By DEXTER DUGGAN
Three conservative Christian public figures lamented the lack of courage by national Catholic leaders when The Wanderer asked their reaction to a widening social whirlpool whose velocity increased when Vice President Joe Biden performed a “same-sex marriage” of two homosexual White House staffers at his residence as August began.
The Wanderer noted Biden’s defiance in last week’s August 18 hardcopy issue, under the front-page headline, “Soft Treatment for Clinton, Biden — But Media Boast Over Hostile Coverage of Trump.”
This week we follow up with observations from three laypeople about the failure of bishops over the years to prevent the U.S. Church’s foundational moral authority from slipping away, until one day it may vanish.
It seemed to suffice that all would be well with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as long as politicians followed liberal political checklists.
Indeed, in 2004, when Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in Rome, soon to become Pope Benedict XVI, sent liberal Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, the archbishop of Washington, instructions that openly defiant, unrepentant Catholic politicians must be denied the Eucharist, McCarrick stuck the instructions into his drawer and gave the U.S. bishops a watered-down version of what Ratzinger had said.
Liberal Democrat Biden long has claimed to be a faithful, practicing Catholic even while boldly spurning foundational Church teaching on issues including massive permissive abortion, religious believers being forced to violate their consciences, embryonic stem-cell research and tax funding for it, and now marriage and bathroom invasions.
He is firmly with left-wing Democrats on these issues but completely at war with traditional morality.
When The Wanderer asked the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., both last spring and in August to comment on Biden, its media office ducked.
Even when three leading U.S. bishops issued a statement at the USCCB’s blog on August 5, “Faithful Witness to Marriage,” they didn’t mention anyone’s name when they referred to “a prominent Catholic politician publicly and voluntarily officiat(ing) at a ceremony to solemnize the relationship of two people of the same sex.”
Biden performing the defiant ceremony certainly didn’t receive the intense news coverage that, say, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gets almost every day, so it’s possible many people didn’t even know whom the bishops referred to.
Once again, Biden and his ilk, like the Culture of Death’s Democratic Cong. Nancy Pelosi, skate free to continue their morally deadly ways.
A few decades ago many high-ranking Democrats in political life undoubtedly were faithful to Church teaching as it properly affected their public conduct. But strong pressure from leftists to make them soften then abandon their stands didn’t meet much pushback from legitimately empowered Catholic authorities who could have strengthened them to remain firm.
It didn’t help that dissidents were allowed freely to sow doubt. For a decade a liberal Jesuit priest, Fr. Robert Drinan, was allowed to serve as an elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives, creating a scandalous example as a strong pro-abortionist while also fighting for the standard menu of liberal causes.
With the turbulent 1960s just behind them, confused congressional Democrats saw that no less than a priest was free to push the social revolution that included permissive abortion, so why shouldn’t they?
At least as much as anyone else, Drinan showed they would incur no Church or social penalty, while winning plaudits from dominant media.
By the time that Pope John Paul II in 1980 said priests must leave elected political positions, thereby persuading Drinan not to run for re-election again, deep damage already was done. John Paul became Pope in October 1978.
The three bishops’ statement on marriage at the USCCB blog noted that the challenge to faithful Catholics will only grow worse, but they didn’t seem to think it worth noting why the situation has become so threatening.
“Faithful witness can be challenging — and it will only grow more challenging in the years to come — but it is also the joy and responsibility of all Catholics, especially those who have embraced positions of leadership and public service,” they wrote.
Yes, martyrs should be joyful, but there would have been no need to make these faithful Catholics into martyrs if their shepherds had shown considerably more wisdom and courage. But not even a whisper of excommunication had come from Church bureaucrats who certainly had that penalty at hand. Just one surrender after another to secular aggression.
Following are comments to The Wanderer from three publicly active conservatives. Their names appear in italics, followed by their titles, then the comments of each.
Constantin Querard, a non-Catholic Christian and Arizona Republican political consultant:
“Politics aside, what our nation needs more than ever before is for someone or something to serve as an immovable moral compass. Someone or something needs to point to true north and must point to it no matter the circumstances. It can’t be someone because no single person will ever have the moral authority to fill the role, so it must be something.
“It seems obvious that that role must be played by the Church. Sadly, an institution that has lasted for thousands of years is so petrified by potential consequences, or is so divided on what constitutes true north, that it lacks the courage or wisdom required to fill this role. Without it, society will continue to drift away from the Christian values our nation was founded upon.
“I’m not sure how much longer we can wait for the Church, but it certainly seems like time is running out.”
Rob Haney, Catholic, GOP activist, and retired chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Party, headquartered in Phoenix:
“The USCCB bishops’ comments about how it’s getting worse for Catholics in the current culture could be considered laughable, considering the source. The comments are analogous to the UN saying it is getting worse for Jews in the world culture. The point I am making here is to say that the worsening conditions for Jews are attributable to the failings of the UN, just as the worsening conditions for Catholics are attributable to the failures of the USCCB.
“The decline in the culture was initiated in part from the decline of priestly formation in the seminaries, which resulted in heretical social-justice bishops advancing liberal agendas in place of fundamental Church doctrine. I do not believe that bishops are too scared to correct ‘Catholic’ politicians for their heresy as much as they agree with the heresy.
“In 1967, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, ‘progressive’ president of the University of Notre Dame, presided over a meeting of representatives of Catholic universities. This meeting came to be known as the Land O’Lakes Conference and has become infamous for its concluding statement which declared that Catholic higher education would accept no interference from bishops in the Catholic academic world. Our bishops lacked the moral courage to disagree.
“Thus began the decline of Catholic universities into the tragic institutions of secular culture they now have become. Neither Catholic universities nor bishops, because of their historical failings, have the moral authority to address the heresies surrounding them, even if they were troubled with the thought that it was their responsibility to call out the politicians by name.”
Barbara Simpson, San Francisco conservative commentator and Catholic:
“It’s interesting that USCCB President Archbishop Joseph Kurtz has said that things are getting worse for Catholics in this culture. He’s absolutely right, of course, and my only regret is that his message hasn’t reached other bishops and priests on the local level.
“I’ve talked to so many Catholics who lament the vacuousness of weekly homilies and the resistance of parish priests to confront the fact that the standards of right and wrong in Catholic teaching have almost disappeared in the general culture, and that has affected the attitude of many people who are, in reality, Catholics in name only.
“I think it’s a result of the ‘anything goes’ attitude of the sixties that has only gotten worse. The hierarchy is afraid to antagonize elected politicians who claim to be Catholic and yet who say and do things that are against the faith. VP Joe Biden officiating at a ‘gay wedding’ and Cong. Nancy Pelosi supporting abortion are just two. Who has the courage to speak out against their actions? No one that I’ve seen.
“What about the insults by Barack Obama, demanding that Georgetown University cover crucifixes and hide religious icons when he was to speak at the school. How dare he? Yet, the school caved in to those insulting demands because — why? Because he was president? Because he is a black president?
“Neither is a good reason. Obama’s demands were a kick in the teeth of good Catholics everywhere, yet he got away scot-free.
“The example set by the hierarchy in not speaking out against the watering down of Catholic teachings is leading to lower Mass attendance, a growing laissez-faire attitude to Church teachings on sin and right and wrong, and, in general, a movement to the ‘Protestantization’ of Catholicism.
“And none of this is helped by the statements of Pope Francis that lead the media, and all people, to think that Catholic rules are changing and loosening up and — hey, anything goes. The only thing that’s going is traditional Catholicism.”
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