American Catholics Seek Reform on Issues

[Warren Stupidity]

American Catholics Seek Reform on Issues

The majority of America's Roman Catholics tell pollsters they want a greater voice for the laity in the church, that priests should be allowed to marry and that there should even be women in the clergy.

As the world's focus turns to the secretive election of the pope April 18, those U.S. Catholics might want to prepare themselves for some disappointment.

The winner seems certain to continue John Paul II's progressive policies on social issues such as war and peace, human rights and concern for the poor. But on hot-button concerns that so captivate U.S. Catholics — and often the media — expect no changes. That includes the late pope's firm policies against women priests, divorce and remarriage, birth control, gay sex, same-sex marriage, abortion, mercy-killing and stem cell research using human embryos.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=718&e=2&u=/ap/20050409/ap_on_re_us/pope_view_from_america

So while our domestic pope-wanna-be mr. bush wraps himself in pope paraphernalia and pope-trappings and shamelessly brays about the similarities between the departed pope, himself and saint reagan, it would appear that this attempt to pander to american catholic voters might just be backfiring as badly as the recent TS uber-pander.

American Catholics turn out to be way liberal compared to the folks running the vatican. The excerpted article does not even touch on the uproar over Bernie Law, the disgraced former cardinal of mass. being given a significant role in next week's memorial services, an affront to bay area catholics already reeling from pedophilia and church closings.

Perhaps rove has put bush's foot in another bee's nest?

[CountAllVotes]

1. well that won't happen

so forget it.

:kick:

[VegasWolf]

17. when hell freezes. n/t

[Pawel K]

2. American Catholics, they are a small minority of the 1.1 billion that

exist

[Warren Stupidity]

22. yes that is true

6% I think. But that wasn't really my point. I don't expect that the disconnect between first world catholics and the increasingly conservative vatican bothers the vatican too much. Nor do I expect pressure from america, ireland and france for example to spur reform. Rather the point was that shrub glomming onto papal glory may not have been the brightest idea. I don't think it really helps the fundy-fascist-theocrats all that much. The protestant evangelicals continue to hate catholics and jews (and suspect protestants as well) and the american catholics are having a bit of a crisis of their own with a church seens as increasingly out of touch. So how does * gain from chumming it up with bernie law et al? Not much, I'd say. In fact not at all.

[LdyGuique]

3. Having taken a good look at the medieval traditions

of the Catholic Church during the past week, and especially during the funeral, I think that global warming will profoundly affect American Catholics sooner (in other words, up to your knees in seawater on eastern city streets) than including women into the hierarchy of the RCC. Did you get a good look at the patriarchal authorities: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Judaism, Islamic . . . in short, the entire spectrum of the Judaic/Christian/Islamic tradition was represented either within the service itself and/or in the seated dignitaries. There was not a single woman representating a position of authority within either the secular or relgious groups.

[brindis_desala]

8. The West has never had a complete discussion on the

effects of New World slavery on women or its forming the basis for modern day capitalism. Until the disinherited can reclaim their equality the world is condemned to try and stand on one leg. You might be interested in: "Caliban and the Witch – Women, the Body
and Primitive Accumulation" by Silvia Federici

"Within the pages of this book lie the reasons that
explain why men and women now inhabit different
worlds, for the reasons are not biologically
determined but most definitely ideological in origin
but because their roots are buried in the hidden
history of the rise of capitalism some five hundred
years ago, the reality of today appears as something
natural." W. Bowles

[LdyGuique]

12. Thank you. I did some google searching and read

several in-depth reviews of her book, such as the Bowles on which you quoted. I will get the book from the library for a more thorough read; however, I'm not sure that her theory on how to interpret this historical period is the only possible interpretation.

I've done a fair amount of reading on early Colonial New England, Virginia, and even the Amish (the Anabaptist movement, now called the Bretherns).

Land reform in Europe took some very twisted steps due to feudalism, the Church (RCC) and the highly charged Reformation and rise of Protestantism. One of the things that occurs to me is the when did the notion of individual ownership of the land (family-owned parcels) arise? It seemed to be a given at the time of Colonial New England.

