Monday, March 5, 2012

Andrew Sullivan on Cardinal Dolan's Latest Call to Battle: "Creeping Toward Limbaughism"



Andrew Sullivan comments on the rousing address His Eminence Timothy M. Cardinal Dolan gave this past weekend, now that he's back from Rome with his purple hat: the speech informs Catholics that "we're" involved in a desperate battle for Catholic religious liberty in which the bishops issue orders and the faithful obey--as is right and fitting.  As Sullivan notes, the legacy of John Paul II continues to be alive and well among the current leaders of the Catholic church, a majority of whom he and his right-hand man Benedict have appointed, and the ultimate outcome of that legacy is that "by focusing primarily on sexual issues, the hierarchy in many countries is beginning to fuse with parties of the social right" as the bishops' rhetoric creeps "toward Limbaughism."


Sullivan counters Dolan's claim that "[i]f you want an authoritative voice, go to the bishops. They’re the ones that speak for the truths of the faith": 

Yes, they did a great job ensuring that thousands of children were left at the mercies of child predators for decades, didn't they? Just trust them. Don't listen to the majority of Catholics who dissent, or those brave souls who exposed the network of pedophiles and pederasts. Then the leader of an institution which refuses to allow women equality, boasts of using women as p.r. elements of a political campaign . . . .

He also points to the recent assertion of Britain's top Catholic prelate His Eminence Keith Cardinal O'Brien that permitting same-sex couples the right of civil marriage is "madness" akin to legalizing slavery.  As Sullivan notes in response to the British Eminence, 

It's in this context that you have to understand the recent cruel withholding of communion to a lesbian daughter at her mother's funeral, or the abrupt firing of a gifted music teacher because he sought to marry the man he loves. As modern society shifts, and as its own flock shifts with it, the Church hierarchy has decided to double-down on its sexual absolutism. The cruelty comes with it.

Andrew Sullivan is absolutely correct.  As I said this weekend in response to the latest from the U.S. Catholic bishops' "religious freedom" head honcho Bishop William Lori, pro-life my eye and Betty Martin!  And my rosy rear end.

The bishops are definitely something with their current call to battle.  But whatever that something is, it's decidedly not pro-life.  Nor pro-religious freedom nor pro-conscience for anyone except themselves.

And it's very definitely not pro-Jesus or pro-compassion or pro-mercy or pro-justice.  Let them continue to think all they wish that if you want the authentic voice of Catholicism, you must go to them.

For increasing numbers of Catholics and the public at large, however, that claim is as loony as is the claim that the same-sex marriage is madness.  In the view of many of us now, madness would be allowing the bishops unilateral and uncontested authority to define what's Catholic, given their repeated and ongoing betrayal of core Catholic values in all the egregious respects Sullivan outlines here.

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