Christian Nationalism                     Gerry O’Shea

During the summer, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia proudly highlighted her identification as a Christian nationalist. In typically exuberant language she declared: “I am being attacked by the godless left because I said I was a proud Christian nationalist. These evil people are even calling me a Nazi because I proudly love my country and my God.”

Fellow congresswomen Lauren Boebert and Mary Miller are on board with their colleague’s views in this area. Many other leaders from the political Right also align with these opinions including Governor Ron DeSantis who propounds the esoteric theory that “the nation’s founders did not desire a strict separation of church and state.” The Governor likes to quote from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, “Put on the full armor of God, so you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes” – except he alters “the devil’s” to the “left’s.”

The outcome of the inevitable clash for the Republican presidential nomination between Trump and DeSantis may well be determined by which one is deemed the stronger leader for the Christian crusade to re-make the country along the alt-right’s version of American Christianity.

Trump acolytes Michael Flynn and Roger Stone tied their “Reawaken America” tour message to the need for a new stress on their version of Christianity. And Republican gubernatorial nominee in Pennsylvania, the irrepressible Doug Mastriano, unashamedly fuses Trump’s stolen election lie with Christian nationalism.

This ideology propounds the belief that God’s providence was involved in the break with English rule in the 1775 Revolution and that the divine finger pointed clearly to approval for a Christian country. For them, the separation of church and state, a founding constitutional principle, doesn’t mean what it says or perhaps it should be reinterpreted to accommodate a focus on biblical beliefs. They see proponents of a secular country as the ones responsible for all the ills of modernity, certainly deserving Greene’s “godless” appellation.

Conspiracies are found in every nook and cranny of this theocratic ideology. The QAnon movement, which enjoys the support of millions, claims that a deep state cabal of satanic pedophiles is running a secret sex trafficking ring throughout Joe Biden’s government with the goal of keeping Donald Trump out of power. It is surely worrying that such odious rhetoric is deemed credible by so many.

A study conducted in May of 2022 shows that the strongest support for Christian nationalism comes from Republicans who identify as Evangelical or born-again Christians. 78% of this demographic favor formally declaring the United States a Christian nation while just 48% of the wider Republican movement opt for this outcome.

Nationalism starts with a belief that humanity is divisible into mutually distinct cultural groups with shared traits like language, religion and ethnicity. From there, nationalists believe that these groups should each have its own government which should promote and protect a nation’s cultural identity and, overall, help to provide meaning and purpose for the citizens.

Adding the descriptor Christian to the identification is meant to provide a biblical benediction for the nationalist title. Asserting that the American nation is inextricably linked to Christianity implies that the government should take active steps to maintain the country as a Christian entity.

In 1852, nearly a decade before the Civil War, Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, was asked to address some citizens of his hometown, Rochester, N.Y., about the ethical dimensions of slavery and what it says about the American body politic. In a famous speech that still resonates with modern audiences he spoke about the lack of moral standards evident in the political culture around him. “The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie.” Can the nation that huddled with the ungodliness of slavery for a hundred years really hold a light for Christian nationalism?

Christian Theology 101 clearly teaches that all people are equal, irrespective of race, color or country of origin. God’s people are counted based on their humanity, the sole criterion for inclusion. In other words, the Christian God is an internationalist and ascribing preferences to her based on where one is born or one’s skin color is to miss completely the point of Christ’s teaching.

Since the Allied victory in the Second World War the nationalist map of Europe has gradually settled, especially with the growth of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Ironically, in the last half century the leadership of this massive political transformation has primarily come from Berlin.

The Brexit debate in Great Britain revolved around nationalist issues. It was driven by English conservatives refusing to accept that they only have the second most powerful economy in Europe, following the country they defeated in two world wars not that long ago.

From Vladimir Putin’s perspective, he launched the war in Ukraine to assert that the people who live there are all Russians, based on his clear but fallacious understanding of history. In a 5000-word treatise titled, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” he insisted that the inhabitants of both countries are descendants of the Rus, an ancient people who settled the area between the Black and the Baltic Seas. In Putin’s twisted mind, they are bound together by a common territory and language and, importantly, by the Orthodox Christian faith.

In this amazing version of history, which guides and justifies the bombardment of Kyiv, Ukraine has never been and is not entitled to become a sovereign state. The reality on the ground there clearly reveals that the Ukrainians – to put it mildly – are driven by a fierce love of their homeland and heritage. The prevailing message asserted every day by the Ukrainian soldiers is that they are not Russians and are willing to die to prove it.

Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban in Hungary and Donald Trump are considered global leaders of Christian nationalism and Putin thrives in playing that role. He has increased the power of the Russian Orthodox Church, and he has a cozy relationship with the Patriarchs in Moscow who laud him for his “noble efforts” to bring Ukraine into the Russian fold.

Thomas Jefferson wisely spoke in 1804 of a wall of separation between church and state. There should be no room in America for preferential treatment for any religion. Muslims, Hindus and Jews should feel just as much at home as the great variety of Christian sects do.

Gerry OShea blogs at wemustbetalking.com

About five years ago, I attended a lecture in Manhattan by an Irish Redemptorist priest, Fr. Tony Flannery. The event was sponsored by Call to Action, an organization that is critical of the Catholic Church because of its ineptitude in applying the gospel message to the realities of our time. Fr. Flannery was and still is banned from speaking publicly in any church-owned facility.

In his speech he explained why he is considered a persona non grata, an outcast, by the powers in Rome. He named three areas of disagreement, pointing out that he does not question any of the traditional Catholic dogmas. He objects especially to the second-class status accorded to women in all areas of ecclesiastical life. He cautioned that while he favors full ordination rights for females the focus for now should be on achieving deaconate status, a step below the priesthood.

He favors ending mandatory celibacy and welcoming married priests, and he was adamant that his church’s attitude to the homosexual community could only be described as pathetic. He spoke with conviction and left no doubt about his continuing commitment to radical changes in his church.

Amazingly and ironically, in response to Pope Francis’ Synodal Way the Irish church recently submitted what they call the National Synthesis of its recommendations to Rome, and they have come out in favor of the positions which led to Flannery’s exclusion from practicing as a priest. The big boys in Rome silenced him, but what will they do now with the whole Irish church?

The National Synthesis document was based on reports prepared by all 26 Catholic dioceses on the island of Ireland following widespread consultations with the people over many months, culminating in a countrywide national symposium in Athlone in June.

Over 19,000 people participated in Dublin with about 5000 in Limerick and a few hundred in the mini-diocese of Achonry in the west of Ireland. Reports from all sides suggested enthusiastic involvement throughout the country with members over the age of 60 showing the highest level of interest.

Cynics warned that the submission to Rome would be a watered-down version of the ideas for change that emerged from the consultations. The bishops would wrap the radical concepts in language acceptable to the Vatican hierarchy.

