Catholics

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Concerning the prophet Nathan, millstones and former cardinal 'Uncle Ted' McCarrick

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Concerning the prophet Nathan, millstones and former cardinal 'Uncle Ted' McCarrick

U.S. cardinals needed someone who was willing, in the spring of 2002, to face waves of microphones and cameras and answer questions about a clergy sexual abuse crisis that kept growing more and more intense.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick stepped forward. The Washington Post hailed him as the Vatican's "man of the hour," an "attractive public face" at a time when many Catholic leaders seemed "arrogant, secretive and uncaring."

"If you're looking to the future, I would say it's pretty clear that the Holy Father is calling for zero tolerance," the archbishop of Washington, D.C., told reporters.

These words rang hollow to some men who watched this drama, men who knew that McCarrick knew they would be stabbed by every word he spoke.

After all, the man some called "Uncle Ted" had "already completed a personal campaign of predatory sexual abuse of minors and young adult males that stretched back across four decades," according to "Nathan Doe," the anonymous author of "Delicta Graviora (More Grave Crimes)," posted at EssayForTheFaithful.com.

"While the national media waxed poetic about this charming and charismatic Cardinal with a twinkle in his eye, they had no idea that McCarrick was using them to send a powerful message to his countless victims that he was untouchable and in complete control. … It would be another 16 years -- and an unspeakable amount of spiritual carnage later -- before McCarrick was finally stopped."

This new essay's author is part of a group that calls itself "the Nathans," a reference to the biblical prophet who challenged King David to confess his adultery and abuse of power. The essay indicates that at least seven men have cooperated with church leaders and law enforcement officials, providing names, dates, times, locations and other forms of supporting evidence linked to their sexual abuse by the former cardinal, when they were between the ages of 12 and 16.

The author stressed, "I don't have an axe to grind with anyone other than Theodore McCarrick. For me, this is not an attack on our Church. This is not about Conservative vs. Liberal. This is not about Straight vs. Gay. This is not about Benedict vs. Francis. In my view, those arguments are a distraction. For me, this is about our humanity. This is about the criminal, sexual abuse of minors. …

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Another year, another wave of headlines about 'gay Catholics' losing their teaching jobs

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Another year, another wave of headlines about 'gay Catholics' losing their teaching jobs

School years close with graduation ceremonies, which are now followed by a painful rite for Catholic educators and some bishops -- headlines about teachers losing their jobs after celebrating same-sex marriages.

Catholic school leaders in Indianapolis recently refused to extend a teacher's contract after people saw social-media notes about his marriage. A nearby Jesuit school's leaders, however, refused to remove that same teacher's husband from its faculty.

A CNN headline said this teacher was fired for "being gay." Reports at The New York Times and National Public Radio referred to a "fired gay teacher." A Washington Post headline was more specific, stating that the teacher was "fired for his same-sex marriage."

At issue are canon laws requiring Catholic schools to offer education "based on the principles of Catholic doctrine," taught by teachers "outstanding in true doctrine." Church leaders, usually local bishops, are charged with finding teachers who are "outstanding … in the witness of their Christian life," including "non-Catholic ones."

It's hard to have constructive discussions of these cases since they are surrounded by so much scandal, secrecy and confusion, with standards varying greatly across the country, said Eve Tushnet, a gay Catholic writer who accepts the church's teachings on sex and marriage. Most of the "gay celibate Christians I know have lost or been denied" jobs in Christian institutions, she said.

The Catholic Catechism, citing scripture and centuries of tradition, states that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" and contrary to "natural law." However, it also says those "who experience "deep-seated homosexual tendencies," must be "accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity."

Far too often, argued Tushnet, "gay sins are treated as serious sins in a way that heresy or other non-gay sins aren't. I can think of reasons you might, as a Catholic school, hire Protestants, but fire someone in a same-sex marriage. But … when one already-marginalized group is so often singled out for penalties it seems more like targeting than like prudence." Far too many church leaders, she added, will "fire you if you marry," but they "otherwise look the other way."

