An op, Ed from the Los Angeles Times that speaks to the growing rift between the highly conservative United States. Bishops conference for the Catholic Church here, and the Vatican, specifically, Pope Francis. While the pontiff makes every effort to emphasize the need for pastoral care from all members of the magisterium, the US catholic bishops conference has taken on the role of a kind of new inquisition. Not surprising, since most of the bishops were actually appointed during the reign of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
I am still wondering when the shoe will drop and the two sides of the “moral majority”–Evangelical Fundamentalists and Conservative Catholics–realize they have very different theology’s, and liturgies, and all kinds of other things. Right now I think they are still in a honeymoon phase of winning the overturning of Roe v. Wade. But surely there will come a day when the radical evangelical white nationalist realize that there allies are all representatives of what fundamentalist churches call “the whore of Babylon.”
Oh, well… As post WWI European history shows so well, Fascism makes for strange bedfellows.
The roots of today’s right-wing church hierarchy go back to the 1970s when Catholic activist (and Heritage Foundation co-founder) Paul Weyrich persuaded evangelical minister and broadcaster Jerry Falwell to join forces in a “moral majority” — Weyrich suggested the term. As a movement, ultraconservative Catholics and evangelicals would restore the values and morals of the founding fathers as Weyrich, Falwell and their followers saw them, a promise taken up by Reagan, their favored presidential candidate. Abortion became the Moral Majority’s flagship issue.
That highly politicized obsession has put U.S. Catholic bishops sharply at odds with the global church (and public opinion) in their animus to Pope Francis, who calls capital punishment, euthanasia and care for the poor equally important “pro-life” issues. For moderate Catholics like me, the deviation hits close to home, pushing the U.S. church too far from too much of Christ’s most elemental teachings while engaging in modern culture wars.
CALL ME MAGGIE 