Not this time! The National Synthesis document pulls no punches and fairly represents the thoughts and feelings expressed up and down the country as well as during the big weekend in Athlone.

In a cover letter sent with the report Archbishop Eamon Martin explained to Cardinal Mario Gresch, the secretary general of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, that that there is a crying need in Ireland for healing, especially “among those who have suffered abuse by church personnel and in church institutions.”

He stressed that clear calls were heard in every diocese for “fresh models of responsibility and leadership which will especially recognize and facilitate the role of women. Our listening process has identified the need to be more inclusive in outreach, touching those who have left the church behind and, in some cases, feel excluded, forgotten or ignored.”

Pope Francis’ words are genuine. We believe him when he says he wants to hear from ordinary parishioners. Will he lead the response when the cry for change arrives in Rome from people all over the world? In order to dampen expectations, he insists that the church is not a democratic institution. So, despite the strong support for radical changes, backed by a clear majority of the faithful, their ideas may well be set aside as traditionalists assert the pre-eminence of the church’s historical beliefs and practices.

During the struggle for democracy in Europe in the 19th and early 20th century successive popes favored the old European autocracies with single strong leaders, which, of course, defines the Vatican. They still diminish the democratic process which claims that, despite its limitations, the people’s wisdom is the nearest we can get to an optimal system for selecting leaders and determining policy. Why is the church so dismissive of this approach? What are they afraid of in Rome? Is it just a power game?

Take the widespread belief that women should be ordained at a time when their services as pastors are clearly needed in many parishes. Most people in the United States and in Europe strongly support this needed alteration of church discipline. The Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC), a very credible Catholic organization, affirms the many women who feel called to priestly service.

A tribute to Francis, information about WOC is included in the Vatican website as part of the synodal discussions. However, it is very unlikely that he will overrule John Paul II’s arrogant and dogmatic statement that women should never be permitted to say mass.

Back to the real world of male hierarchies who preach their openness to the Spirit of Wisdom but always seem to revert back to glorifying tradition. In October 2019 the Amazon Synod of Bishops met in Rome to consider the church crisis in that region of South America. The people in large parts of a few countries there have very irregular access to the sacraments.

The Synod passed, with a big majority, two recommendations to help ameliorate the situation. First, open the deaconate to permit nuns and other dedicated women who are serving there to provide communion for the people. Second, allow viri probati, married men of sterling character from the local communities, to be ordained to the priesthood. Pope Francis took their recommendations under advisement. No action. That was almost three years ago. Tough luck on the people pleading for communion in the Amazon region.

Former Irish president, Mary McAleese, who has had a conflicted relationship with the church, especially with John Paul II, was elated by the document and congratulated the hierarchy for not doctoring the recommendations to placate Rome. The adjectives she used to commend it left no doubt about her satisfaction: “explosive, life-altering, dogma-altering, church-altering.”

Mrs. McAleese has a particular peeve with the church’s puerile insistence that the gay lifestyle is unnatural and sinful. Her son is a homosexual. This demeaning thinking has been repudiated by science for more than half a century. Rome, however, keeps beating the old drum based on an outmoded belief in their version of natural law.

Fr. Tim Hazelwood, one of the leaders of the Irish Association of Priests, described the document as “stunning” because “it is not trying to uphold any of the old negatives from the past.” Those “old negatives” did immense harm to the preaching of the gospel message.

Pope Francis will meet with a full synod of bishops in October of next year to decide what changes they will institute, based, supposedly, on the recommendations from Catholics all over the world.

We live and hope!

Gerry O’Shea blogs at wemustbetalking.com

Late in 2018 Pope Francis filled St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome with almost 6000 poor people and preached to them in words that Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin would have applauded. He pointed the finger of blame for the evils of poverty at greedy and selfish people “who feast on what in justice belongs to all.”

These radical words – fully in line with traditional Catholic social teaching – bring to mind a statement by Pope John Paul 11, who many historians applaud as the main driving force in bringing down the ailing communist system in Russia and its Eastern European satellites. Reflecting, later in his life, on the rampant consumerism engulfing the West with all its attendant poverty and greed, he wrote: “I wonder which of the two systems is better.”

America, the richest country in the world, is one of the most unequal in the distribution of its largesse. The top 1% own 70% of the wealth leaving the bottom 90% to claim just 27%. The top earners’ pre-tax income has more than doubled over the past twenty years.

The federal minimum wage has fallen by a third in the last fifty years while worker productivity has risen by 150%. Thirty-two million American workers, a whopping 21% of the total number of employees, earn less than $15 an hour.

On average, shop floor workers have barely held their own during this period of huge company profits, bringing to mind the Red Queen telling Alice in Wonderland that “in my kingdom, you have to run as fast as you can, just to stay in the same place.”

In an interesting study on appropriate remuneration for company CEOs, a random sample of people in forty countries was asked how much larger should the salary of the person at the top be in relation to the ordinary worker. Respondents who identified themselves as politically liberal said that a multiple of four would be appropriate while conservatives went one better, approving a C.E.O. salary five times bigger than the earnings of their regular employees.

The actual difference in pay comes to a gargantuan multiple of 340. Nobody has come up with a justification for such an enormous disparity between the typical worker and the man – yes nearly always a male – in the executive office suite. The cynical answer points to the fact that these decisions are made in the top floor and the CEO and his cronies take very good care of themselves.

Boeing had a dismal 2020 because the pandemic threatened its business. The company announced losses of over $12 billion and revealed plans to lay off over 30,000 employees. Still the chief executive, David Calhoun, was rewarded with compensation of $21.1 million.

Hilton, not surprisingly, had a very tough year, losing over 700 million dollars and with nearly a quarter of the employees getting lay-off notices. However, the man in charge, Chris Nassetta, received remuneration of $55.9 million.

In the 18^th century the poet, Oliver Goldsmith, worrying about the growing inequality he saw in the Great Britain of his time, warned in memorable lines: “Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey, where wealth accumulates and men decay.”

The stock market has been roaring ahead to new records every few months, benefiting investors like never before. However, 84% of these new assets go to the top 10% and over half of American households have no investment in Wall Street.

Fifty years ago, around 25% of workers were members of trade unions in the United States. In those years there was a growing American middle class. Even companies that weren’t unionized had to pay comparable salaries to workers who were organized.

Today, only 6% of American workers carry union cards and employee salaries and benefits have suffered. President Biden in nearly every speech points to good union jobs as his administration’s top priority and as the best way to again grow the middle class.

We badly need Trade Union leaders of the caliber of A. Philip Randolph, Cesar Chavez and Mike Quill to counter the well-financed propaganda of conservative tycoons who have successfully spread the fiction that unions are pawns of those promoting a socialist agenda with corrupt leaders that are only interested in their own aggrandizement.

