ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! Catholics Go Un-American

I spent the majority of my formative years in South Bend, IN. I was raised Catholic and attended Catholic school all my life until college. My high school was located across the street from Notre Dame and it would be safe to say that *most* of my teachers attended that institution of higher learning. In other words, I am familiar with Notre Dame, and I am deeply disappointed with all the bullshit that has been going on there since Obama was asked to be the commencement speaker.

Behold, Catholicism gets hip to youtube and ushers Fr. Corapi, a man with a resonant and authoritative voice, to blather their nonsense.

He claims the Church has “dishonored itself” by inviting Obama to be Notre Dame’s commencement speaker. HELLO, HE IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Normally, as a liberal, I wouldn’t invoke the label of president to elicit a reverent stance towards anyone. Fight the power, right? But in the past 5 months, the label and institution of the presidency has been restored as a respectful one, as it is no longer inhabited by a village idiot who unbalanced the world with cruel and thoughtless policies. Never did American political life (among other things) tip so dangerously toward chaos than during the 8 years of GWB. But now at the helm of our still teetering realm, we have AN INTELLIGENT, COMPASSIONATE, THOUGHTFUL PRESIDENT.

But apparently Obama doesn’t just disrespect life, Fr. Copari says he is the first president to have an “obviously public and pernicious anti-life and anti-Catholic Christian bias.” What the hell is an anti-Catholic Christian bias? What does that mean? Copari and the Newman Center must have added the word “Christian” in there just to throw us all off balance.

That is clearly going too far. I can understand that Catholics might object to some of Obama’s positions, but wtf, Catholics, I always thought you (we!) had better sense than this! LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE.

But maybe I am getting carried away, and the people at ND protesting the O man are just the fringe. After all, Obama received 7 more percentage points from the Catholics than fellow-papist Kerry did in 04. Catholics like Obama. We voted for him.

President Bush gave the commencement speech in May of 2001. Those were simpler times; he may have stolen the election, but it was another two years until he invaded a country and signified his ‘respect’ for life everywhere.

We are still in the midst of a torture scandal, in which our nation’s leadership (on both the right and left) failed to be forthcoming about interrogation policy in our terrorist prisons. This isn’t really big news as we’ve known that torture was going on for a while. But I can’t help but be scandalized that the Catholic Church is wasting its breathe dishonoring and making a fool of themselves by protesting Obama’s commencement speech, when they should be re-examining what it means to respect life, and where the Church’s priorities should lay. Like Bush, the Catholic Church has started to rely on culture wars to define Catholic culture. But if we want to foster a world where compassion, tolerance, and Christ’s love reigns, then we can all agree that torture, unjust war (to use the Catholic term!), and poverty degrade life in noticeable, impactful ways. I am pro-choice (though I have a nuanced view of abortion’s morality), and it is preposterous to devote so much energy to one wedge issue when there is so much more meaningful evil going on out there.

Catholics have a strong reputation for being crusaders for social justice, and I know that some Catholics believe that all injustice stems from abortion (the argument goes: if we cannot protect the innocent, who can we protect?!??!)

WELL WE CAN PROTECT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY ALIVE. PLEASE DIVERT YOUR VITRIOL AWAY FROM OUR PRESIDENT AND TOWARD MORE LEGITIMATE CAUSES.

[end rant]

by anna

One big gay family

My column this week is all about the hateful legacy of James Dobson, founder of the equally pernicious Focus on the Family, a far-right Christian organization. Dobson stepped down as the Chairman of the group recently and it remains to be seen what the future of the group will be.

Anway, in the column, I briefly mentioned a children’s educational video featuring the lovable SpongeBob Squarepants that Dobson protested due to its promotion of “homosexuality” and “tolerance,” since we all know that the two are truly heinous character traits. Incidentally, the video was created by the We Are Family Foundation in order to promote multiculturalism and tolerance after the 9/11 attacks, not that this matters to whackos like Dobson.

