Sr. Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK: A Catholic Social Justice Lobby previewed the organization’s upcoming “Nuns on the Bus” tour on The Colbert Report last night:
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| Radical Feminist Nuns – Simone Campbell | |
Catholic bishops gather this week for a national meeting in Atlanta facing questions about the political nature of a high-profile religious liberty campaign targeted at the Obama administration. ”We’re not trying to throw an election,” Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore said in an interview last week.
It’s a bad sign for bishops when they are essentially forced to explain that they are not a faith-based Super Pac for the Romney campaign. Most bishops don’t want to be the Republican party at prayer, but their alarmist rhetoric and consistent antagonism toward the Obama administration often covey that impression. The amount of institutional energy spent on the bishops’ upcoming “Fortnight for Freedom” events is staggering and disproportionate. Americans are out of work. The gap between rich and poor is reminiscent of the Gilded Era. Corporate money is distorting our democratic process. Facing these urgent challenges, bishops are launching a well-oiled national campaign reaching across every diocese that just might solidify for Americans how out of touch some bishops are with the real threats faced by working families.
Thorny policy disputes between Catholic bishops and the Obama administration are described by some church leaders in near apocalyptic terms. An Illinois bishop compared Obama administration policies to those of Hitler and Stalin. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, claims the administration is “strangling“ the Catholic Church. Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland has expressed fear of “despotism.” All of this ignores the substantial progress the administration has made in responding to Catholic concerns and conveniently papers over the bishops’ role in moving the goal posts.
The real question is do moderate bishops still hold enough influence in the U.S. church to successfully make the case that there are enormous risks involved with allowing this campaign to get dragged through the political mud. This will be a challenge at a time when conservative intellectuals like Robert George, the Cardinal Newman Society and Catholic activists increasingly push the hierarchy to reduce the Catholic witness in politics to a few hot-button issues. Fighting that tide becomes even harder now that John Carr, the bishops’ prominent social justice point man over the last 25 years, has announced his retirement.
There are encouraging signs that the moderates recognize what’s at stake. Bishop Stephan Blaire, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, lamented in a recent interview that groups “very far to the right” are seeking to draw the bishops into “an anti-Obama campaign.” An unnamed bishop was quoted in the Washington Post last weekend admitting that how the bishops keep this religious liberty initiative from becoming over politicized is “a huge dilemma.”
In past years, there have been temperate appeals to prudence from some bishops and that’s needed more than ever today. In an interview with the National Catholic Reporter in 2009, Archbishop Michael Sheehan warned that bishops marginalize themselves when they embrace “combative tactics” in the realm of politics. He was speaking in response to the torrent of criticism the University of Notre Dame faced from bishops for inviting President Obama to give the commencement. And while many Catholic bishops lined up at a national meeting just after the 2008 election to describe the incoming administration in ominous tones, Bishop Blaise Cupich warned his brother bishops against “a prophecy of denunciation” and urged for a more conciliatory approach.
Catholic bishops play a vital role in pushing for public policies that serve the common good. Sweeping generalizations that depict the bishops (there are 260 of them) as only anti-Obama agitators is as simplistic as the conservative meme that there is a “war on religion.” Bishops have fought for humane immigration reform as the Republican Party happily embraces xenophobia and ugly nativism. They have described Rep. Paul Ryan’s GOP budget proposal as failing to meet a basic moral test. Catholic leaders have defended social safety nets that help the most vulnerable at a time when conservatives are working overtime to undermine them. And bishops know that the blind faith in radical individualism and anti-government zeal that now animates the GOP is anathema to the communitarian sensibilities of Catholicism.
All of this important public witness, however, is compromised if bishops even give the impression that their real goal is to boot Obama from office. This would be another crippling blow to their moral credibility in public life, and do a profound disservice to voters heading to the polls in November.
Photo credit: Catholic Church (England and Wales), Flickr
A group of Catholics in the nation’s capital has released a letter speaking out against the Bishops’ recent escalation of their fight against the HHS contraception ruling.
The authors, a longstanding community of parishioners at The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, an influential Washington church, specifically identify the lawsuits by 13 Catholic dioceses (including their own Archdiocese) and the extreme rhetoric that has been used to describe genuine policy disagreements on this issue.
