Some very important comments on the Catholic Bishops: [View all]

[hedgehog]

In this metaphorical sense, the "Catholic" political style is strongest among evangelical Protestant voters, not actual Catholics. The eagerness of Catholic bishops to jump into a fight over contraception, for example, does not reflect that attitudes of their parishoners, but it gets strong support from evangelicals. Similarly, in one recent poll more than two-thirds of Catholic voters supported some sort of legal recognition of gay couples' relationships, with 44% favoring same-sex marriage; in very sharp contrast, an outright majority of evangelical voters said there should be no legal recognition of a same-sex relationship.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-schweber/the-catholicization-of-th_b_1298435.html


. The bishops' anti-gospel political behavior is radically harming the Catholic church in the U.S., a large percentage of whose members are (for gospel reasons) unwilling and unable to follow the bishops' lead as they attack women's rights to basic health care and try to undermine the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian persons;
2. The bishops' anti-gospel political behavior is harming the Catholic church in its witness in the public square, since a large percentage of the public recognizes that the right of religious groups under canons of religious freedom to believe and practice what they choose to believe or practice does not translate into a right to undermine the human rights of others and fracture the common good.

.......

one of the ironic results of the choice of the U.S. Catholic bishops to ally themselves (and the American Catholic church) politically with the religious right in recent years is that they--and Catholic politicians such as Gingrich and Santorum--now have stronger support among right-wing evangelicals than among Catholics themselves. A sizable percentage of American Catholics are outright embarrassed by the bishops' political behavior and have distanced themselves from this behavior.


http://www.bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2012/02/bishop-spong-on-catholic-bishops.html


I think that Mr. Schweber misunderstands the historical meaning of "catholic", but that is understandable since he is taking his lead from today's crop of bishops. Mr. Lindsey's blog is a good roundup of observations about the increasing struggle within the Catholic Church.