Well, I was able to dig up the video from 2005 and it is posted here for your viewing pleasure. I must warn you though that watching this may result in catching teh gay. A gold star for those who can actually spot SpongeBob.

-Indira

Pope Benedict Strikes Back (Again)

Around the time that Benedict was elected to the highest office on God’s green earth, a number of clever souls drew our attention to the unfortunate similarities between Benedict and Emperor Palpatine.

Please observe:

Princes of Darkness?

Just kidding, of course.

Now, a few years back when Benedict’s antics as Pope were only beginning, I wrote this article about Pope Benedict’s decision to reinstate the old-school Tridentine Mass. Of his penchant for extreme traditionalism, I had this to say:

But this past week on July 6, the pope declared that “what earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”

…
The Catholic Church is precariously dangling between modernity and tradition. Its efforts at modernity are only meant to distract from Benedict’s plan to time-travel back to the dark ages. He longs for a simpler time, when God wasn’t dead and no one questioned absolute power.

Benedict is up to his old tricks again, this time returning the indulgence system to a level of prestige unknown since…er…the dark ages, or at least since the ’50s (which were their own kind of dark ages). But this is after several weeks of absolute turmoil, in which Benedict first welcomed back a schismatic sect of conservative bishops known as the LeFebvrists, all the while apparently unaware that one of these bishops is a Holocaust denier (not to mention that the bishop LeFebvre himself was politically aligned with xenophobic and racist extremist French politician Le Pen).

Today the New York Times ran a story about f*#($& indulgences and the Church today. The publication of this article was bad timing of the politically motivated sort, as the paper clearly wants to further sully the name of Benedict in wake of his recent actions. But still, the article begs a valid point. If the guy is really up to these kinds of doctrinal shenanigans, now’s as good a time as any to talk about them.

This pope truly needs some better public relations management. But perhaps it would be better to say that even the best PR broker in the world could not save this man from himself.

Say you like the idea of a certain amount penance balancing out an equal amount of sin (this is roughly the idea of indulgences). It seems a little rudimentary and even a little barbarian, not at all part of Catholicism’s history of nuanced and mysterious theological explanations. But say the word for these particular penances, that is, indulgences, is mired in one of the world’s largest controversies to have ever taken place (that is, “The Protestant Revolution”). Say what this word represents led Martin Luther to nail his theses to a Wittenberg church door; say this word tumbles off the tongue, accompanied by the words “schism” and “Dark Ages” and “Spanish Inquisition.” Would you then decide to promote the idea behind this word, using its old name, when the whole world is frowning at your recent blunders? The answer is, clearly, NO!

I think Benedict ought to pray a few hundred rosaries for stirring up such tension between his flock and the other flocks out there in the field. He already pretty much permanently alienated our monotheistic brethren the Muslims back in 2006 when he said, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.“

Thanks, Benedict.

Then he alienates our other monotheistic brethren, the Jews, with his reacceptance of a Holocaust denier to the Church. (Granted, he later tried to force Williamson to recant.)

Then he reminds everybody of why Protestants exist in the first place and reinforces divisions within Christianity by reintroducing a highly charged word like “indulgence” back into our Church vocabulary.

Please, Benedict, will you pray for a little tact and media savvyness? Our ability to indulge your papal grace is wearing thin.

–Anna

Those classy anti-choicers

My obligatory Roe v. Wade column is up on the IDS website. I hope for the day when the issue of abortion will cease to consume us but until then, this is it. I definitely struck a more conciliatory note in the piece (blame it on Obama!) An excerpt-

Ultimately, the fight to rearticulate reproductive justice will rest with us liberals. After all, conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Jerome Corsi are far too busy promoting hateful rhetoric and referring to us as “baby killers.” Indeed, for a group that cares a great deal about the sanctity of life, anti-choicers have repeatedly opposed comprehensive sex education and other measures to decrease abortions.

