After controversy, U.S. Catholic bishops say there will be “no national policy on withholding Communion from politicians” https://t.co/pe5nWaiUvV
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 25, 2021
I was raised ‘in the Church’, although I walked out of mine after parochial high-school graduation and never looked back. But anyone who’s read any European history knows that, going back as far as we have records, there has been tension between the upper ranks of The Hierarchy and the mere priests (not to mention parishioners) at the bottom of the pyramid…
Days after a vote that triggered a tsunami of Catholic debate about Communion and politics, leading U.S. Catholic bishops working on an upcoming document about the sacrament are now de-emphasizing direct confrontation with President Biden or other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights…
During the three-day meeting of the U.S. bishops and in its aftermath, the bishops made conflicting statements about the document’s intention.
The idea for the document came from a committee the USCCB created after the November election in order to deal with the “problem” of Biden and his abortion policy, and what some bishops see as a confusing scandal for other Catholics watching the country’s most prominent member of their faith.
During the meeting many bishops said Biden was exacerbating what many faith leaders see as an already big problem: Most U.S. Catholics, polls show, don’t attend Mass weekly and don’t believe in the supernatural aspect of Communion. But many other bishops pushed back to say there shouldn’t be a special emphasis on abortion and politicians, and such a document would politicize the sacrament…
Bishop Shawn McKnight, of Jefferson City, Mo., who had argued during the USCCB meeting against going ahead with the document, Friday said the Q&A was a good sign. The “needle shifted a little bit,” he said, away from a document aimed at a national policy and restrictions.
He also noted that Rhoades said there will be regional meetings of bishops this year in order to get more feedback…
Shorthand, as I cynically see it: Right now, there is a noisy activist minority of “traditional” Catholics (tradcaths) who would very much like to return to a pre-Vatican-Council-II era, when bishops could simply order priests to order their parishioners to stay in line. Most of these tradcaths are old enough to remember and regret the “loss” of the simple pieties and required memorization of the Baltimore Catechism, which was quietly dropped in my Bronx parochial school in 1965. But there’s also plenty of younger activists, quite a few of them converts (and some of them prominent media pundits), who want a Church with rigor — one where Good People get to boss around the Weak People who don’t have standards, such as making a public show of their piety before the world and its heathens.
While heterosexual marriages ‘blessed’ with plenty of children are the gold standard of this philosophy (no premarital sex, no ‘confusing’ sexualities, no birth control), for day-to-day purposes, attendance at weekly Mass and taking communion serve as a marker. Obviously, it annoys them most bitterly that President Biden actually does show up just about every week, despite his busy schedule, not to mention football Sundays, out-of-parish vacations, etc. He’s a prominent rebuke to their argument that public performance is the one and only guarantee of spiritual worth. Unlike so many modern American Catholics, he’s there in the pew and the Eucharist line, and yet still all too open to sinful non-Churchly social changes!
In their dreams, the tradcaths (backed by a real Pope, a hardcore dude like Benedict who didn’t mind telling off the liberals and kicking out nonconformists) would take over the global Mother Church and institute a glorious age of fewer, but purer, Catholics. Were this ever to happen (odds are against it, IMO), a great many professing American Catholics would very soon withdraw themselves, and their tithing, mostly to easily available community alternatives (the Episcopalians and Universal Unitarians, for instance)… but some parishes would, following preexisting history, simply declare their independence. Losing the funding would be bad enough — last I looked, the American Catholic Church was providing an outsized portion of global Church support — but another Great Schism would reduce the Mother Church to a shell of its current status. Which Pope Francis, not being an idiot, has no intention of permitting. But such a ‘purification’ would be just fine with the tradcaths, who are sure that this shell would give the Ross Douthats and Liz Bruenigs and every little local parish pest more power and status, as God intended. (If this reminds anyone of the current ‘purification’ battle within the Republican Party, well, yeah.)
Pope Francis and his defenders still have enough control, at the moment, to yank the professional priestly tradcaths back into line. But while they may have lost this particular battle (maybe), the skirmishes will continue.
ETA:
67% of U.S. Catholics said yes Biden should receive communion; 29% said no.
“This put the majority of bishops not only on the extreme end of Catholic opinion generally but also at the far end of Catholic opinion *even within the GOP*.”
