in "50 Reasons to Boycott the Catholic Church." Despite these immense intractable problems with the Roman Catholic Church, most Catholics I know continue to associate themselves with the church. They are not willing to give up their religious community, in spite of these hurdles. This willingness to stick with the church is hard to understand for an outsider like me. I would think that 1/10 of this misconduct would have me running from any organization.

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The Long Road To Papal Self Destruction

The legal back-and-forth over the Vatican’s position on the sexual abuse revelations seems to Americans bizarre. While certainly the Catholic Church has a large contingent, we are a traditionally Protestant nation and after ditching the Anglican’s after the Revolution, the whole question of a Church being able to deny the right of civil authority to prosecute one of its representatives for criminal acts was swallowed up in the strident secularism that, despite the current revisionist rhetoric of a very loud activist minority, characterized the first century of the Republic. Even American Catholics may be a be fuzzy on how the Vatican can try to assert diplomatic immunity for the Pope in order to block prosecutorial efforts. But the fact is, the Vatican is a State, just like Italy, Switzerland, Germany, or the United States. The Pope is the head of a political entity (technically, the Holy See, but for convenience I use the more inclusive term Vatican), with all the rights and privileges implied. The Vatican has embassies. They have not quite come out to assert that priests, being officials (and perhaps officers) of that state, have diplomatic immunity, but they have certainly acted that way for the past few decades as this scandal has percolated through the halls of St. Peter. It would be an interesting test if they did, to in fact allow that attorneys generals, D.A.s, and other law enforcement agencies have absolutely no legal grounds on which to prosecute priests. To date, the Vatican has not gone there. So what is the political relationship between, say, the Vatican and the United States? From 1797 to 1870, the United States maintained consular relations with the Papal States. We maintained diplomatic relations with the Pope as head of the Papal States from 1848 to 1868, though not at the ambassadorial level. With the loss of the Papal States in 1870, these relationships ended until 1984, although beginning in 1939 a number of presidents sent personal envoys to the Holy See for specific talks on various humanitarian issues. Diplomatic relations resumed January 10, 1984. On March 7, 1984, the Senate confirmed William A. Wilson, who had served as President Reagan’s personal envoy from 1981, as the first U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. The Holy See in turn named Archbishop Pio Laghi as the first Apostolic Nuncio (equivalent to ambassador) of the Holy See to the U.S. The Pope, as head of the governmental body—the Holy See—has the status of head of state. Arresting the Pope—even issuing a subpoena—is a problematic question under these circumstances, as he would technically enjoy immunity stemming from his position. The question, however, more to the point is the overall relationship of the global Church to the Vatican and the prerogatives the Pope and the Holy See seem to believe they possess in the matter of criminal actions and prosecutions of individual priests, bishops, even archbishops. That requires going back a long time. At one time, the Holy Roman Church held secular power and controlled its own territories, known as the Papal States. When this “country” was established is the subject of academic study, but a clear marker is the so-called Donation of Pepin. The Duchy of Rome was threatened materially by invading Lombards, which the Frankish ruler Pepin the Short ended around 751 C.E.

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The victim is the Pope

Who is the real victim of all of that sexual abuse inflicted by Catholic Church clergy upon German children? The Church claims that the Pope is the victim. Andrew Sullivan disagrees:

[I]t is the reputation of the church and the Pope they care about first, not the welfare of children. In today's developments, the entire question of whether celibacy might have something to do with the stunted sexual and emotional development of priests (you think?) - let alone whether the repression and oppression of homosexuality contributes to psychological damage - has been ruled out of bounds of legitimate discussion by the Vatican.
According to Sullivan, the Church strategy is to "blame others before taking responsibility," a strategy that it used so incredibly unsuccessfully in the United States.

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Technical aspects of protesting and taxing Catholic Church position against gay marriage

In Early November, a Maine ballot measure defeated a law legalizing gay marriage. It is clear that the Catholic Church, acting through 45 dioceses around the country, contributed substantial money to defeat gay marriage in Maine. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis Archdiocese contributed $10,000. cathedral-welcome-sign Here in St. Louis, protesters have made themselves visible in a way that would likely irritate many Catholics and (see the comments to this article). The protesters have repeatedly stationed themselves prominently in front of the St. Louis Cathedral before, during and after the noontime Mass, in order to protest the $10,000 payment by the St. Louis Diocese to defeat gay marriage in Maine. Some of the St. Louis protesters have claimed that they were harassed by the police. See the following video they published. I fully support gay marriage. And even though I don't believe in a Divine Jesus, I can't imagine Jesus, who purportedly opened up his heart to criminals and whores, taking active steps to keep gays from getting married. In my opinion, the Catholic Church, which has severely crippled its own moral authority, has acted out of bigotry in opposing gay marriage. On the other hand, I also think that the protesters need to be careful to pick their battles. If you click the title to go to the full post, you'll can view a gallery of a dozen photos I took while participating in the protest of 12-20-09, the day after I originally wrote this post. The temperature as a brisk 25 degrees. [more . . .]

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Christopher Hitchens: Where is Bernard Law?

In this lecture, Christopher Hitchens asks about the whereabouts of Cardinal Bernard Law, who is guilty of crimes "too hideous to describe." The undeniable fact is that Law is currently a powerful member of the Catholic clergy in Rome--he is one of the people held in high enough esteem that he has the power and privilege of voting to choose Popes. Any organization whose leaders have basic moral decency would have put such a man into handcuffs and delivered him to the police. Hitchens has many more questions for the Catholic Church too, and not an unfair attack among them, in my opinion. Examples include forbidding condom usage in Africa, where AIDs is an epidemic. This is not an academic issue--it is killing thousands of people. I also know many thinking Catholics who are driven to distraction by the official church teachings in regard to gays and birth control. Here's what Hitchens has to say about the need for the Catholic Church to apologize: I do not post this video to condemn lay Catholics, many of whom are good-hearted people who do inspiring works of kindness in the name of the church. Instead, I've posted this video because I have become weary of seeing the Church automatically and publicly presented as a font of moral judgment just because it is a church (or, in some circles, The Church). I am wondering if we will ever see a day when the Catholic Church (and every other church) is not judged favorably merely because it is a church. I'm wondering whether we will ever see the day when, in response to a claim that we should follow rule because "It is a rule of a church," people will generally ask: "What kind of church?" or "What is the track record of that church?" In any regard, we should never assume that a church is wise or moral just because it is a church. The current job title of Bernard Law compels this. Bottom line: No more free passes for churches. Or for any entity or any person, for that matter.

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