One thing is clear: the term "gay Catholic" -- as used in news reports -- is too simplistic, if the goal is to understand the doctrinal issues driving these debates.

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Is it safe for religious believers to 'come out of the closet' in the modern workplace?

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Is it safe for religious believers to 'come out of the closet' in the modern workplace?

Americans wrestling with religious conflicts in the workplace need to start by doing some math.

Right now, about 157 million Americans work fulltime. Meanwhile, a 2013 study by the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding found that 36 percent of workers surveyed said they had experienced religious discrimination at work or witnessed this discrimination happening to someone else.

This sobering trend "affects all groups, including evangelical Christians reporting high levels of discrimination. Muslims, Jewish people and people with no affiliation also experience discrimination on the basis of religion or belief," said Brian Grim of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation in Annapolis, Md. He led a panel on faith-friendly workplaces during a recent religious liberty conference at Yeshiva University in New York City.It was cosponsored by the International Center for Law and Religious Studies at Brigham Young University.

"If you turn that into numbers," said Grim, this means "36 percent of the American workforce is 50 million people. That's a big, big issue."

These conflicts cannot be ignored. For starters, religious institutions and "faith-friendly businesses" contribute $1.2 trillion annually to the U.S. economy, said Grim. And while headlines focus on rising numbers of "Nones" -- the religiously unaffiliated -- in America, birth rates and religious-conversion trends indicate that the "religiously affiliated population of the world is going to outgrow the religiously unaffiliated by a factor of 23 to 1. … We're going to have a much more religious workplace and much more religious marketplaces."

Meanwhile, some economic powers -- China, India, Russia, Turkey and France, for example -- have increased restrictions on people's "freedom to practice their faith, change their faith or have no faith at all," he said. This often causes violence that is "bad for business. It's good for businesses that produce bullets and bombs, unfortunately."

Corporate leaders in have addressed some diversity issues, such as discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation, but "religion is the next big issue that they need to be looking at," said Grim. Last year, he noted, complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about religious discrimination outnumbered LGBTQ cases nearly 2-1.

Grim asked this big question: "What is the right way to … come out of the closet about your faith at work?"

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The ordination of married men as Catholic priests: Is this change now inevitable?

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The ordination of married men as Catholic priests: Is this change now inevitable?

American Catholics may not know all the latest statistics, but they've been talking about the altar-level realities for decades.

Half a century ago, there were nearly 60,000 U.S. priests and about 90 percent of them were in active ministry -- serving about 54 million self-identified Catholics.

The number of priests was down to 36,580 by 2018 -- while the U.S. Catholic population rose to 76.3 million -- and only 66 percent of diocesan priests remained in active ministry. According to a study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, half of America's priests hoped to retire before 2020. Meanwhile, 3,363 parishes didn't have a resident priest in 2018.

It's understandable that concerned Catholics are doing the math. Thus, activists on both sides of the priestly celibacy issue jumped on an intriguing passage in the "Instrumentum Laboris" for next October's special Vatican assembly of the Synod of Bishops in the Pan-Amazonian region.

"Stating that celibacy is a gift for the Church, we ask that, for more remote areas in the region, study of the possibility of priestly ordination of elders, preferably indigenous," stated this preliminary document. These married men "can already have an established and stable family, in order to ensure the sacraments that they accompany and support the Christian life."

The text's key term is "viri probati" -- mature, married men.

"Celibacy is not dogma; it is a legal requirement that can be changed," noted Father Thomas Reese, a Jesuit journalist best known as editor of America magazine. He left that post in 2005 after years of conflict with the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

While Pope Francis has praised celibacy, "he is also a pragmatist who recognizes that indigenous communities are being denied the Eucharist and the sacraments because they don't have priests. After all, which is more important, a celibate priesthood or the Eucharist? At the Last Supper, Jesus said, 'Do this in memory of me' not 'have a celibate priesthood'," argued Reese, in a Religion News Service commentary.