@EJDionne: https://t.co/4KU7FLC0oH
— Eric Wolfson (@EricWolfson) June 27, 2021
A Ghost to Most
Let’s hope the christian supremacists have a reckoning.
joel hanes
“No national policy” means that the reactionary bishops can still be locally reactionary.
Baud
Isn’t that like the Olympics? Thought I read NBC money keeps them afloat.
HypersphericalCow
I am so glad I left the Church a few decades ago.
Ruckus
The church was all powerful for a very long time and in a historical timeframe the change is only moments long. And the Catholic church has had power in a lot of places, because of it’s structure and age. Few power centers give that up without time and real motivation. For a lot of the power structure I’d bet that losing that power is far worse for them than losing the level of attendance and followers. I’m saying that reality isn’t in huge supply in a lot of areas of the Catholic church and their dominance will not end easily or rapidly. It also helps if you listen to what President Biden actually says about the issue, rather than what it sounds like to some ears. He recognizes that he is the president of all US citizens, not just the Catholic ones. And he is acting like it.
Mike in NC
My parents were devout, just like Joe Biden. I resented that the Church became another cheering section for the Republican Party due to its medieval policies on abortion and birth control.
guachi
American Christians are on the brink of essentially being exempt from many laws at a time when their religion is collapsing in America. Actions like this (even if unsuccessful) by conservative American Catholics are exactly the thing that are leading to American Christianity’s collapse.
Oh, well.
Baud
Anywho, I’m glad Biden isn’t going to be placed in an awkward position or be denied something that’s important to him.
Ruckus
@HypersphericalCow:
I’m glad that my close exposure was only one year, 60 yrs ago, at a Catholic technical HS. That was far more than enough.
Anne Laurie
… And that local priests, who have enough on their hands already, can quietly go on pretending that their parishioners have never contravened official Church policy, at least not publicly enough to be denied the Eucharist. The biggest parish supporters may have ‘unnaturally’ few offspring / a history of secular serial monogamy / other-than-heterosexual lifestyles, but don’t ask, don’t tell has a long and (dis)honorable social history.
It takes a blunt weapon out of the tradcath’s hands — for the moment. Think of it as the parochial equivalent of blocking anti-voting legislation in the secular sphere. The Worst Party will still find ways to keep the ‘wrong’ people away, but it’s important those ways not be (further) codified by the sanction of law.
Catherine D.
I like “parish pest” – so true on so many levels.
As a marched-out-screaming Catlick (age 10), I don’t trust Francis the Jesuit, but he’s probably better than Ratzi the Nazi and JP the deuce.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
This nothing to do with abortion or religious views, it was completely political.
When Mario Cuomo was in office his was constantly attacked for being pro-choice, even though he was personally against abortion AND capital punishment.
But when pro-choice republicans got elected (Pataki and Giuliani) the very same voices who clubbed Cuomo went silent.
They did the same thing in 2004, attacking pro-choice John Kerry, but saying nothing of pro-choice Catholic Governor Schwarzenegger.
Their double standard has always been transparent, except to The Village.
hells littlest angel
The bishops’ resolve crumbled, and the conference descended into chaos, when a couple of altar boys walked by.
Ruckus
@guachi:
They’ve been on this road for a long time and some of them recognized the view over the next hill. Most of them seemed not to be able to see past their own noses. I’ll leave my view of the current day Catholic church to the imagination of the rest of you……
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
My Christian Scientist friend and I agreed that we see Biden as a very God-centered person.
What struck me was that when he was asked a while back about the possibility that he would be denied communion, he said very confidently, “It isn’t going to happen.” I wonder how he knew.
Yutsano
The thread is open and I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere else so…
Mike Gravel has finally gone to the other side.
Ruckus
@Catherine D.:
He does seem to see and understand the view in the modern world, actually agreeing with it or not.
Geminid
As practical matter, Joe Biden is more “pro-life” than these bishops.
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
Likely the phone on his desk can connect directly with a lot of people that you and I never could. And it likely has for a very long time.
Brachiator
Is the Catholic Church against the death penalty. Is the Catholic Church against poverty and the exploitation of the poor? Were they going to withhold communion from politicians “wrong” about these issues?
I am not Catholic or religious at all and could not give a shit about Catholic doctrine or the attempts of adherents to establish rule of theocracy.
It is ridiculous that these goons would use pretend sanctimony to try to bring pain to the Bidens.