The Catholic Church should be to the fore in contradicting these lies. In the past, church leaders openly encouraged workers to organize and demand just wages and safe working conditions. Pope John XX111’s famous encyclical Mater et Magistra went further than affirming monetary demands by urging that workers should have ownership rights in the company they work for as well as the right to share in the profits they have helped to create – a succinct description of core principles in any socialist agenda. No pronouncements on that vital encyclical from any American pulpit today.

By comparison, in the Nordic countries 75% of the workers are unionized in thriving capitalist economies. The results are impressive:  better wages for workers and guaranteed healthcare plus affordable housing and fair retirement benefits.

Only 14% of American workers get paid family leave, and of those that do, the vast majority earn high salaries. The shameful result sees poor women back in low-paid jobs after giving birth when a decent society would ensure that that they could stay at home recovering and taking care of their babies.

Healthcare in the United States costs more than twice any other country on a per capita basis. Still longevity in America is well below other Western countries and more than twenty million people have no doctor or hospital coverage.

The American tax system is also grossly unfair which President Biden’s proposals, if enacted, would significantly alter. In “the Triumph of Injustice” the authors, Saez and Zuchman, show that working class people pay taxes at 25% and the middle class at 28%. High-earners part with a few percentage points more between federal, state and local levels but billionaires get away with paying just 23%, again encompassing all levels of government.

This obvious unfairness extends beyond the grave. Taxation on estates used to provide substantial sums for the treasury. Indeed, conservatives often argued cogently that millionaires passing on their riches to their children was a breach of their individualistic philosophy which stresses that everybody should have the challenge and opportunity to grow their own wealth.

Republicans sold the change by sloganeering that nobody believes in what they successfully dubbed “a death tax.” This bit of chicanery drains the national treasury and creates a body of super-rich families, a new oligarchy, when baby boomers pass on an estimated 68 trillion dollars to their heirs.

We are living in a time of crises, especially because of the Covid pandemic. Our heroes are mostly low-paid workers in supermarkets and hospitals who continue to provide a service, despite enhanced danger to themselves and their families.

In 1982, the famous conservative economist, Milton Friedman, wrote that real societal change usually follows a crisis and the actions taken depend on “what ideas are lying around” at the time. Perhaps this propitious insight will favor President Biden’s bold economic program that would go a long way to mitigating the serious inequalities in American society.

Gerry O’Shea blogs at https://www.wemustbetalking.com

It is hard to find anybody who declares that he or she is in favor of abortion. However, the response changes drastically when the question asked deals with an existential situation: should a woman have the right to terminate her pregnancy or be legally compelled to carry it to term?

The 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court ruling mandated a right to abortion based on privacy provisions which the judges claimed were implied in the wording of the United States constitution. Most conservative justices and a majority of Republicans favor overturning Roe, and they seem to have a clear majority in the current Supreme Court to do exactly that.

If this occurs then each state will have to legislate on the availability of abortion in its own jurisdiction. Some will allow the procedure to continue along present lines while others will criminalize it and, presumably, mandate jail sentences for women and medical personnel who disobey the new law.

Prior to the 2018 referendum which legalized abortion in Ireland, thousands of Irish girls travelled to English cities to terminate their pregnancies. Overturning the Roe decision will have exactly the same impact here. Women will travel to a nearby state to avail of the procedure that would no longer be available where they live.

Nullifying the Roe ruling will not alter the number of abortions in the United States. Using the law to force women to carry their pregnancies to term is doomed to fail. We need to move away from the thinking that court decisions will change the minds of the one-in-four American women who have at least one pregnancy termination before they reach the age of 45.

The Irish experience of trying to use the law to rule out abortion is instructive. In 1983 a group of devout pro-lifers decided that to circumvent the possibility of the parliament passing even a mildly-permissive abortion law, a clause should be inserted in the Irish constitution to obviate that possibility.

Influenced by stories about the role of the courts in the Roe v Wade decision in America, they were also worried about Irish judges and how they might thwart the popular will by interpreting some constitutional wording that would open the back door to the hated A word.

At that time, no political party in Ireland was advocating changing the law to give women a choice in this area. Even the left-leaning parties did not include a call for new legislation on that subject.

Still, this determined group, with full-throated support from the Catholic pulpits throughout the country, successfully led a divisive referendum campaign to copper-fasten their beliefs by adding a constitutional ban on the procedure. The meaning of the proposed text and how it could be legally understood in Irish and in English was hotly debated by lawyers on both sides. The amendment was easily carried.

How did it all work out? We had a heart-rending story of a 14-year-old girl, known as the X case, pregnant as a result of rape, who was barred from going abroad for a termination because of the constitutional ban.

Then there was the poignant story of an Indian-born woman which angered people all over the island and beyond. Savita Halappanvar, heavily-pregnant in Galway, was refused the treatment to save her life because she was told that “we are a Catholic hospital” following the law.

Nobody doubts the sincerity of the people who claimed the high moral ground in the 1983 referendum, but they were completely wrong in thinking that some legal wording could compel a woman who doesn’t want to have a baby to continue her pregnancy.

An estimated 180,000 Irish women went to England for pregnancy termination during the 35 years following the 1983 referendum. Clearly, the legal constitutional change failed to achieve its goal.

In 2018, two-thirds of the people in another plebiscite removed the abortion ban from the constitution mainly because they rejected the clear hypocrisy of Irish women having to go to England for the service. The net result is that abortion is now legally available without question to any Irish woman in her own country.

At a recent major conference on this subject, sponsored by Villanova University, the convener, Patrick McGinley Brennan, a law professor, criticized church leaders “for ignoring canon law” by not clearly stating to President Biden and other Catholic leaders who support the Roe decision that they are “in formal co-operation with evil and thus not fit to present themselves for Holy Communion.”

Fr. Gerald Murray, a canon lawyer in the New York archdiocese and frequent EWTN contributor, accused President Biden of “obstinately persevering in a manifestly grave sin” and so meriting exclusion from the altar rails.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will consider this matter at their June conference. If it is voted on, it is likely that a majority of the bishops will favor restrictions on providing the Eucharist to President Biden and other leading Catholics in public life.

They will have to tread carefully because they are aware that while they can issue a recommendation, the USCCB does not have the power to mandate any action by an individual bishop. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who presides in the Washington diocese, has declared that he will not oppose the President coming to the altar rails. A new bishop was recently appointed in Mr. Biden’s home area in Delaware, but he hasn’t yet declared his position on the controversy.

Significantly, Francis’ two predecessors, John Paul and Benedict, both officiated at ceremonies where political leaders supporting a woman’s right to choose received communion with the congregation. John Paul included Tony Blair in the full eucharistic service when he was British prime minister and espousing liberal views on a woman’s prerogative in deciding on pregnancy termination. In fact, he wasn’t even a Catholic when he was welcomed at the altar rails.

President Biden subscribes to the teaching of his church on abortion. He argues convincingly that he was not elected to promote the beliefs of any denomination, and he must follow the laws he is sworn to uphold. A majority of Catholics agree with his stand, but big numbers also disagree.