Towns were granted charters to a vast chunk of land by the Crown. Founding families parcelled it out and the town grid was constructed around a commons, which was more for nighttime security as grazing animals would be herded onto the commons, which was contained within the grid of housing that surrounded the commons and then herders would take the animals out into the non-fenced meadows and such.

Most of the tracts of land granted to the towns were heavily forested, and deforestation practices were employed to yield up fields for planting by individual families.

I spent some time reading the original wills for the time period 1626 to 1750 or so. Only men owned the parcels and this was divided amongst the male heirs until the parcels were too small to be usable -- this caused a constant move out onto the frontier of non-Chartered lands (such as western Massachusetts). These people could not be controlled by the crown.

The only things owned by women in these wills were personal clothing, cooking implements, and jewellry. Mothers were completed dependent upon a son's good will on whether or not they would be supported. Many were not -- and cast out. Many men married multiple times as one wife would die in childbirth, the next one would marry in to rear the existing children and to bear more. Many men fathered 15 to 20 children through serial motherhood. Rampant birthrate due to no birth control was a definite factor in the constant westward movement.

While Cotton Mather fulmimnated about "onanism" or pullout prior to ejaculation, I could not find a whole lot about other forms of birth control -- Satanism was largely blamed for all deformed or birth defect babies and/or spontaneous abortions (miscarriages).

One website details many of the atrocities of Christianity over the centuries, called Christian Terror. This is where I found the following two incidents:

The Manichean heresy was a crypto-Christian sect that practiced birth control. Its followers were exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman Empire, between 372 and 444. Thousands of victims.

The Albigensians, or Cathars viewed themselves as “good Christians”, but did not accept Catholicism, church-taxes, and the prohibition of birth control. The terror began in 1209, on Pope Innocent III’s command; he was the greatest single pre-Nazi mass murderer. Beziers, France was destroyed (22/07/1209) and all its inhabitants slaughtered. Victims included Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours. 20,000-70,000 died.

Since the first one dates shortly after the Nicene Council of Constantine's time, I find it unusual that the Manichean tradition included a "known" issue of birth control.

Doing a fair amount of reading from times past brought one thing home to me -- this issue is far more than about male power. It's also about extreme hatred for women. Women are to be controlled because they are inherently evil and in league with Satan. It only takes a few hours of reading Christian crap before I'm once again lodged into a mindset of fear and loathing that will take me days to undo.

I'm not so sure that it's capitalism but fear of women who can cause men to do the damnedest things in the name of sex and "love." While we make a great many jokes about men thinking with their "other" brain, they have a core truth. Men who are rational become fools rather quickly. I'm rather surprised that men haven't invented a pill that would effectively eliminate their sexual desire.

[VegasWolf]

19. LOL. "I'm rather surprised that men haven't invented a pill that ..."

If you were a man, the answer to that question would be self evident! You have clearly spent a lot of energy investigating
women's issues vis-a-vis western religion. I congratulate you,
I have almost zero tolerance for a very close examination of
religious issues.

[brindis_desala]

20. Agriculture and subsequent land ownership of course lay the foundation for

the enslavement of women. As for the "pill" you suggested St Paul already invented it- it's called monogamous marriage. Unfortunately for most us men it's proven a hard pill to swallow. So I guess one can blame all this latent anger against women on those God-fearing Christians.

[LdyGuique]

21. LOL

Actually, if one does just a bit of research, it's easy to find a whole lot of church-sponsored teachings about the inherent evilness of women, going back to Eve. You poor dupes. We've been outwitting and beguiling you since the beginning (at least according to desert patriarchies).

One of the strangest things about Colonial New England was that it took a very forthright and stalwart woman to cope in this frontier land. Yet, the very things that made her strong, made her an anathema as she failed to be obedient and submissive.

Most of the women folk who were rounded up during the Salem event were precisely this type of woman. My many-great grandmother, Martha Carrier had survived most of her kinfolk whom she'd nursed through smallpox and then buried. She was not an easy person to be around and would snap off the head of any foolish twit who gave her grief. Of course, this lead to accusations of witchcraft when they started hauling the hysterial darlings from Salem over to Andover township. This lead to her hanging and she was one of the few who never recanted in any form -- she told the court that the grils were a bunch of silly fools who needed to be spanked.