It’s a good thing if they have really retreated on this.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Biden has a high EQ. He gets people on a personal level.
WaterGirl
All these bishops need to be busted down to whatever the church equivalent of “private” in the army.
I guess that would make them all parish priests. Fuck these fucking political hacks masquerading as “holy” people.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@zhena gogolia: He has friends in high places
(photo)
Baud
@Geminid:
As a practical and general matter, Dems are more pro-life than Republicans.
Matt
I can’t even imagine the kind of moral Gordian knot that must be the minds of people who think, “I’m totally OK with covering up decades of child molestation, but giving communion to people I disagree with is OVER THE LINE!”
After the residential school shit that’s surfaced recently, the only thing the North American bishops should be plotting and scheming about is “how do we keep our church open despite our deliberate participation in genocide”.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
They are very, very well practiced at pretend sanctimony.
Those at this level of the Catholic church have been doing it for centuries.
dexwood
Fuck the bishops. It’s always the bishops. Fuck the Vatican, the pope, and all they control. 12 years of Catholic schools for me. Generally, a pretty good education, but I’ve been an atheist since I was 11. I still remember the moment.
Capri
@Brachiator: They have a (bullshit) answer for that line of criticism. They said abortion is different because it happens in the family or something equally lame.
debbie
Good. I really didn’t think they’d back down.
Chetan Murthy
@Catherine D.:
ISWYDT.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My 78 year old mom goes to the same Catholic church every Sunday. She was pissed when I asked her how she felt about the church wanting to refuse communion to Biden. And she never gets pissed.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
I heard him asked that question last week and he replied that it was a personal matter.
lollipopguild
@Baud: The smarter Bishops understand that cutting Biden off from communion will only backfire on the Church.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
They are practiced at the art of deception.
debbie
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
I hope the toes of Benedict’s little red slippers curl in rage.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Some of them are damned close to perfecting that art.
E.
I hate the church about as much as anyone but can I just say that it is 108F outside and I live in a very old house without cooling. It’s freaking hot in here.
dexwood
@Brachiator: Is that you, Mick?
Geminid
@Baud: M.D. Russ makes this argument in his September 2020 article in Bearing Drift, titled “Joe Biden is the Pro Life Candidate.” Russ compares the lower abortion rates under Clinton and Obama to the higher rates under Reagan and Bushes 1 and 2. He then cites studies suggesting that overturning Roe v. Wade would result in a drop in abortion of as little as 4%. Then he refers to a study by William Johnston, a researcher at the Global Life Campaign, that found 25-40% of abortions are for economic reasons. Russ concludes:
raven
Sixth hole of playoff’s at the Travelers!
Baud
@E.: ouch.
Bex
Said in the voice of the Church Lady from SNL: Who does the bishops’ PR? SATAN???
Catherine D.
@debbie:
Ooh, does he wear stripey socks?
Elizabelle
@E.: Poor thing. I would be thinking “hotel” about now. 108. Brutal.
WRT the topic: I think it’s the conservative bishops that are driving Catholics out of the pews. Pope Francis is actually liked and respected, much more than the culture warrior types in dresses.
Ratzinger. All I can say is that my fellow lapsed Catholics and I just called him Ratzinger. Horrible choice.
I think it’s interesting that the Bidens can see past all the ugliness fomented by the conservatives, and hone in on the more inclusive and loving message of the Catholic faith. It’s in there, obscured by centuries of Church dogma. Just think about what Jesus had to say. And what he never said anything about.
I hope Pope Francis was taking names and retires a lot of the right-wingers who tried to pull this stunt. They are poison.
J R in WV
@zhena gogolia:
Il Papa told him… duh!
raven
7
geg6
@joel hanes:
The bishops have always been able to do that.
Elizabelle
Deciding to make the Catholic Church all about abortion. Ridiculous. Does anyone remember how that became so prevalent?
The Catholic Church should not have anything to say about sexuality. Except love and respect each other. They are so wrong on all of it, and covering up sexual abuse by priests as well.
