Oh Bishop Where Art Thou?!

In a previous blog I had reflected on the moral inconsistency in the Diocese of Providence, where the Bishop has basically excommunicated Rep. Patrick Kennedy for his politically nuanced stand on abortion (and his stance of promoting the current health care bill in Congress without actively looking to add a strict prohibition against abortion in the bill)....and where on the other hand the Diocese has moved its employees' personal retirement accounts into funds that invest in the likes of Haliburton, General Dynamics and Rockwell International (top fund producers, top war industries).

In that post I did not linger around another issue--that of the Rhode Island Roman Catholic Church's sordid and egregious history of covering up cases of pedophilia. That example of moral inconsistency is almost too obvious these days to have to note. However, in recent weeks that whole issue has pushed its way glaringly back into the category of "notable" with the occurrence of several events: The recent annual meeting of US Roman Catholic Bishops where they approved a letter that attempts to put into words the value of moral respect for family, marriage and sexuality; and the final release of an official report in Ireland on the investigation of coverup by the Church and law authorities of decades of child sexual abuse. See Full Report

First, the US Roman Catholic Bishops met in their annual gathering to address key issues facing the Church and society at large. With two endless wars raging, that sap the US of its resources for social and economic health, and perpetuate US global militarism; with health care in the US now dominated by a gouging medical industry that is bankrupting families at an alarming rate and leading to tens of thousands of deaths each year; the Bishops chose to focus once again on pelvic morality-- all about the issues relating to sexuality and its social expression. And of all things, they seem to feel they have some kind of moral authority to do so. They are going to tell us all--Catholics and non-- that abortion is an intrinsic evil, family is a product of natural law with only one ideal expression, marriage likewise has only one main (and naturally defined) purpose, that homosexuality is deviant, and eventually, that 'cohabitation' is still "living in sin" (intrinsically evil).

In the midst of their meeting, these men--who are the leaders of an institution that has bankrupted itself financially by the liability it created under decades of the cover-up of sexual abuse of children--had to bring in experts with a $2mil study to clarify for them, among other things, that pedophilia and homosexuality are not the same thing and "are not necessarily connected." These are the men who uphold the Vatican's view that young men with "deep seated homosexual tendencies" will be banned from their seminary training--in part to "solve" the pedophilia problem! ("One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies," the Vatican has said in a previous "clarification" letter!) These are the men who believe that women are not equal to them--or at best are "separate but equal" in their (subservient) social and church roles. These are the men who have housekeepers to do their chores, allowances to pay for their food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, and retirement, assistants to arrange their schedules, resources to wine and dine with the powerful of society, but who somehow can know just what it means for struggling families--single mothers, loving homosexual couples--to live morally in these times.

And did I mention... the families on both sides of the wars that this country continues to fight?

Then there is the official report from the Commission of Investigation under the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in Dublin, IE just released. Its research tells of decades of coverup of child sexual abuse in Ireland--coverup perpetrated by the highest Church officials, aided by law enforcement, and fully known by the highest levels of the institution--the Vatican itself. If there is any inkling of hope in the whole situation it is the candid apology issued immediately after the release of this report, by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Diarmuid Martin, who among other things noted pointedly, “The sexual abuse of a child is and always was a crime in civil law. It is and always was a crime in canon law. It is and always was grievously sinful.” This certainly begs the question, at the same time, how the abuse and its coverup could have gone on for so many decades.

The US Roman Catholic Bishops have a legacy of documents that teach about profound truths. How those written "truths" seem so hollow, coming from an institution that not only seems so out of touch with everyday people and their struggles, but that also seems so glaringly out of touch with its own moral bankruptcy. Through their actions, the Bishops as institutional officials have hidden the work of pedophiles, lined the Church up with those who make wars--or make the weapons of wars-- led the faithful to support politicians whose records on war and the death penalty are as anti-life as they could be; then they presume to say their principled stand "for life" is clear, because they can unequivocally pronounce on matters that go on in women's bodies.

And Rep. Patrick Kennedy is the one who should consider himself not worthy to be in full communion with the Church?