In the letter, the parishioners express concern that they are “in danger of becoming pawns” in a political feud and lament the enormous church resources being dedicated to this issue “in this time of worldwide economic distress and suffering”:
We are deeply concerned that, under cover of a campaign for religious liberty, the provision of universal health care–a priority of Catholic social teaching from the early years of the last century–is being turned into a wedge issue in a highly-charged political environment and that our parish, and indeed the wider church, is in danger of being rent asunder by partisan politics. We, as a group, may have differing views as to the wisdom of the details of the Health and Human Services mandate, against which our archdiocese has now announced a lawsuit in federal court, but we are united in our concern that the bishops’ alarmist call to defend religious freedom has had the effect of shutting down discussion.
It is a step too far. We, the faithful, are in danger of becoming pawns and collateral damage in a standoff between our church and our government.
While HHS may have been tone-deaf and stubborn in its handling of the mandate, we believe that the points of disagreement have been grossly overstated by the bishops. In no way do we feel that our religious freedom is at risk. We find it grotesque to have the call for this “Fortnight” evoke the names of holy martyrs who died resisting tyranny. And we are concerned that the extremist rhetoric used to describe the “threat to our freedoms” both undermines the credibility of our church and insults those in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia who are truly suffering for their faith.
Furthermore, we find it incomprehensible that, in this time of worldwide economic distress and suffering, and with the church still reeling from the child abuse scandal, our bishops have chosen to focus the spiritual and material resources of our church on this issue, at the expense of the gospel injunction that we serve the poor and attend to the needs of the “least of these”.
The letter echoes the critique made by Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, California who recently publicly challenged the tactical wisdom of the lawsuits and warned of right-wing groups trying to co-opt the bishops’ efforts for partisan ends.
It also reflects the feelings of Catholics across the country, 57% of whom do not believe religious liberty is threatened in America today and about 60% of whom believe religiously affiliated social-service agencies, colleges, hospitals, and privately owned small businesses should be required to provide health care plans that cover contraception.
Add in the Vatican’s controversial campaign to reform American women religious and renewed attention to top bishops’ handling of the sexual abuse crisis, and it’s clear that Catholic leaders who ignore the concerns raised in this letter risk creating serious division among faithful Catholics in the pews.
UPDATE: The group now has a website: http://www.familiesunitedinfaith.blogspot.com/
Read the full letter below:
Religious Liberty, Health Care, and the Catholic Faithful
We are a group of thirty parishioners at The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington, DC. Our group, formed into a small faith community in the 1960s, has been active in and deeply committed to our parish for all the intervening years. Blessed Sacrament is our parish community, and we have loved and served it to the best of our abilities. We have helped to build and strengthen its institutions, participated in every aspect of its spiritual and social life, seen our children educated in our parish school, and received the sacraments in our church. Our views and actions on issues of social and economic justice, war and peace, and the dignity of all peoples have been in great measure determined by our life in this faith community.
Situated in Washington, our parish community is a complex one, reflecting and bringing together the political diversity of the nation’s capital, with leaders in government and media joining each Sunday in prayer. We have been through trying times together–war, civil strife, scandals in the church, terrorist attacks on our nation, contested elections, and controversial legislation–but we have remained a community, with our parish serving as our refuge. For all of us, whatever our political philosophy, our church has been a welcoming home.
This, we fear, may be changing.
On two recent consecutive Sundays, our parish bulletin has included rather alarming inserts from the Archdiocese speaking of a grave threat to religious freedom in America. The first of these was entitled “Our First, Most Cherished Freedom,” while the second closed with the dire warning that Catholics must “Act on Your Beliefs While You Still Can.” All of this, we understand, is part of a buildup to mobilize Catholics to participate in the “Fortnight for Freedom”–a two-week long demonstration planned by the bishops chiefly as a protest against the Affordable Care Act.
We are deeply concerned that, under cover of a campaign for religious liberty, the provision of universal health care–a priority of Catholic social teaching from the early years of the last century–is being turned into a wedge issue in a highly-charged political environment and that our parish, and indeed the wider church, is in danger of being rent asunder by partisan politics. We, as a group, may have differing views as to the wisdom of the details of the Health and Human Services mandate, against which our archdiocese has now announced a lawsuit in federal court, but we are united in our concern that the bishops’ alarmist call to defend religious freedom has had the effect of shutting down discussion.
It is a step too far. We, the faithful, are in danger of becoming pawns and collateral damage in a standoff between our church and our government.