Survey results have shown that many American Catholics are ready for married priests, noted Reese, reached by email.

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A Pentecost season rant channels the anger swirling out in Catholic pews

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A Pentecost season rant channels the anger swirling out in Catholic pews

Elizabeth Scalia woke up furious, thinking about scandals in the Church of Rome, Pentecost and a famous courtroom rant in the movie "… And Justice for All."

"It was like Al Pacino was inside my head screaming, 'You're out of order! You're all out of order! The whole church is out of order!' … I knew I had to write something," said Scalia, long known for online epistles using the pen name "The Anchoress."

At Pentecost, she noted, the Holy Spirit descended like fire on the apostles. "I thought: Dear God, why can't some fire fall on our bishops? What's it going to take to wake up some of these guys?"

Pentecost fell on June 9 this year, following months of news about clergy sexual abuse and the drumbeat of scandals tied to the fall of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, one of the most powerful church princes in American history.

 Then The Washington Post published a June 5 report about a lurid litany of accusations against retired West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield, whose career was linked to that of McCarrick. Investigators found that Bransfield -- in a poverty-wracked region -- spent millions of dollars on his own comforts, while handing financial gifts to various American members of the College of Cardinals and strategic church leaders. While there were no specific accusations of abuse, the church report cited a "consistent pattern of sexual innuendo, and overt suggestions and actions toward those over whom the former bishop exercised authority."

This was McCarrick 2.0, a sucker-punch that inspired Scalia to pound out a personal letter to Jesus that was published by America, a Jesuit publication. Scalia currently serves as editor at large for Word on Fire, a Catholic evangelism organization.

"Well, Lord, here we are again. This crap just never stops coming, and God, I'm getting so disgusted with it all, and if I could not find you in the Holy Eucharist, I wonder if I would find you anywhere else within this church," she wrote, in her fiery overture.

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Hey preachers: Can you spot the God-shaped hole at heart of the 'Avengers' universe?

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Hey preachers: Can you spot the God-shaped hole at heart of the 'Avengers' universe?

As most occupants of Planet Earth know, last year's "Avengers: Infinity War" ended with the genocidal demigod Thanos using six "infinity stones" to erase half of all life in the universe.

It would have been logical to assume the sequel, "Avengers: Endgame" would start with lots of funerals, with pastors, priests, rabbis, imams and other shepherds working overtime to answer tough, ancient questions.

That assumption would be wrong.

"People are mourning, but they're going to therapy and support groups," said film critic Steven Greydanus of DecentFilms.com, also a permanent deacon in the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. "What we don't see are grieving people in church or even at funerals. … We don't hear anyone asking, 'Where is God in all of this?' "

It's rare to hear the theological term "theodicy" in movies, but people who frequent multiplexes often hear characters suffer tragic losses and then ask, "Why did God let this happen?" The American Heritage Dictionary defines "theodicy" as a "vindication of God's goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil."

This God-shaped hole at a pivotal moment in the "Avengers" series offers a window into the soul of the Marvel Comics universe and the minds of executives who shaped most of the 22 movies in this giant pop-culture mythology, said Greydanus.

"We are talking about a major fail, and not just from an artistic point of view," he said. "This shows a stunted view of how most people on Earth live their lives. Even people who are not religious tend to cry out and ask the big spiritual questions when faced with tragedy and loss. That's part of what it means to be human."

Not that many consumers are complaining. In it's first 11 days, "Avengers: Endgame" pulled in $2.19 billion at the global box office -- the fastest a film has reached $2 billion. Many insiders now assume it will eventually break the $3 billion barrier, passing the current No. 1 movie, the environmental-fantasy epic "Avatar," at $2.78 billion.

Truth is, global-market realities now affect how many blockbusters handle explicitly religious and even vaguely spiritual questions.

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Painful question for Catholic bishops: Why assume that parishes will decline and die?

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Painful question for Catholic bishops: Why assume that parishes will decline and die?