RI Bishop Excommunicates Catholic Politician?

The news today is a bit disheartening if true, and also a bit cloudy, about the Bishop of RI and his "instruction" to Rep. Patrick Kennedy; if the report is correct, Kennedy has been told by the bishop not to receive communion in the RI diocese. The further report, from Kennedy, is that the bishop also instructed priests in the diocese not to give communion to Kennedy. I don't hear the bishop saying the word "excommunication," but that is what this amounts to, if in fact it isn't actually official.

The previous bishop of RI played with words a few years ago when he said about another Catholic, Maryanne Sorrentino, that he didn't excommunicate her but that she excommunicated herself in her work at Planned Parenthood. So we're talking about something akin to passive-aggressive excommunication. "Hey, Patrick, just make sure you don't go to communion..." says the bishop, without telling Patrick directly that he's out.

Ironically, it was Patrick's uncle Jack, who broke the anti-catholic stigma in national politics, and was elected as the first Roman Catholic to be President of the US back in 1960. At that time JFK brought forward a national discussion---theological as well as political-- about how a Roman Catholic could in fact be an effective politician at the national level, without simply being a mouthpiece of the Vatican. The best of theologians led the Church to consider the unique challenge of politicians in this democratic republic, to apply conscience and carefully nuanced political savvy in their leadership, not just to tow a single religious line that would otherwise affirm the anti-catholic fears of the day.

The US Bishops in fact have been no strangers to political nuance, at least when it comes to the powerful in society. Of course, a few--who have been marginalized in the process-- have dared to speak truth to power when it comes to war, the death penalty, social injustice, poverty, discrimination, the US 'culture of death.' There have been no threats however of excommunication of politicians who support the war in Iraq/Afghanistan, or the death penalty. Instead, the bishops (and the RI bishop included) have reserved their moral absolutes for issues that deal with what some moral theologians have pointedly called "pelvic morality": birth control, abortion, sex outside of marriage, sex inside of marriage, homosexuality (with the glaring omission of a moral absolutist approach toward pedophhilia).

Further disheartening is the way that such moralizing has led Catholic flocks to believe (or to believe that they should believe) that in ensuing elections, for example, one is morally obliged to vote against any politician who doesn't profess clearly to be anti-abortion; this in turn has led people to believe that their "moral choice" in such elections is to vote for politicians who are anti-abortion, despite their also being responsible for starting wars of aggression (or supporting such wars), responsible for implementing the death penalty, responsible for economic and social policies that marginalize and demonize the poor and the oppressed.

The US Bishops have some wonderfully nuanced statements on justice and peace (and the "seamless garment of life") for those who care to read them. But by example, rather than by their written words, they've led people to fall silently behind wars that even the Pope himself has declared an injustice; they've led people by their (in-)actions to vote against candidates whose lives reflect profound struggle for justice and equality, and to vote instead for candidates who under the "anti-abortion" banner, have perpetrated wars and injustice (state sponsored death) with impunity.

It is ironic that 40 years after John Kennedy struggled against anti-catholic prejudice to become President of the U.S., the Bishop of Rhode Island is now apparently weighing in on the matter with a judgment--however passively given--against JFK's very nephew: you can only be a Catholic politician in the US if you simply reflect without question the 'teachings' of Rome.

Meanwhile, the Bishop is also playing right on cue: as he brings the hammer down on Rep. Kennedy, he is also lining the Church up squarely behind the monied interests of the Medical Industry, adding his tacit voice against the healthcare reform that is on the table this very day--the reform for which Patrick Kennedy and others have struggled in the name of the poor and the disadvantaged.

Fortunately, there are too many adults in Rhode Island (a very "Roman Catholic State" in name at least) with well formed and active consciences who will take the Bishop's words and attitude under consideration, and then as they should, act in good conscience. (Primacy of conscience it is called.) It is too bad, in the process that the bishop in this instance may have forgotten the principle so profoundly modeled by Pope John XXIII, to lead by persuasion and example rather than by fear.