A minority of the bishops, mainly those appointed by Francis, stress that the treatment of the poor and marginalized should have equal priority in prescribing solutions for the ills of society. They question the church’s total focus on ending a 1973 court decision at a time of so much poverty and inequality in American society and when blatant lies are being promulgated daily, often by avatars of the pro-life cause, about the result of the presidential election.

The deliberations at the June USCCB conference will be carefully watched.

Gerry O’Shea blogs at https://www.wemustbetalking.com

The encyclical Laudato Si surely stands out as Pope Francis’ signature contribution to humanity. In it he identifies the earth as “our home” which we have carelessly neglected, especially since the Industrial Revolution that was getting underway two hundred years ago.

The consequences of our immature behavior, a proliferation of floods, fires, droughts and famines, are clear, and the perilous state of our oceans points to a worsening crisis.

There have been five previous mass extinctions of life in the universe. Francis has raised a large red flag warning that we may well be heading for another.

This pope is also prophetic in his regular pronouncements on the devastating consequences of the prevailing level of world poverty. No other international leader can match his denunciations of economic systems that tolerate such awful levels of human deprivation. He mocks the neo-liberal contention, with its many acolytes in the United States, that the best way to improve the lot of the poor is to make the rich even richer so some of their largesse will dribble downwards.

However, when it comes to sexuality, the record of popes in this crucial human area is abysmal. I hear a comment from stage right: what can you expect from a bunch of old white celibates who are often seen around the Vatican wearing dresses and other fancy apparel designed in the time of the Emperor Constantine during the fourth century!

Away from the cynicism, British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was married recently in a Catholic church, and we wish him and his new wife, Carrie, and their one-year-old baby the best of luck. However, the news created consternation especially among many traditional churchgoers. He was divorced last year from Maria Wheeler after twenty-seven years and four children together. His first marriage back in the 80’s to Allegra Mostyn-Owen only lasted a few years and did not yield any progeny.

The case is complicated because while Boris and Carrie were baptized Catholics, he was confirmed as an Anglican and, so it seems he was not deemed a Catholic for his first two marriages which, according to canon law, freed him up for a third run at the sacrament.

Any divorced Catholic in a long-term relationship must be completely bewildered trying to understand why, not only is he disallowed from re-marrying but he doesn’t even qualify to receive communion on Sunday.

People wonder if Henry V111 got the Boris kid-glove treatment from Pope Clement in the 16^th century in dealing with his multiple wives, would that have prevented the Reformation in England and all the angst and division that followed it.

In March of this year, the magisterium in Rome, with the pope’s written approval, pronounced that the church forbids any priestly blessing at the wedding of a same-sex couple.

This declaration upset many Catholics. Johanny Bonny, Bishop of Antwerp in Belgium, said that as a consequence he lost 700 members in his diocese. In New York, Fr. James Martin, well-known for his espousal of gay rights, reported that about a dozen people contacted him to say that this was the final indignity which led them to the ecclesiastical exit door. Dozens of priests and theologians, especially in Europe, declared publicly that, following the spirit of the gospel, they will disobey the Vatican order.

Blessing a couple entails wishing them good luck as they embark in a new chapter of their lives. The priest solemnly calls on God to extend his graciousness to two people facing all the vicissitudes of married life.

The negative Vatican explanatory statement uses the pathetic reasoning that God could not bless a sin. Surely, some theologian in Rome should have cautioned against the arrogance of claiming to talk for the deity – especially on a controversial issue.

The Natural Law argument can be fairly stated in pelvic terms. The congruence of male and female biology clearly leads to female pregnancy. Very natural indeed! However, to conclude that this is the only kind of sexual behavior that is ethically permissible closes doors of love that should be wide open.

This knitting of sex exclusively to procreation creates major theoretical and practical problems. The church allows infertile straight couples to marry. No problem with a post-menopausal woman tying the knot with a man of any age.

Around 4% of Americans, males and females, are homosexual. The vast majority of scientists agree that this is not a life choice. Sexual orientation is determined before birth, mainly by genetics and hormones. LGBTQ people are no more responsible for their sexual preference than heterosexual people are.

It is only in the last half-century or so that scientific research has established that people are born with different sexual orientations. However, the Vatican keeps acting as if we are still living in 1921.

The Judaeo-Christian tradition personalizes God. He is portrayed as being actively involved in every part of creation. So, people thank her for good health and a long life, and, in this tradition, one would have to assert that God made millions of mistakes in all the queer people that have lived. This is theologically preposterous.

The biblical wisdom is not really complicated: we are expected to accept and respect all humans as children of the one God. The Vatican attempts to preach that we should treasure all creation while claiming that gays are “objectively disordered.” We love you but your sexual behavior is “intrinsically evil.” What frigid corner of the Vatican emits this spiteful verbiage?

The Second Vatican Council tried to democratize the church. The Council fathers sought to move the institution from domination by the hierarchy to real involvement by the people. Their noble efforts were completely aborted. The clergy, from the pope down, still have all the power and make all the important decisions.

The one significant area where the laity was seriously consulted centered on the use of contraceptives. Pope John XX111, who summoned the Vatican Council, appointed a number of lay people as well as clerics to advise him on whether Catholics should be allowed to use the contraceptive pill or other “unnatural methods” in planning their families.

John’s successor, Paul V1, expanded the numbers on this important deliberative commission. They reported back with a strong majority favoring a liberal response to the use of contraceptives by married couples. However, Paul decided to reject their advice and to continue the ban on using pills or condoms.

It was a disastrous decision which most Catholics disregarded. Paul was canonized forty years after his death mainly for rejecting the counsel of his team of experts in favor of outmoded thinking from the past and leading the church into an untenable situation where they still preach that it is sinful for a married man to use a condom.

The importance of what the people think – the sensus fidelium – is honored by theologians, past and present. “The Spirit breathes where he will, but you know not where he comes from or where he goes.” When we think of the myriad tales of the sexual abuse of children, it is fair to assert that this spirit of justice and truth did not find a receptive audience among the hierarchy. Decent people were codded by their antics covering up awful crimes and millions walked away in disgust.

Will the day ever come when the power-conscious hierarchy will realize that the struggling family, the people Christ mainly dealt with, usually have better insights into moral issues, especially on sexual matters, than men – yes always men- whose main claim to righteousness often consists of repeating arguments that explicate outmoded shibboleths.

Gerry O’Shea blogs at https://www.wemustbetalking.com

Salvadore Cordileone, archbishop of San Francisco and a prominent leader in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), declared after the recent bishops’ meeting that they wouldn’t be taken seriously in America if they didn’t deal with what is widely described as the Biden communion issue. “Our credibility is on the line before the whole country” he said.

