A reminder that the Pope has officially frowned on the whole “denying communion for political reasons” thing. But doing stuff the Pope said not to is hardly uncommon amongst American bishoprics.*
*pronounced “bishop pricks”.
He ‘frowned’ on molestation thing too. But he, and his predecessors, did nothing to stop it.
From the Omnibus Stupid MFer thread:
But they could fly a NAMBLA flag without any problem, I’m sure.
Unlike the Catholic Church, NAMBLA is open about its pedophilia.
I can see the opposition to the LGBTQ flag even if I disagree with the bishop on his action - there specific Catholic teachings in direct contradiction to a lot of what that flag represents.
But BLM? Even if some violent groups have attached themselves to it, it represents pretty clearly a call for inclusion and treating people equally. So, yeah, he can suck my ass.
And yet many German (and Austrian, I don’t know about other countries) Catholic churches fly the rainbow flag all the time, without a peep from any bishop. I know they’re special for that, but at least parts of the church, especially their laity, have begun to see the light. They also perform same-sex blessings, against the will of the Vatican.
The American Catholic Church has been on a mission to out-Catholic the global Catholic Church for a while.
Is it only the American clergy or also the laity? Because in Germany, the clerics are driven by the ever dwindling laity to change things.
If the Synodal Path should fail (as I expect it to because of the Vatican’s stance. The Vatican understandably gets a little nervous with German reformative aspirations…), the German Catholic Church is destined to became a small ultra-conservative cult.
I would imagine that there are at least some US Catholic bishops who wouldn’t have sanctioned the school. JPII and Benedict installed a lot of very conservative ones, but I imagine that Francis has put in some moderate (relative to senior Catholic clerics), and there may be some holdovers from before JPII (although they’d be pretty old by now).
The real problem with the Catholic Church is not predatory priests. There are predatory men everywhere, and their preferential treatment by our still-patriarchal society, over their victims, is of extremely long standing. Only in very recent times have victims had much recourse, in an organization or out of it. The real problem is that it is a completely top-down-governed institution, absolutely dedicated to preserving itself as a rigid male hierarchy. It is the lengths that the institution will go to retain its power over its laity that is the great scandal.
There are many constituents from bottom to top who disapprove mightily of these crimes – but because there is no structure for the ‘people’s voice’ within the Church, it’s enormously difficult to get any traction on all the changes that need to happen if there is to be any kind of regularized justice.
"NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The FBI has opened a widening investigation into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans going back decades, a rare federal foray into such cases looking specifically at whether priests took children across state lines to molest them, officials and others familiar with the inquiry told The Associated Press. "
I bet the FBI could open such an investigation into damn near any, if not any, single diocese and find guilt.
“Sex trafficking is a huge problem in the United States, where even children are being abused and exploited by disgusting pimps who hide in plain sight. But enough about the Catholic Church…”