NPR’s god-besotted religious affairs reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty shyly points out that bears shit in the woods and the Catholic church is not the most liberal institution in the world. She’s very careful about it but even she can’t hide the scary.
Perceiving its core beliefs to be under threat from popular culture, the White House and even Catholics themselves, the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are pushing back.
She sure does give it her best shot, though. Here, Vatican, take this handy excuse with you before we spell out how you are “pushing back”: you are doing it all because you perceive your core beliefs to be under threat from popular culture, the White House and even Catholics themselves. No one can blame you for pushing back under those circumstances.
the Vatican made two significant announcements in a single week in April: First, that it wants to reconcile with the ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius the X, and secondly, that it will reorganize the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents 80 percent of Catholic sisters.
As justification for the reorganization, the Vatican accused the group of “radical feminism.”
Radical feminism! Oh no!! Will the Vatican be calling the nuns “the Stasi” next?
Funny what strange people you can find yourself in bed with once you start “pushing back” against feminism and other social justice concerns.
Fabian Bruskewitz, bishop of Lincoln, Neb., says the nuns are a “precious treasure,” but that some of their leaders were promoting ideas about sexuality that were at odds with the Catholic Church.
When it comes to core doctrines, Bruskewitz says, the church is not a democracy.
“These are not open to votes,” Bruskewitz says. “These are what God has revealed, and the custody of that revelation is of course in the possession of the church.”
Bruskewitz says the church can’t compromise its views just because the secular world doesn’t like them.
Yes: that’s the crux right there. That’s where we part ways. That’s the “free” in “freethought” – it’s opposition to the claim that “God” has revealed any such thing and that we are obliged to obey what the church claims “God” has revealed. It’s opposition to the truly disgusting idea that human beings can’t base our morality on what we like but instead have to let the church trump what human beings like in favor of a non-existent revelation that is in the church’s ”custody.” (That “of course” is choice, isn’t it. “Of course” the eternal rules for what everyone has to do that were made up by priests centuries ago are in our “custody” and no one else’s. We get to tell everybody what to do forever because!!)