While HHS may have been tone-deaf and stubborn in its handling of the mandate, we believe that the points of disagreement have been grossly overstated by the bishops. In no way do we feel that our religious freedom is at risk. We find it grotesque to have the call for this “Fortnight” evoke the names of holy martyrs who died resisting tyranny. And we are concerned that the extremist rhetoric used to describe the “threat to our freedoms” both undermines the credibility of our church and insults those in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia who are truly suffering for their faith.
Furthermore, we find it incomprehensible that, in this time of worldwide economic distress and suffering, and with the church still reeling from the child abuse scandal, our bishops have chosen to focus the spiritual and material resources of our church on this issue, at the expense of the gospel injunction that we serve the poor and attend to the needs of the “least of these”.
And finally, to return to the subject of our own parish, we are anguished by the threat of its being drawn into the vortex of partisanship. This destructive process has already begun.
One of our group recounts being disturbed and deeply hurt by an incident that occurred recently at a parish-sponsored lecture featuring a diocesan official speaking about the health care controversy. The lecture itself contained references to what was repeatedly referred to as “Obamacare”–a term that elicited more heat than light. During the question-and-answer period the atmosphere became even more charged, until finally one person arose and spat out: “I have seen cars in our parish parking lot with Obama stickers on them. They are complicitous in all this.” Since the member of our group had such a sticker on her car, she felt unwelcome and left the event before it ended.
This is what we fear: that our church becomes tragically reduced to a partisan player in an election-year campaign and that our parish community becomes a battleground and no longer a source of spiritual strength.
Given our opposition to the misguided and costly “Fortnight for Freedom we are heartened by recent reports that the bishops are not in full unity on the question of how to respond to the Affordable Care Act and that at least some of them may be disposed to reconsider the overwrought statements that have been made concerning threats to our religious liberties.
And so we pray that our bishops, the clergy, and Catholic laypeople in our parish and across the land will join hands to pull us all back from the brink before it is too late. We pray also that we can come together as a community of faithful, and as a country, with renewed resolve to address the broad range of critical social, political, and economic issues affecting our nation and the world.
Our Group:
Marie and Paul Barry; Tony and Judy Carroll; Joy and Jerry Choppin; James and Jean Connell; Christa and Richard Cross; Larry Carter and Odelia Funke; Kathleen and Richard Hage; Timothy and Marilyn Hanlon; Ann and Ray Hannapel; James and Elizabeth Kane; Anne Kilcullen; Marion and John McCartney; John and Betty O’Connor; Ivo and Patricia Spalatin; Eileen and James Zogby
A long-simmering conflict between two conservative religious liberty organizations has come to a head, with board members of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty recently releasing a statement publicly condemning a staff member of the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) for a tweet disparaging the Muslim faith as a threat to “destroy the US” and not a religion.
The release comes after a private letter to TMLC President Richard Thompson in March went unanswered. It’s authored by board members Bill Mumma, Mary Ann Glendon and Robert George. Said George:
If the Thomas More Law Center professes itself to be a defender of religious liberty, let it follow the lead of the Becket Fund in standing up for the rights of all. Religious freedom organizations should be leading the fight against religious bigotry; they should not be practicing it against our Muslim fellow citizens or anyone else.
While the other authors deserve credit for speaking out against this hateful bigotry, it raises larger questions about Dr. George in particular. Namely, if he opposes these kinds of views so strongly, why does he continue to associate with a group that funnels millions of dollars to extremists that hold them?
As I’ve highlighted before, Professor George sits on the board of the conservative Bradley Foundation, which has given some of the worst anti-Islam organizations in the country over $4 million in the last few years. Their grantees are the very people responsible for the kind of rhetoric and anti-Muslim activism George condemns the TMLC for spreading.
When confronted about this apparent disparity, Dr. George was unwilling to talk about it and expressed no indication that he sees any problem with his involvement in a foundation that incubates the hatred he purports to condemn.
Speaking out for the religious rights of Muslims is admirable, but a true ally would lead with his actions.
This week, Laurie Goodstein at The New York Times reported on a new campaign from women religious this summer: a cross-country bus tour highlighting the valuable work of sisters in local communities and defending vulnerable populations from the devastating budget cuts of the House GOP budget.
“We’re doing this because these are life issues,” said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a liberal social justice lobby in Washington. “And by lifting up the work of Catholic sisters, we will demonstrate the very programs and services that will be decimated by the House budget.”
Goodstein also notes that the bus tour is occurring at the same time as the Catholic Bishops “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign in opposition to the HHS contraception regulations and comes on the heels of the Vatican’s harsh critique of American women religious.