They should allow women to serve as priests. They should allow priests to marry. The current system is not working out for them. It has actually perverted them, and separated them from their parishioners and the larger community, although not in the direction of the Creator they profess to serve. Rather the other.
mac8
@Brachiator:
Yep. Pro-life means you value life at all stages, no exceptions or excuses. At least, that’s what the nuns at my high school taught me. I increasingly wonder if they were supposed to emphasize the broad definition of pro-life as much as they did or if they were really meant to indoctrinate us a bit more. Either way, I’m grateful, as once I started voting, that bit of teaching definitely sped up my realization of “republican policies/politicians are generally awful” and also of the fact that republicans are generally hypocrites.
I am nominally still a Catholic, but every time the bishops pull a stunt like this, I am this much closer to saying screw it and leaving officially.
trollhattan
As it’s a mere 90 degrees here in the Sacramento metroplex I checked in on the PNW: Seattle is 101 and Portand is an unreal 109. 114 is predicted for tomorrow. Fresh out of can’t-evens.
Elizabelle
If the bishops are going to say this kind of outdated shit, maybe they should go back to speaking only in Latin.
It won’t offend us as much.
HumboldtBlue
Fuck’em all. The fucking sanctimonious fucks.
And they have suspended the US track and field trials until 830 PM PST due to excessive heat in Eugene, Ore.
raven
@trollhattan: 8
ian
@zhena gogolia:
The DC Bishop has said for many years he will give communion to Pelosi, Kerry, Biden, any catholic pro-choice politician. So the pro-choice dems were not in danger in DC of being denied communion by this decision of the bishops. Not sure if that is what your friend may have been referring too.
FelonyGovt
I wonder if some of the US bishops are concerned about the possible loss of their tax exemption if they get too overtly political. They should be.
As a non- practicing Jew observing from the sidelines, I’ve known many Catholics who are good, devout people but who don’t accept the Church’s teachings on divorce, contraception and other matters.
Doug R
I thought this was made even worse by the timing of the announcement coming mere weeks after 215 unmarked graves and over 700 unmarked graves were found in former Catholic run residential schools. There’s been 4 churches burned down in the last week within a few hours’ drive of the Kamloops school, all on reserve land.
Brachiator
@dexwood:
Well, these bishops are finding that they can’t always get what they want.
Louise B.
@Elizabelle: Hotels in Portland are expensive this evening – I priced out a Holiday Inn Express at $196 a night.
raven
8
zhena gogolia
@ian:
Oh, I meant Biden said that, not my friend.
RSA
The Catholic hierarchy is much more conservative than everyday Catholics in the U.S., especially those raised in the faith who are now just cultural Catholics or C&E Catholics (Mass attendance on Christmas and Easter). For a different example, divorced-and-remarried Catholics who haven’t received an annulment are officially forbidden from taking communion. But surveys show that most Catholics in that category don’t follow the restriction and most Catholics in general think this shouldn’t be a problem.
dexwood
@Brachiator: Now that’s satisfaction.
raven
Harris English in 8 extra holes for the win! Lot more fun than worrying about some fucking mackerel snappers!
Kelly
107 in the shade here in the western Cascade foothills. Many all time heat records are breaking including the hottest temp ever in all of Canada 46.6 C as they measure it 116 F to US-ian.
Our main heat is a heat pump which also gives us central air conditioning so we’re staying inside.
Another Scott
@Elizabelle: Repost Jill LePore – Birthright (from 2011):
It was always about dividing Democrats and gaining more power. It was never about “morality” or “family” any other of that hogwash they were spewing.
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
What if you understand Latin?
I’m more of the line they should just shut the fuck up. But then we do allow free speech. Which is sometimes worth what you pay for it.
brantl
The Catholic church is doing its damndest to drive out anybody who thinks for themselves.
Kelly
@HumboldtBlue: By 8:30 Eugene will be down to a refreshing 101~102.
Emma from Miami
@Elizabelle: And the funniest part is that until 1869 the Catholic belief was that the fetus became a human being at ensoulement, also know as the quickening (no jokes please), which was the first time the mother felt the fetus move, which was between 16 and 22 weeks of pregnancy.
ET
Guess the thought of withholding the sacraments from those politicians that support the death penalty didn’t enter their discussion….
M31
Biden’s not infallible, but he has the phone # of someone who is
Ruckus
@brantl:
That’s not a new policy, they were doing that 60 yrs ago when I was involved.
Kelly
Swam in the Little N Santiam river at 10 am. Air temp was 76, water 72. Our water temp has rarely gotten up to 72 in June even that would be late afternoon. Also the water volume is 110 cu ft per second so there is still a little current. Usually when the water is this warm the volume under 50 cfs.