The Catholic bishops met in mid-June to provide leadership on various matters for American Catholics. This time they focused on the Eucharist, the most sacred church ritual. They approved the plans of a liturgical committee headed by Kevin Rhoades, Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, to examine how they can improve understanding and reverence for communion, the central part of the Catholic mass.

Nothing remarkable about that, except that the prelates want this group to deal with the conundrum of senior Catholic political leaders, including especially President Biden, supporting abortion laws which are anathema to church teaching.

A few weeks prior to the meeting, Cardinal Ladaria, Pope Francis’ top doctrinal advisor in the Vatican, sent an official letter to the bishops, strongly advising that they take this item off their agenda because even discussing it would inevitably lead to discord and disunity. Nobody doubted that Ladaria was speaking for the pope, but the organizers disregarded his advice. The vote in the virtual assembly to proceed was carried by 168 to 55.

This pope’s relationship with the American hierarchy has always been testy. Most of the members of the USCCB are conservatives, preferring to stick with what they identify as traditional truths and pastoral approaches that worked in the past. They have focused especially on abortion, the use of contraceptives and same-sex relationships – all of which are deemed sinful.

Emotions run high when abortion is on the table for discussion. Bishop Pfeifer from San Angelo, Texas, talked about the urgency of combating an allegedly new initiative by the president which includes approval of infanticide – a false assertion but this kind of hyperbole fits well with the culture wars in America.

Kevin Rhoades, pointing his finger at Mr. Biden, talked about “people who obstinately persist in manifestly grave sin.” And Corleone called on people to remember “the Eucharistic martyrs who died to protect the Most Blessed Sacrament from profanation.”

While not deviating from traditional teaching on this subject, Francis insists on taking a wider perspective by including in his pro-life agenda strong condemnation of widespread poverty and inequality as well as pleading for environmental and racial justice.

He is dismissive of leaders of the church and state who oppose or have little to say in support of anti-poverty programs while asserting ad nauseam their pro-life credentials.

60% of white Catholics voted to re-elect Donald Trump, up from 40% who supported the Republican candidate in 2008. The majority of the bishops also expressed admiration for the former president’s agenda, especially his preference for conservative judges, including his appointment of two Catholics to the Supreme Court. They seem to believe that criminalizing abortion would go a long way to eliminating it.

Repeated surveys by Pew Research and other polling organizations reveal that 56% of Catholics do not want the Roe decision overturned – no different from the wider population. However, around two-thirds of church members who attend mass regularly affirm the hierarchy’s hostility to the 1973 decision.

They join hands with the powerful Christian evangelicals who have similar beliefs and together they form a strong voting bloc that largely accounts for the successes of the Republican party nationwide – and the pro-life community show up at the polls in huge numbers.

About 900,000 American Catholics leave the church of their birth every year, cumulatively accounting for about 14% of the total population of the country. Surely, this massive leakage of members must be a major concern for the men assigned leadership roles in every diocese.

What parts of the gospel message as presented by the church have turned so many away from the catechism they learned as children? Has Christ’s enticing message of love and compassion been conveyed so poorly that young Catholics leave in droves as they reach adulthood?

Is the pope responsible for this disastrous exodus? Or the pastors? Or the sisters and brothers who run many of the schools? Or perhaps the parents must take the blame? Maybe the powerful USCCB should be on the dock about this crisis. Right now, nobody is held accountable for the busy exit door.

Biden and Pelosi, churchgoing, devout Catholics, claim that they accept their church’s teaching on the abortion issue, but their oath of office binds them to follow the law. The bishops don’t accept this complex reasoning and condemn lawmakers for evading their responsibility on a procedure that they call “essentially evil.”

This language defining some sins – nearly all related to sex – as inherently depraved goes back to the scholastic dictionary of good and evil. This thinking has fallen somewhat into abeyance as many moralists like to engage with all the circumstances of a situation before making a judgement, often much more nuanced than the bald division between good and bad.

The belief that President Biden and his Democratic colleagues should be shunned by the priest distributing communion may get a majority vote from the USCCB, but this shaming tactic faces major obstacles.

To begin with they must confront a strong minority of bishops who vehemently oppose their thinking. These dissenting prelates argue very coherently that using the Eucharist to punish someone for his moral choices is a complete misuse of the sacrament, which is the church’s pre-eminent outreach to sinners. Pope Francis has left no doubt that he affirms the thinking of this episcopal minority.

While Pew Research reveals that a majority of Republicans – 55% – are in favor of the bishops taking a hard line on the communion issue with this president, the overwhelming majority – 87% – of Catholic Democrats oppose this approach.

These statistics confirm that the United States population is deeply divided at present. Intruding the Eucharist into the middle of that cultural cleavage would disrespect a sacrament that has always represented Christian unity.

The Rhoades committee will continue on their imprudent course and report to the next bishops’ conference in November. It is likely that they will disregard Francis’ advice and recommend punitive action against the president and other Catholic legislators for their abortion stance. Even if this garners the required two thirds support within the USCCB, it is subject to a papal veto and local bishops will make the final determination on exclusions from the altar rails.

Gerry O’Shea blogs at https://www.wemustbetalking.com

There has been a dramatic change in public attitudes to the gay lifestyle in the last seventy years. For example, in the 1950’s President Eisenhower declared that homosexuals were a danger to national security and so should not be employed by the Government.

By comparison, in the Biden administration, Pete Buttigieg, a married gay man, was confirmed by the Senate for the important cabinet position of Transportation Secretary, and, indeed, he had been a serious contender for the Democratic nomination for the presidency.

Transgender people do not enjoy similar acceptance in the American community. They are viewed by many as eccentric freaks who upset the whole male-female binary sexual system by changing their functioning identity from male to female or vice versa.

In July, 2017, President Trump tweeted “the United States will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in the U.S. Military.” It was a bombshell announcement and General Dunford, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, had to intervene and guarantee trans people already serving that they wouldn’t be fired or denied any medical procedures.

The Trump mandate was reversed in the early days of the Biden Administration. The military was instructed to cancel all hiring restrictions based on sexual proclivity, and the new president stressed the entitlement of service members to comprehensive medical treatment for gender transitioning.

Transgender people have always existed and many found ways to live full lives. Consider James Allen who died after being hit by a falling piece of timber in London in 1829. He had been married to his wife, Abigail, for over twenty years. The autopsy declared that James’ body was anatomically female.

The coroner was perplexed by the situation, but he continued to describe Allen as male because he argued that he had a wife. The rest of the community where he lived agreed. James wore a pair of trousers, worked as a manual laborer and was married. Some people mentioned that they noticed he lacked facial hair and that his voice at times seemed strangely high-pitched. Still, the consensus was that he died a man leaving a grieving widow.

Researchers confirm many such stories in past centuries. Some historians claim that Joan of Arc, the great military leader and saint in the 1400’s, had traits that strongly suggest that her biological sex was misaligned with the way she wanted to express herself. Apart from leading armies into battle, she persisted, against the requests of the religious leaders of the time, in wearing male clothes even when attending mass.

Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity as revealed in their feelings and behavior is not congruent with their biological make-up. It refers to a person’s internal sense of being male or female and how that is communicated in clothing, hairstyle, voice or body characteristics. The abbreviated version of trans is frequently used and not considered derogatory.

About 0.3% of people worldwide identify as transgender. This amounts to about one million residents in America who define themselves in this way. The number may well be double that figure because many people stay in the closet to avoid the opprobrium and social isolation that comes with revealing their abnormal situation.

A baby’s anatomy announces whether it is male or female, but assessing a person’s gender can be much more complicated. When a person’s biology clashes with a strong sense of a different gender identity the resulting crisis presents a major challenge.

What is the source of this painful anomaly? Experts suggest that while community and cultural influences are important in understanding the trans community, their identity is also impacted in important ways by inherited genes and pre-natal hormone levels. Researchers in Europe and the United States are actively involved in further research.

One key discovery regarding transgenderism stresses that it is not synonymous with sexual orientation. So, a woman who has a sex change and becomes a man may well not be interested in a romantic relationship with females.

Research reveals that those who identify as transgender come to see this part of their personality slowly and unwillingly because they don’t want to subject themselves to the stigma and shabby treatment that inevitably follows coming out. Many people, including family and friends, find it difficult to even imagine what is involved in changing one’s sex.

Harrowing statistics from a recent study reveal alarming levels of attempted suicide among transgender youth – with the highest rate among boys trying to come to terms with their sexual feelings. More than half male teens in this category reported attempting suicide while close to one third of trans females also made some effort to kill themselves.

The most insidious rumors about transexuals falsely allege that their condition corelates significantly with pedophilia. There are also unproven suggestions that trans students are more likely to fit in the autism spectrum than the general population.

Important research reported by Scientific America indicates that the brain formation of transgender people actually resembles not people of their own physical gender but the brain structure of the gender that the person identifies with.

Salient issues about this group have been in the news in the last year with right-wing leaders seeing it as a wedge issue for use in the culture wars. They paint their opponents as favoring confusion about which bathroom the trans community should use. Actually, there is no bother here because people enter the toilet of their adopted gender with other users completely unaware of their situation.

There is a genuine problem with male athletes who transition to females giving her an unfair advantage. The authorities in the various sports have to deal with this situation. Fairness demands that punishing the athletes involved makes no sense. Ideal fodder for those conservatives prodding their version of the culture wars.

According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), state legislators – all Republicans – have introduced more than 80 anti-transgender bills since January 1^st. Proposed legislation includes laws prohibiting trans women from participating in college sports and even criminalizing the provision of gender-affirming care for some transgender people.

The reprehensible thinking behind these moves involves using legal prohibitions to stamp out behavior that they don’t understand and which is outside their tolerance level.

HRC commenting on all these proposals says, “These bills are not addressing any real problems. Rather this effort is being driven by national far-right organizations sowing fear and hate.”

When there is a controversial issue involving sex, some Catholic bishops are bound to step in with outmoded ideas. True to form, Bishops Michael Barber of Oakland and David Konderia of Tulsa, both senior committee spokesmen for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote a letter to congress expressing their support for proposed discriminatory legislation that targeted trans women in school and collegiate sports.

In January of this year, several bishops issued a disgraceful letter condemning the Biden administration’s plans to extend nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people. The letter also identified their opposition to civil rights protecting individuals on the basis of their gender identity. No doubt who they had in their sights on the identity issue.

All the therapists dealing with the transgender community highlight the importance of understanding and compassion which must undergird all therapeutic treatment methods for transgender people. Whatever misinformation is driving these bishops’ beliefs, their cold-hearted approach certainly does not represent gospel values.

Gerry O’Shea blogs at https://www.wemustbetalking.com

I was an altar boy in the community where I grew up in the 1950’s. I recall well the opening prayers at mass.

Priest: Introibo ad altare Dei (Translation: I will go to the altar of God)

Altar Boy: Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam (Translation: To God who brings joy to my youth)

The parish of Kenmare in County Kerry had three priests assigned in those years and for many decades afterwards. One of the three was the parish priest who was called an archdeacon.

In the 1960’s this honorific was sidelined in favor of Canon, deemed to be somewhat lower in the ecclesiastical pecking order. Some local luminaries protested this belittling of the traditional designation. Only one other town in Kerry had a parish priest with that title so there was a certain diocesan status accompanying the name.

The bishop was informed of the local discomfiture about the demotion, leading to the restoration of the old order. The arch – as he was commonly called – and the curates took care of the births, marriages and funerals, the important markings in every community.

The priests took turns at saying a daily mass in the local Holy Cross Church and the pews were full for all three celebrations on Sundays and church Holy Days. The railings adjoining the Square, close to the church, provided a suitable area for securing the line of pony and traps, the most common means of transportation for the more affluent farming families.

Hearing confession, usually scheduled for Saturday afternoons and again that evening, provided the only professional opportunity for parishioners to unload their troubles on a man who they knew never gossiped. Nobody doubted the reality of the seal of confession, so priests heard a lot of hoary stories, substituting for the trained counselors and therapists who occupy this space today. Their words of absolution and healing were an important source of strength and comfort among churchgoers.

We also had a small Anglican community with their own church and families scattered throughout the area. There was no tolerance for negative behavior of any kind in dealing with members of the minority church. Two brothers from that community played with a local Gaelic football team. They had to grin and bear it when denominational hymns were sung at games or obeisance was shown to representatives of the majority religion.

The British education system in Ireland, developed in the 19^th century, yielded control of the country’s schools to the various religious authorities. The ethos in the schools that were under Catholic control mandated a daily half hour for learning about the dogmas and beliefs in the Roman tradition.

The catechism set down in question-and-answer format all the “correct” responses about the conundrums that the Vatican religion presumes to deal with. What is Purgatory? A place or state of rest where some souls suffer for a time before entering heaven.

What about Limbo? That was presented as a border location between heaven and hell for unbaptized infants. It was a cruel and tawdry medieval creation. It required priests to explain to grieving parents whose baby died without the sacramental splash of water that the gates of heaven were closed for their innocent child for all eternity.

Today, even the ultra-traditionalist wing of the Catholic church has abandoned the limbo hogwash. Its prominence until relatively recently points to a church lacking heart, bereft of compassion, the very virtue that is central to the New Testament.

I compare this deplorable thinking to today’s Vatican hierarchy refusing a church blessing to loving homosexual couples on their wedding day.

In Catholic secondary schools, the Catechism Notes was added to provide more detailed answers on matters of dogma and morals. This is where pupils had to digest the difference between a eucharistic understanding called transubstantiation as distinct from the Protestant teaching on the same topic titled consubstantiation. The Religious Wars of the 17^th and early 18^th centuries were fought partly because of the different understanding of those words of blessing uttered at the Last Supper.