Perhaps I’ve been swept up by all the talk of unity that seems to have surrounded us, but I’m tired of pro-choicers, particularly women, alienating well-meaning people from our dialogue. We might disagree on the specifics, but we can support the notion of a society that abhors unwanted pregnancies. This is not just our fight alone, and it never should be.

Just as my column went up though, I found this video by an anti-choice Catholic group that is beyond astounding.

Happy Roe v. Wade, eh?

-Indira

h/t- feministing

The Politics of genocide

I’ve deliberately kept quiet about the Israeli -Palestine conflict since everything that could be said about the situation has been said. This is not to belittle the deaths or anything but I don’t have much value to add. Countries have a right to defend themselves and while we can argue about the appropriate response, proportionality etc., it seems that people are forgetting that Hamas is a terrorist organization. Obviously, I’m not justifying the deaths of the 700+ Palestinians but Hamas routinely uses human shields and group members are firing mortars and rockets from civilian locations. This could help explain the disproportionate death toll. In any event, it’s time for a ceasefire and I hope President-Elect Obama can work towards this.

One thing interesting about the coverage is the flippant use of the word “genocide,” the overuse of which should be duly noted. A genocide is a concerted attempt to wipe out members of a certain ethnic or religious group and last time I checked, Israel isn’t perpetrating a campaign against Muslims, only against Hamas members. Indeed, when we look at the charter of terrorist entities like Hamas, we see that eliminating Israel is a stated goal and yet, we don’t consider this a threat of genocide. When I read stories comparing Israeli actions to Nazis, it makes me sick to my stomach. It’s one thing to dislike war but to equate the two is evil. A friend actually told me that it was ironic that a country founded after a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing is “masterminding” it’s own. Umm, that’s really fucked up. So, here’s my humble plea- can we please not use the word Genocide, Nazis, fascists or a permutation of these just because we disagree with something or dislike someone? I know that it’s the perfect straw man but doing so cheapens the memory of the 6 million Jews who died during the Holocaust and also belittles the suffering of those facing real genocide in Darfur. We’re also  left with this then- why can people take to the streets over Palestine while the campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Janjaweed is virtually ignored? If only we could muster a quarter of the indignation generated by Israel’s actions and direct it towards Darfur, things may be a little different in the region. But then again, Israel is everyone’s favorite punching bag.

-Indira

Burning bridges, not building them

This is fucked up. Evangelical pastor Rick Warren will be giving the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration. I don’t know what’s worse about this choice- that he’s anti-gay, anti-choice or anti-peace. Or all three. While we’re on the subject, what is the deal with Obama’s spiritual leaders? First, there was Donnie McClurkin and his “cures” for gayness, Rev. Wright (who needs no introduction), Rev. Pfelger and his generous use of the race card against Hillary Clinton and now, this.

And please, please spare me the grief about how this isn’t Obama’s choice to make. It’s true that a bipartisan Congressional committee makes the final arrangements regarding Inauguration Day but I have a hard time believing that as the President, you have no say over who gets to attend.

But the part that really kills me about Warren’s choice is that it overshadows the fact that civil rights leader (and one of my personal heroes) Rev. Joseph Lowery will deliver the benediction. Lowery is a devout Christian and supports both equal marriage and reproductive rights, a wonderful rejoinder to Warren’s hate-filled messages. But now, we have this huge distraction and people are (rightfully) upset about this.

For the past few weeks, some prominent liberals have been urging others to temper their criticism of Obama over his administration picks- the choice of Tim Geithner as Treasury Sec. comes to mind. But, this is precisely the sort of thing we criticize Republicans for- mind numbing adherence to leaders and authority and here we are, doing it again. Why shouldn’t we hold ourselves to the same standards? I understand that Obama campaigned on an agenda of unity and change but let’s be clear here- bipartisanship does not mean providing a national platform for bigotry and religious extremism. Episodes like this demonstrate that Democrats are going to have to figure out if it’s worth burning old bridges in order to build new (dangerous) ones.

-Indira