Eric S.
@raven: At first I thought you were moving while to whole (and maybe you were) then I realized it was in extended playoffs.
raven
@Eric S.: It was fun!
Dorothy A. Winsor
I was raised Catholic. If I’m anything right now, I suppose I’d say I was a lapsed Unitarian. So mostly I figure if people want to subject themselves to the bishops, that’s their choice. The really nasty part of this is how political it is. This isn’t Biden’s pastor counseling him. This is the whole Republican-conservative Christian alliance shoring one another up.
Another Scott
Might be part of the reason why Biden looked tired earlier in the week…
The Orwellian “defensive precision airstrikes” is, well, Orwellian. But such is the world we live in.
Cheers,
Scott.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@trollhattan: It’s going to be 114 in Portland Oregon tomorrow? That’s, like, insane. It’s not just like insane, it is insane.
James E Powell
@RSA:
See also the right-wing Catholics on the supreme court, especially the creepy cult member Barrett.
Kelly
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: Our overnight low is forecast at 75. A low of 60 is a hot is a hot night in Oregon. I’ve lived here my entire 65 years. Crazy hot.
raven
And the Hawks are on fire early!
Splitting Image
@Yutsano:
Oh, you mean that other side. I thought you meant the other other side. He’s been there for awhile frankly.
Well, rest in peace, Mike.
HumboldtBlue
This is hands down the best Denzel Washington impersonation I have ever seen.
Uncle Cosmo
“I was raised ‘in the Church’, although I walked out of mine after parochial high-school graduation and never looked back.” See ya & raze ya: I left the One Holy Catholic & Apostolic Church 6 weeks after my
Goyishe Bar MitzvahConfirmation when I informed my mother one Sunday morning, I’m not going to church because I don’t believe in a word of it. And like you, never looked back – what was there to look at but a bunch of old farts in skirts and a gaggle of Sisters Sadistica?“[L]ast I looked, the American Catholic Church was providing an outsized portion of global Church support… ” Bangalore! The USAn arm of OHC&AC LLC has historically skipped on all sorts of doctrinal apostasy due to this fact. As I strenuously insist to my never-Catholic friends, to understand the OHC&AC only requires three modest words: Follow. The. MONEY! There’s a reason that the Church didn’t start to admit (let alone address) the massive betrayal of priestly child abuse until the frackin’ lawsuits started to be filed. My Dad was spot-on when he said that all they cared about was what was in the collection envelope every Sunday.
Good luck to Pope Frankie, who IMO is a decent guy who means well – he’s wrestling with a hierarchy shot full of kneejerk anti-Communists (courtesy of Wojtyla) and not-so-crypto-fascisti (courtesy of Ratso Ratzinger).
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
Heh.
Caphilldcne
I knew I was an atheist and did not believe the catechism by age 12. I stopped going to church as soon as possible at 18. I appreciate that Catholicism gave me the concept of good works and of social justice although that needed a lot of refinement. I don’t appreciate the guilt. Nor my homophobic self-loathing that took until I was 29 to come out as gay. I have come to truly despise the bishops and the church. All in all the church could do the most good by dissolving itself and giving every bit of its money to the poor.
Mallard Filmore
@E.:
I reccomend getting your shirt and pants (long if possible) very damp or wet, then sitting in front of a fan. Evaporation sucks away a LOT of heat.
Geminid
@Another Scott: The Moral Majority is now defunct. But Christian Dominionists based Liberty University still have a discrete, informal network that influences central Virginia Republican politics. They ran a Texas trsnsplant for the 6th District congressional nomination in 2018, trying to succeed Bob Goodlatte. The effort failed, but several weeks later, the 5th District Congressman abruptly announced his retirement, and they ran her for that nomination. She lost the District Committee vote 19-18.
The Liberty crowd got their revenge last year when the loathsome Bob Good went from Liberty U. administrator to 5th District nominee by beating the incumbent in a convention. Good won the general election by 5 points, and Democrats here will go all out to make him a one termer..
Starfish
@Baud: I wanted a lot of Catholics to refuse communion in solidarity with Biden. The way the forced-birth that tradCaths want is contributing to poor maternal outcomes is very bad.
marklar
Pope Skywalker is slowly bringing balance back to the Force (after Pope Sidious embraced the Dark Side).
