http://cakebysadiesmith.co.uk/celebration-cakes/one-direction-cake/ Those of us with conservative Catholic friends had to deal with the usual Facebook nonsense about how it all was coming to an end on Election Night – I couldn’t stop snipping at one of them, “Yes, a terrible night for legitimate rapists everywhere,” which indeed would make it a bad night for a certain sort of clericalist Catholic. Now I read this priceless bit from Sullivan:
Pay COD for isotretinoin without prescription But every now and again, that parallel church actually encounters – and cannot elide – the hierarchy. In Minnesota, where a third of the population is Catholic, the hierarchy insisted that the state amend its constitution to keep gay couples out of civil society and civil marriage. The hierarchy failed – as miserably as they failed in their trumped up “war on religion” nonsense. The Amendment didn’t pass. You cannot be exposed as an institution that is responsible for covering up the rape and torture of thousands of children and have any moral authority when it comes to the constitutional equality of gay citizens or the contraceptives that 99 percent of Catholic American women use at some point.
And so in Minnesota, a 17-year-old Catholic, Lennon Cihack, who goes to mass weekly, and who was diligently preparing for his confirmation, posted on his Facebook page a picture of himself and a poster opposing the Amendment. His mother is then called into the rectory by the local priest and told that the confirmation cannot occur. Then she is told that the entire family is now barred from communion. She appeals to the bishop. He tells her that if Lennon stands in front of the whole congregation and denounces marriage equality, he can be confirmed. The priest in question has denied barring Lennon from confirmation, but does not dispute any of the facts of the case. Meanwhile, of course, Lennon’s Facebook page is brimming with likes from his class-mates who are still being confirmed.
This is where we are. It feels like the last days of the Soviet Union. And I believe the mother, not the priest. Given what we now know about the hierarchy’s corruption, isn’t that the default position?
I will confess that I have some regrets about getting an annulment from the church. While I was divorced, I was officially an outsider. And being an outsider is the privileged Christian position, and the hierarchy is not making any progress to change that. In fact, it just gets worse. While families are told they can’t receive communion because they don’t favor a particular amendment to a state constitution, the bishop of Kansas City, convicted of not reporting suspicions of child abuse, continues “fulfilling all of his responsibilities as bishop of Kansas City,” and has not been reprimanded and is expected to attend the upcoming meeting of Catholic bishops.
I use the term “pseudo-Catholic” because Catholic is supposed to mean universal, but the hierarchy more and more has nothing to say to the actual experience of the mass of Catholics. Usquequo, Domine?
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