The sixties were an era of major cultural changes. The sexual revolution, the women’s liberation movement, a disastrous jungle war in Vietnam and the rejection by many of old racial attitudes were the urgent concerns, especially among the young, in Western countries.

The Catholic Church had its own revolution. Pope John the XX111, the greatest modern pope by far, declared that the growth and effectiveness of the Roman religion entailed opening the windows, his favorite metaphor, to the changing demands and insights of a new era. Modernity called for new thinking in a church that gloried in its ancient creeds and rituals.

The Second Vatican Council moved the church in a radically different direction in two important areas. First, the injunction that “outside the church there is no salvation” was set aside as members of other Christian religions were now addressed as our “separated brethren,” opening up a new era of co-operation.

Back in Kenmare, one of the leading ecumenists, committed to dialogue with his Catholic neighbors, was Dean Charles Gray-Stack, who was the Anglican Rector in the district from 1961 until his death in 1985. He was an important contributor to Christian thinking in those days and his writing was featured regularly in the Irish Times. None of the local Catholic clergymen could match his influence and celebrity.

The Council also recognized Judaism as an ancient legitimate religion and removed disparaging references to Jews in the church ceremonies on Good Friday. Rolph Hochhuth in his play The Deputy pointed the finger of blame at Pope Pius X11 for his inaction during the Shoah when Nazi Germany exterminated around six million Jews. Subsequent scholarly research seems to confirm Hochhuth’s assertions.

The other major focus of ecclesiastical change centered on the liturgy. The new Vatican mandate instructed all churches that mass was to be said facing the people, inviting them to be co-celebrants. Also, the council fathers acknowledged that communicating with God in a dead language that few understood made no sense.

The response from most Irish people in the pews was one of gratitude. Catholics gradually understood that the mass and other rituals were community activities where they are invited to participate.

Some traditionalists preferred the old ways. For them there was something sacred about the use of Latin and Gregorian chant and the priest, a man in their estimation, of immense mysterious power, maintaining his distance and hiding his face as he performed his duties at the altar.

The Tridentine mass, as it is called today, was recited in Latin, a practice encouraged by Pope John Paul and his successor, Benedict, both of whom relaxed some of the previous prohibitions on its use. Last month, Francis published new rules that ban the Tridentine format, except in very restricted circumstances. In Francis’ Rome, praying to the deity must accord with common sense and be in the vernacular.

The Irish church is in continuing crisis, lacking credibility because of its complicity in the widespread clerical sexual abuse of young people and the dehumanizing treatment of women in magdalen laundries. These are the principal issues that have brought it down.

The 130^th psalm which ended the mass in my young days might still be appropriate in today’s struggling church. De profundis clamavi ad te Domine. Domine Exaudi vocem meam.  Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord hear my voice.

Gerry O’Shea blogs at https://www.wemustbetalking.com

The enslavement of black people provides a poignant narrative central to understanding the story of America, and there are two versions of that story competing for emphasis in the media and in the curriculum in the country’s schools.

One stream is aptly represented by the New York Times’ 1619 Project, a major research effort published to coincide with the 400^th anniversary of the arrival of the first slaves from Africa. Somewhere between 20 and 30 captives from that faraway continent docked in a coastal port near Point Comfort in Virginia on an August morning 402 years ago.

Selling these dark-skinned people into slavery left them with no rights, completely at the mercy of their purchasers. Families had no standing; the children, barred from schooling, were bought and sold at the whim of their owners. There were no white slaves in America, so this represented the establishment of race as an indelible feature of America’s core identity.

By comparison, the masses of Irish emigrants who made their way to the New World during and after the Great Famine in the second half of the 19^th century were treated abysmally. They suffered pervasive discrimination including subjection to crude stereotypes highlighting their alleged inferiority.

The powerful Know-Nothing movement lumped them – Black, Irish and Catholic – together as incapable and unworthy of full participation in American life. Still, the Irish never carried the mark of slavery, and most considered their white skin a bonus as succeeding generations made their way to respectability.

The second narrative starts in 1776. The vaulting language of the Declaration of Independence, rejecting British colonialism with all its pomp and pretensions, still resonates: “All men are created equal” with “unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Yet this inspiring rhetoric came from the pen of Thomas Jefferson, a man who, over his lifetime, owned over 600 slaves. His noble message was relayed to the 13 fractious colonies, all of whom subscribed to some version of race-based slavery. Five of the first seven American presidents – Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Jackson – owned slaves.

Then the colonies became states and they agreed to a new Constitution. It is a revered document in many American homes, but that first version codified slavery, explicitly approving a slave owner’s right to capture fugitives who crossed state lines trying to escape their forced servitude. And in apportioning members to the House of Representatives, blacks were counted as having the value of three-fifths of a white person.

Racism can be appropriately seen as a social disorder and a moral calamity. Ninety years after the British departed, a savage civil war was fought, largely because the slave system had become so morally repugnant that many of the rulers and thinkers of that time, abetted by some religious leaders, were determined to end it. The Union side, led by Abraham Lincoln, defeated the confederate states, and all slaves were granted freedom after the Union victory.

Unlike other wars where the losers are humiliated and their philosophy discarded, the defeated side in America’s civil war, got to tell nostalgic stories about their contented lifestyle in a slave-owning society. Some books and movies portrayed the past times of white supremacy as the good old days.

Monuments were erected up and down the Southern states and beyond to Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and other prominent rebels as if their blatant treason amounted to some version of patriotism.

Blacks could vote after the Union victory in the civil war, but, following a brief, hopeful Reconstruction period, Jim Crow laws and practices took over. These were so repulsive and cruel that millions of African-Americans abandoned their homes during what is called the Great Migration and fled north to the big cities where, although prejudice was still a salient factor, they had a better chance of finding a job and some sense of dignity.

Religion was a strong force in those years. Powerful Protestant communities and growing Catholic numbers did not rally in opposition to the repugnant belief that God created two classes of unequal human beings, which was a core perspective not only of the slaveholding society but of the Jim Crow culture which followed it and lasted until President Johnson’s reforms in the 1960’s.

The main message of the current Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement asserts the equality of black people at a time when the economic and penal systems often fudge that principle. Opponents mock BLM by proclaiming unfairly that blacks are looking for special privileges.

The post-civil war debates about the various entanglements of white supremacy continue, especially as many state legislatures with Republican majorities pass laws to limit the voting rights of black and brown people. The Jim Crow mentality no longer applauds the gallows but all kinds of lame excuses are offered for restricting the voting rights of non-white citizens.

George Floyd’s murder led to massive demonstrations calling for changes in policing in all American cities.  These gatherings, mostly young people of all colors, motivated many first-time voters to cast ballots in last November’s presidential race.