Cotton Mather called her an unrepentant "hag" on the day of her hanging.

I come by my ill-termperment honestly :)

[AndyTiedye]

4. They Are Counting on the New Pope To Help Them Corral American Catholics

The new regime in Rome has made its pact with the Dominion here.

The selection of Bernard (We Are Above The) Law to lead the services
sends an almost Bush**-like signal that they don't care what anybody
else thinks of them. They don't have to. We see exactly the same
attitude over here in Dominionists such as Tom Delay.

If the theocracy comes, we will have to listen to them.
We will have to give them our children, for their pleasure
and for their Crusades.

[Merlin]

5. This proves what many of us our saying: WE CAN REACH OUT TO THESE FOLKS!

It is not a lost cause to reach out to those who are religious in the U.S. We've got to understand what they see wrong in what we're doing -- and they have a point in some of it. We've got to look ourselves in the mirror and ask why the hell these folks are voting right when they think left, and ask what it would take to move them over.

[Warren Stupidity]

23. and the way we reach out is not

by pandering to religiousity but by offering a clear distinct difference between us and them. When the Democratic Party starts speaking with one voice on bread and butter issues and starts speaking for working families instead of for bankers fat cats and wall street sharks, people will in fact vote for their economic rights instead of for false 'values'.

[Merlin]

24. Showing respect for the beliefs of others is not "pandering"

What we must do is escape the elitist mentality that suggest its alright to dis anything and everything people of faith favor.

Bread an butter issues will not cut any mustard with these folks until the meat and potatoes of mutual respect are placed on the table.

[Warren Stupidity]

29. our politicians pander -

almost all of them. They wrap themselves in patriotism and religion. The post election call from the DP's rightwing to get more religious was a prime example of pandering. Republicans have made religious pandering an artform. Heck they routinely put coded messages to the looney fundy right in their major public speeches.

It is not alright to 'dis anything and everything people of faith favor', and nobody I know from the secular side of things has suggested doing this or does this. That is just a strawman argument.

Rather, it is pandering to be afraid to speak out when religion and religious groups get in the way of doing what is right. For example, Terri Schiavo. Our glorious party took a bye on the whole TS affair precisely because our leaders routinely fall all over themselves trying to pander to the religious fundamentalist right. I suggest that we stop trying to out phony-religious-bullshit the republicans and instead focus on the strong values and common sense of economically popular democratic programs. For example a strong determined and unified defense of Social Security will do a lot more to win over the 'values vote' than hiding in a hole over Terri Schiavo or pretending that John Paul-II was the greatest pope ever. Standing in unison against the bankruptcy bill would have won over winnable values voters much more than making sure that our leaders bring up god in every other sentence they utter.

We have just about nothing but pandering and I'm sick of it.

[lastliberalintexas]

6. Yeah, and people in hell want ice water

Doesn't mean they're going to get it.

The Church hierarchy has seen the supposed liberalness of the American Catholic Church as a problem for some time now. I can't imagine them bending to the wishes of those they consider the problem.

[GOPBasher]

7. It says the Catholics in developing countries are more conservative.

That's disheartening and frightening to me.

[KittyWampus]

16. Catholics In Developing Countries Are Less Educated & More Amenable

to authoritarianism?

[MADem]

9. They can want in one hand..........

...and do whatever in the other, but US Catholics account for only six percent of the total on this earth. The clout they have is that they chuck in about twenty percent of the total loot collected by the church.

I do not think Catholics in other countries are necessarily more conservative, really, they just don't talk back as much. They are indoctrinated at an early age, by their governments, often enough, to not question authority.

If the next (or one after) Pope changes the rules, those so-called conservatives will get with the program. Some will bitch, and if the Pope is a strong leader, they will soon shut up or be marginalized.