Starfish
@Brachiator:
How many Catholics are on the Supreme Court right now?
Geminid
@Geminid: The twice unsuccessful 2018 candidate was Cynthia Dunbar. Before she came to Virginia to work at Liberty, Dunbar had made a name among politica evangelicals as a Texas state school board member. It was obvious from her two 2018 races that Liberty had an organization backing her that they keep on the down-low.
NotMax
@Starfish
More than it takes to screw in a light bulb.
(obligatory rejoinder) “I didn’t know Catholics could fit in a light bulb.”
:)
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I figured Biden looked tired because of his whirlwind overseas trip. ?♀️
2liberal
@raven:
why are we having all these soccer threads but no NBA threads? I live in the PHX-burbs and the Suns are up 3-1 to get into the NBA finals!
WaterGirl
@Starfish: I know, I know, pick me!
Too many.
WaterGirl
@2liberal: We can have an NBA thread if there’s interest.
Starfish
@E.: Are you in the pacific northwest?
WaterGirl
You guys are having crazy heat waves, and there in Champaign, IL we are starting to contemplate the idea of building an ark.
Nope, nothing weird about the weather this year. This is all perfectly normal. //
edit: The grass is very green, and the bunnies are just hanging out in the middle of the grass. They have been out every day that it’s been rainy, which is to say every day for the past (seems like) week.
dww44
@E.: Stay safe. So hope the hot weather breaks soon. It’s scary when the weather is that extreme.
Suzanne
One aspect of this that the crazy conservatives are not considering is that, if they continue to push on this issue, they can guarantee that I won’t vote for a practicing Catholic for public office in the future. If they want to influence public policy, they’re violating the agreement. I really do not want the President taking direction from Rome.
But of course, they’re not thinking about that.
Suzanne
@2liberal: I am SOOOOO EXCITED about the SUNNIES!!! It was brutal being a Suns fan for the last 20 years and now they’re killin’ it!
I need a hat.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: It’s possible they think it won’t matter who you vote for. If they have the Supreme Court, for instance, they can negate what you want
raven
@2liberal: Because this blog is full of commies.
raven
@WaterGirl: I don’t think there is enough.
eta and I dvr games and watch the 2nd half at dawn when I wake up so I wouldn’t be here with my pithy comments.
gwangung
@Suzanne: Wasn’t the last time they made it to the finals the time they had to face Jordan in his prime? Talk about futility….
WaterGirl
@raven: Thanks for letting me know.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Trae Young is a weird looking dude. Just sayin.
Another Scott
@raven: [ assume this is a reply about the Catholics on the SCOTUS ]
Fight for 15!!11
[ check the antecedent ]
Whoops.
Though maybe it works for BBall too??
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
@gwangung: yes, 92. Ainge, Big Mouth Boy George and co.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ll be honest, I don’t really follow the NBA much anymore so I really didn’t know much about him but he’s a stone baller.
Did you get interested in soccer when you were stationed in Europe?
raven
Good, don’t let him bang him way out there.
Suzanne
@gwangung: Yes! The Bulls three-peated. It was brutal. But they had Barkley in his prime and they made it a very close contest.
raven
@Suzanne: Remember when they had Eddie Johnson from Illinois??
Suzanne
@raven: 1993.
raven
@Suzanne: 92-93
quakerinabasement
I recall that when JFK ran, he and the church took pains to assure voters he would not put the dictates of the Vatican ahead of U.S. law. Seems like the bishops don’t care about that perception any longer.
Thor Heyerdahl
Basketball adjacent (since it happened at the arena where the Raptors (and Maple Leafs) play in Toronto) and a record breaking level of vaccine doses at one location in one day. The previous North American record was 17,003 doses set at the Texas Motor Speedway in April.
25,000 doses administered: Scotiabank Arena clinic achieves record-breaking vaccine milestone
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: One thing that just grates on the socons really badly is that they are a minority, and they know they have lost respect. I think being marginalized in electoral life and knowing that they are increasingly scorned by others would be a tough pill to swallow for much of the laity, who really have an image of themselves as superiors.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl:
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Mary G
@lollipopguild: This. If the whackjob minority had actually issued this hateful policy despite being all but explicitly told not to by the pope’s posse, Biden could have had communion at a different church every Sunday until the end of his second term.