The headlines keep appearing in Catholic newspapers, before the news migrates into the real-estate coverage in mainstream media.

The bottom line is the bottom line. Catholic shepherds decide that they have to pull the plug and close parishes in which declining and aging flocks of believers have struggled to pay their bills. These aging sanctuaries are often located on valuable pieces of urban real estate.

Some parishes vanish. Others are merged into one facility to make efficient use of space, as well as the crowded schedules of a steadily declining number of priests.

"On one level, it makes sense. You close a parish -- I understand that many parishes are in financial trouble -- and then in a few years you get to tear it down and someone moves in and builds condos," said Philip F. Lawler, editor of Catholic World News, an independent online news service.

"The questions that I think we have to ask our bishops are, 'Why is defeat inevitable? Why do we assume that all of these parishes are going to decline and close? … What if you put someone in there who offered a brand of Catholic faith that had some evangelical zeal? What if we still believed that Catholic churches could grow?' "

Do the math, he said. Growing urban flocks would need places to worship. But once these historic Catholic sanctuaries are gone -- they're gone. The cost of building replacements would be astronomical.

All of these real-estate decisions, he said, hinge on management assumptions that are profoundly spiritual.

Once upon a time, "American cities are dotted with magnificent church structures, built with the nickels and dimes that hard-pressed immigrant families could barely afford to donate," wrote Lawler, in his new book, "The Smoke of Satan," addressing several interlinking scandals in Catholic life. "Today the affluent grandchildren of those immigrants are unwilling to keep current with the parish fuel bills and, more to the point, to encourage their sons to consider a life of priestly ministry."

Yes, there are cases in which parishes serving different ethnic groups were built within blocks of each other. But Lawler is convinced that the typical church that is being closed and sold is "located in a comfortable, populous neighborhood, with no other Catholic church particularly close at hand and no special reason why the community that supported a thriving parish in 1960 cannot maintain the same parish now. … No reason, that is, except the decline of the Catholic faith. Parishes close because Catholic families don't care enough about the faith to keep them open."

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Why it matters that many journalists struggle to grasp religion's role in 'Alienated America'

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Why it matters that many journalists struggle to grasp religion's role in 'Alienated America'

In the spring of 2016, Wall Street Journal reporters went hunting for the heart of Make America Great Again territory and ended up in Buchanan County, Va., near the borders of Kentucky and West Virginia.

Based on a variety of political and economic factors, the Journal called this corner of coal country, "The Place That Wants Donald Trump Most."

But there was a crucial fact about this Appalachian county that didn't fit into this political parable, noted Timothy P. Carney of The Washington Examiner, in his book "Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse."

 "Out of 3,143 counties in America, Buchanan County ranks 3,028th in religious adherence," he wrote. "Economic woe, social dysfunction, family collapse and community erosion all characterized the places where Trump was strongest. … So did empty pews."

But what about the statistic that became a mantra for journalists explaining the New York billionaire's rise -- that 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump?

"There has been a strong drive in the mainstream press to establish that white evangelicals don't actually have any greatly held morality," noted Carney, in a recent telephone interview. "The idea is that these evangelicals use religion as a cudgel to beat on other people. Their support for Trump is supposed to show that their beliefs are political -- not religious."

The most revealing faith-based numbers in this White House race came during the primaries, not in the "general election (when religious voters had only two choices, and the specter of Hillary Clinton hung over their heads)," wrote Carney. The question reporters need to keep asking is this: "Who gravitated immediately to Trump, and who turned to him only when the alternative was Hillary?"

Research into primary voting, he noted, revealed that the "more frequently a Republican reported going to church, the less likely he was to vote for Trump." In fact, Trump was weakest among believers who went to church the most and did twice as well among those who never went to church. "Each step DOWN in church attendance brought a step UP in Trump support," noted Carney.

Reporters could have seen this principle at work early on in Sioux County, Iowa, where half of the citizens claim Dutch ancestry.