Everyone thought when they changed the mass from Latin to the national language that hell would freeze over...now, a Latin mass is quaint, rarely used (usually when there's an international group in the pews) and there are fewer and fewer people who remember it as the STANDARD (My favorite part: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaye canbeatanyoneplaying DOooooooooooooominos!!!!!!! Noooooooooooo, youuuuuuuuuu caaaaaaaa aaaaant! I also enjoyed: MeAcowboy, MeAcowboy, MeAMexican cowboy!). Hell, no kids knew what they were saying, but it sure sounded important!

Used to be, if you ate a hotdog on Friday, you were going to hell. Now, eat up, you CAN get to heaven with a Ballpark Frank!

They can change, the only question is...will they?

[saltpoint]

10. The tone of this group is to the left of the Vatican --

-- and I hope they can continue to exert pressure on the heirarchy in Rome for meaningful reform.

Entire chunks of the Church have broken off before in history. No reason it couldn't happen again.

[Pawel K]

11. What pressure?

Again, the amount of Catholics we have here is microscopic if you compare it to other parts of the world. Remember the sex abuses and many other problems in the church all came from the US; the Vatican won't change simply because we want it while the rest of the world doesn't. We are putting absolutely no pressure on them.

[saltpoint]

13. Any disagreement in interpretation of urtext and canonized --

-- doctrine can, and often does, result in pressure -- tension against the conformity of established practice.

In significant ways, the Vatican attempts to quash any objection to its doctrinal absolutism, as in the silencing of priests llike Matthew Fox in California for his outspoken views on women's rights, gay and lesbian rights, and so forth.

Those publications are more "publishable" in the U.S. and U.K. than elsewhere and the small but committed following they inspire does amount to a challenge to papal authority.

I'm not arguing that a tidal wave is about to wash over the Roman Catholoic Church. I'd like to see meaningful reforms and said so.

[w4rma]

14. 1st world Catholics are just as progressive as American Catholics and

3rd world Catholics are still very responsive towards the poor just as their 1st world bretheren are.

Also, American Catholics have money.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

15. The abuse happened all over the world...

including Ireland, Australia, Italy, Chile and easily a dozen other countries.

This is a widespread problem.

[KittyWampus]

18. Sex Abuse Scandal Was NOT Just America. Ireland, Australia Etc. All

has similar scandals.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

25. There is a role for women in the church...

They're called nuns. Clergy should be worrying about their parishioners, not marrying. Priests are married to the church. And if you don't like it, don't become a priest. You know the rules going in. Quit your bitching and get over it(not marrying).
As for Cardinal Law, it's appaulling that he gets such a significant role, but we can't change it, so we might as well just pray for them and let God sort it all out.
Duckie

[BuddhaGirl]

26. a long time ago

priests were married with families - then the greedy church stopped it, because the families were inheriting "church" money when the priests died.

No reason why a women can't become a priest. Other christian faiths allow it.

Hopefully the next pope will be more progressive than JPII - he took the church back many, many years.

"The Price of Infallibility"
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/opinion/cahill.html?pagewanted=print&position=

excerpt:

"Sadly, John Paul II represented a different tradition, one of aggressive papalism. Whereas John XXIII endeavored simply to show the validity of church teaching rather than to issue condemnations, John Paul II was an enthusiastic condemner. Yes, he will surely be remembered as one of the few great political figures of our age, a man of physical and moral courage more responsible than any other for bringing down the oppressive, antihuman Communism of Eastern Europe. But he was not a great religious figure. How could he be? He may, in time to come, be credited with destroying his church."

[Warren Stupidity]

27. you do understand that celibacy is not immutable doctrine,

that it is simply church policy and its roots had far more to do with real estate than with spiritual matters, right?

I'm simply the son of a lapsed catholic, so for me it is not an important issue. However the catholic church in this country and elsewhere is in crisis over the declining priest population, over the pedophilia, over the whole institution of the male celibate priesthood. Reform would be a good idea. It is unlikely to happen from the top, given that conservative rule is in complete control. It looks to me like at least in the bay area, american catholics are one step away from a formal split.

[Arugula Latte]

28. U.S. Catholics should withhold money from the Church

Dry them up. They'll change their tune eventually.