Make America Great Again has evolved into Teach America’s Great Again. Steve Bannon, the propaganda guru of the far right, was clear about his vision of the big battle ahead: “the path to save the nation is very simple – it is going to go through the school boards.”

Last fall, the American Historical Association and Fairleigh Dickinson University conducted a major national survey to learn what Americans think about historical studies. The results showed that 70% of Democrats believe that any study of the past should question the integrity of institutions and leaders from previous times. However, 84% of Republican respondents felt that the goal should be to celebrate the past, especially the leaders in the American Revolution.

Most conservatives look askance at any focus, especially in the classroom, on the awful story of slavery. They don’t want to hear about 1619 and they believe that the undoubted heroics of Washington and Jefferson should be at the center of the curriculum in every school.

Yet there have been dramatic positive changes in race relations, culminating in the election of Barack Obama over white Republican candidates in 2008 and 2012. A majority of the white electorate voted for his Republican opponent, but Mr. Obama could not have won without strong support from Americans who don’t look like him.

From a historical perspective these victories represented real progress and had monumental symbolic significance.

There is now a solid black middle and professional class. While disproportionate rates of poverty persist and serious wealth disparities remain, nearly half of African-American families have annual incomes over $50,000.

Black women are graduating from college at really encouraging rates, and teenage pregnancy numbers in minority communities have plummeted.

Derek Chauvin’s conviction for the murder of George Floyd, after an extended televised court trial, sent a clear message that the law must be administered fairly. Demands for structural changes in policing are harder to reject and, indeed, are already leading to positive movements in many cities.

Martin Luther King famously dreamt of a society where people are judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. The continuing cross-community vibrancy of the BLM movement suggests that we are moving in the right direction.

Gerry O’Shea blogs at https://www.wemustbetalking.com

Consider the following imaginary meeting arranged to discuss the demeaning treatment of women in the Catholic church. In attendance are five mothers from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds who meet just two requirements for inclusion: they must identify as Catholics and they must all have at least one daughter.

Also in the room, representing the church, are five members of the hierarchy. The gathering takes place in New York, so Cardinal Dolan has summoned other bishops with strong credentials in theology to make sure that the Vatican perspective is fully represented.

The women explain their grievances, focusing especially on the fact that, because of their sex, they are prohibited from any jurisdictional involvement in their church. They stress that there are no similar restrictions on them from assuming leadership roles in any other area of their lives.

One of the prelates with a string of degrees from the prestigious Gregorian University in Rome opens the discussion by explaining that the Lord chose twelve males to lead his church and that is their core reason for keeping women away from any position of authority.

The first woman responded by suggesting that Christ, like all human beings, reflected the wisdom and tensions of his time. In that Middle Eastern culture, for instance, not only were women treated as inferiors but slavery was also accepted as normal. She completely rejected the idea that the appointment of twelve male apostles 2000 years ago should determine the ecclesiastical status of women today.

Another one of the five females addressed the group by apologizing about raising the sensitive matter of sexual abuse of children because she knew it was very embarrassing for the church leaders, especially with so many court cases pending. How, she asked, could any bishop anticipate respect when he failed to care for children in his diocese? How can any church leader escape criticism for moving predator priests from one parish to another?

Another woman, clearly irate at the horrible abuse inflicted on innocent minors, claimed that a group of mothers, housewives without degrees in theology or apologetics, would have dealt very differently with this problem. She requested that the bishops think of the sagacity of women in their own families when considering this insight.

One of the bishops admitted that this crisis was poorly handled and the Vatican has learned lessons. A colleague added that church leaders deal more maturely with sex abuse cases today, especially by involving the civil authorities.

Another bishop felt that there was a lack of perspective in the women’s criticism which is often shared by media outlets that always seem to work a grudge against the church. He asked where is the recognition of the fact that Catholic agencies run development programs for poor women all over the world. No other institution comes close to matching this commitment to the most vulnerable women.

The final woman speaker wondered how they explain the exodus from the church of over 750,000 members in America every year, many of whom change to various Protestant denominations that have no problem with women priests and bishops.

There were no raised voices or harsh language during the discussion; in fact, at the end, Cardinal Dolan talked about another meeting in a few months!

Pope Francis has many admirable qualities but decisive leadership is not one of them.

At the Amazon Synod the members – all wearing Roman collars – reacting to the dire scarcity of priests to provide the Eucharist for poor indigenous communities in that massive region, voted 128 to 41 in favor of ordaining viri probati, married men of good character, to meet these urgent pastoral needs. A similar clear synodal majority indicated that women should be ordained as deacons to provide the sacraments for the people.

Francis praised the clerics for their work and took these recommendations under advisement, putting any implementation on a long finger. In other words, he funked the challenge and left millions of poor members of his church without the sacraments.

The Spirit of Wisdom, a spirit of positive thinking and enlightened ideas, has changed attitudes to women completely, mainly because they became far more assertive, and today we see nothing extraordinary about top female leaders in business and government. There is a real prospect for a woman being elected president of the United States in the foreseeable future.

However, the Vatican hasn’t changed, especially in its pronouncements in the area of sexuality. Against the overwhelming scientific evidence, they argue that homosexual love is unnatural and therefore morally wrong. Following this unenlightened logic, they rule out even blessing a gay marriage union.

The official teaching of the Catholic Church forbids the use of condoms or the contraceptive pill even by married couples. This moral reasoning, based on medieval thinking about the human body, has led many young people to depart for other religions or none. About 40% of people born Catholics have left their family church. It is estimated that 16% of Americans identify themselves as former members of the Roman religion.

The Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s was the last universal Council of the Catholic Church. That renowned assembly was called by Pope John XX111, by far the most distinguished and perceptive church leader in modern times. He instructed the assembled bishops and experts to open the windows and let the enlightened truths of modernity influence their deliberations.

The Council highlighted the pivotal importance and authority of what they called “the people of God” which implicitly limited the status of those already making all the decisions. Understandably, the powerful prelates did not appreciate this democratization of their accrued power, so they made sure that it didn’t happen. Lay people have no more say in their church now than they had in the 1950’s.

The Council pointed out that confining the inspiration of the Spirit to the clergy breaches basic tenets of theology. Wisdom resides as surely with the farmer or housewife as with titled clerics. The Vatican cannot accept even minor limitations on its accumulated powers.

Dealing with the synodal process, Pope Francis, a man of compassion, has to sort out a Vatican conundrum: he knows that the church needs to change in dramatic ways, but the weight of institutional history prods him to hold firm to the old rationalizations.

Still, he said recently that he wants to hear from all people. We wish him well in pursuing that worthy goal. Clericalism in all its guises needs to be confronted if the church moves towards the spirit of the gospels.

If Cardinal Dolan calls another meeting to continue the dialogue with the five Catholic women with daughters, I will keep you informed!

Gerry O’Shea blogs at https://www.wemustbetalking.com