Elizabelle
@Another Scott: Thank you. I love Jill Lepore. Will read this.
@Emma from Miami: That makes more sense.
@Uncle Cosmo:
Have to agree with you there. It was a breath of fresh air to get Pope Francis after Ratzinger. May we find out why he retired, sooner rather than later.
Elizabelle
@Mary G:
I like your thinking there.
Elizabelle
As much as we despise the bishops’ rhetoric, the parish priests — and the rabbis — are doing the hardest work now, with the Surfside FL community. The good ones can be comforters, or at least not make a terrible time worse.
Anne Laurie
Pretty sure his calculations involved just how much bad stuff was coming to light — not just the ‘a few bad apples’ sexual abuse, but various money-laundering & tax-evasion schemes where the Vatican See was working with the Mafia & the (Protestant!) Swiss banking gnomes.
Didn’t follow it closely, because there are only so many hours, and a lot of it never made it to English-language media. But there were hundreds of millions of dollars involved, plus several suicides, some of which may have been murders.
Not saying anyone told Ratzinger he could retire quietly or else become the public face of this scandal… Pope B was a life-long Vatican operative, and could certainly calculate the odds on his own. Shiny new hippy-dippy New World pope took enough of the media’s eyes away from the dirty-money stories; trading the genuine exertions of serving as His Holiness for a new power-behind-the-throne / thorn-in-Pope-F’s side role wasn’t a bad risk.
(Once again, an analogy: If Trump was even one-tenth as smart as the MAGAts believe, that’s what he could’ve done last November… )
Brachiator
@Starfish:
Probably too many.
Gretchen
Dry and 100 degrees is not unusual here in Kansas City this time of year. They’re predicting rainy and high 70s this week, which is very weird.
Ruckus
@quakerinabasement:
That was 60 yrs ago. A lot has changed since then, in many areas, such as the parties are a lot farther apart than they seemed at that time.
laura
@Suzanne: have you checked out Rex Chapman’s twitter feed- it is Sun-tastic.
James E Powell
@Starfish:
Six. Gorsuch was raised Catholic, but went Episcopal.
RaflW
The hardcore really, really can’t accept reality.
This below was published just in March of this year. Benedict retired in 2013. Yes, it has been about 600 years since a Pope didn’t stay in the seat of power till death, but he made that choice. I do have my occasional wonderings why, but as a non-Catholic, it’s really just curiosity from the outside.
Percysowner
@Elizabelle: Or as Father Guido Sarducci said “You no playa the game, you no maka the rules”
CODave
BTW, it’s Unitarian Universalists. Of course we disagree amongst ourselves whether we should be churches or congregations.
catclub
I wish. Not a chance. No matter how political they become.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Yutsano: anthony kiedis thanks you.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Another Scott: i loved weyrich’s cover of metallica — “trapped under ice”.
artem1s
egads what a stupid assumption. access to more affordable and reliable contraception of all types means less surgical abortions. no matter what happens with Roe it won’t ‘save’ any ‘pre-born children’. women who are economically stable generally get to choose to have less children, period. they just get to make that choice sooner and more privately outside the prying eyes of those who believe their only purpose is to be incubators.
Uncle Cosmo
@Percysowner: IIRC that was in fact publicly said by Nixon’s Ag Sec Earl Butz, in response to Pope Paul’s rejection of birth control in the encyclical Humanae Vitae.
leeleeFL
@Chetan Murthy: Personally, Ratzi the Nazi was excellent!
J R in WV
Nice report on the RC Bishops and their disconnect with the real world.
One thing in there that may deserve a correction. Where you say
I’m pretty sure that the UUs are actually Unitarian-Universalist Church members, as my folks were associated with the UU organization. Was about 50 years ago, so memory is hazy, but still. They are not Trinitarian, so no Father, Son and Holy Ghost, nor Virgin Mary… that’s why Unitarian, to explain the major difference between the UU beliefs and traditional Christianity.
An interesting factoid, many signers of the Declaration of Independence were Unitarians.
polyorchnid octopunch
I gotta admit I’m wondering if the reaction to this has given the US
pedosbishops pause: https://globalnews.ca/news/7979413/mississauga-priest-public-backlash-comments-canada-residential-schools/He ended up stepping down because he realised that his parishioners were totally hanging him out to dry by ensuring that his comments got wide distribution, and that he was basically done there.