LGBTQ

, , , , , ,

Groundhog Day for Episcopalians: Brutal report says pews may be empty by 2050

, , , , , ,
Groundhog Day for Episcopalians: Brutal report says pews may be empty by 2050

With America facing a bitterly divisive election, Episcopal Church leaders did what they do in tense times — they held a National Cathedral service rallying the Washington, D.C., establishment.

This online "Holding onto Hope" service featured a Sikh filmmaker, a female rabbi from Chicago, the Islamic Society of North America's former interfaith relations director, the female presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a Jesuit priest known for promoting LGBTQ tolerance and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"Our ideals, values, principles and dreams of beloved community matter," said Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, the church's first African-American leader. "They matter to our life as a nation and as a world. Our values matter!"

This was the kind of rite -- think National Public Radio at prayer -- a church can offer when its history includes 11 U.S. presidents and countless legislators and judges from coast to coast. Episcopal leaders also know President-elect Joe Biden is a liberal Catholic whose convictions mesh with their own.

That's the good news. Episcopalians have also been hearing plenty of bad news about their future.

For example, Curry became a media superstar after his soaring sermon at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding. But wedding trends in his own flock have been pretty bleak. Ditto for baptisms.

A stunning 2019 report from Episcopal parishes showed 6,484 weddings (down 11.2%). Baptism rites for children fell to 19,716 (down 6.5%) and adult baptisms dropped to 3,866 (down 6.7%). Baptisms are down 50% since 2003.

Office of the General Convention statistics reported 1,637,945 members (down 2.29%) and average attendance fell to 518,411 (down 2.25%). Median attendance dropped from 53 worshippers to 51, while 61% of parishes saw attendance declines of 10% or more.

All of these statistics predate the coronavirus pandemic.

Episcopal News Service offered these blunt words from the Rev. Dwight Zscheile, an expert on church renewal and decline: "The overall picture is dire -- not one of decline as much as demise within the next generation. … At this rate, there will be no one in worship by around 2050 in the entire denomination."

Episcopal Church membership peaked at 3.4 million in the 1960s, a pattern seen in other mainline Protestant bodies. This decline has accelerated, with membership falling 17.4% in the past 10 years.

As a rule, the crisis is worse in the Northeast and the Midwest, while losses have been slower in the Sunbelt and some parts of the West. In terms of worse-case scenarios, the Diocese of Northern Michigan remains open for business, but reported an average attendance of 385 in 2019. That's the whole diocese.

, , , , , , ,

Joe Biden and the U.S. Catholic bishops: Tensions remain about Holy Communion

, , , , , , ,
Joe Biden and the U.S. Catholic bishops: Tensions remain about Holy Communion

While doing groundwork for the pivotal South Carolina primary, Democrat Joe Biden went to a local church to do what he does on Sundays -- go to Mass.

What happened next made headlines, raising an issue that looms over the president-elect's personal and political lives. The priest at St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Florence declined to give Biden communion.

"Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that," said Father Rev. Robert E. Morey, in a press statement. "Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching. As a priest, it is my responsibility to minister to those souls entrusted to my care."

The priest, a former attorney with the Environmental Protection Agency, ended by saying: "I will keep Mr. Biden in my prayers."

Biden told MSNBC: "That's just my personal life and I am not going to get into that at all."

Nevertheless, Biden continued to make his faith -- he is a "devout" Catholic in news reports -- a key element of the campaign, as he has throughout his career. He also pledged to defend Roe v. Wade, to the point of codifying the decision into national law.

Catholic conservatives and liberals remain divided on how the church should respond, a tension demonstrated in a carefully worded statement by Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

, , , , , , , ,

Justice Alito: If you're worried about religious liberty, follow news in higher education

, , , , , , , ,
Justice Alito: If you're worried about religious liberty, follow news in higher education

Almost a half century ago, comedian George Carlin recorded his controversial "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" monologue.

That was then.

"Today, it would be easy to create a new list entitled, 'Things you can't say if you are a student or a professor at a college of university or an employee of many big corporations.' And there wouldn't be just seven items on that list -- 70 times seven would be closer to the mark," said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, via Zoom, addressing the recent Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention.

Discussing religious beliefs, he argued, has become especially dangerous.

"You can't say that marriage is the union between one man and one woman," he noted. "Until very recently, that's what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it's considered bigotry."

Consider, for example, the case of Jack Denton, a Florida State University political science major whose long-range plans include law school.

In June, he participated in a Catholic Student Union online chat in which, after the death of George Floyd, someone promoted a fundraising project supporting BlackLivesMatter.com, the American Civil Liberties Union and similar groups. Denton criticized ACLU support for wider access to abortion and the BLM group's "What We Believe" website page that, at that time, pledged support for LGBTQ rights and efforts to disrupt "nuclear family" traditions.

"As a Catholic speaking to other Catholics," he said, "I felt compelled to point out the discrepancy between what these groups stand for and what the Catholic Church teaches. So, I did."

Denton didn't expect this private discussion to affect his work as president of the FSU Student Senate. However, an outraged student took screenshots of his texts and sent them to the Student Senate. That led to petitions claiming that he was unfit to serve, a painful six-hour special meeting and his forced exit.

Backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, Denton sued the university for violating his First Amendment rights, as well as campus policies against discrimination against religious believers. A student court returned him, briefly, to office in late October, after a federal judge ruled that FSU should pay him lost wages. Denton graduates in December.

"This whole experience has certainly perked my interest in studying constitutional law and First Amendment rights, in particular," said Denton, reached by telephone.

, , , , ,

While many Catholics feel politically 'homeless,' Biden Catholics managed a 2020 win

, , , , ,
While many Catholics feel politically 'homeless,' Biden Catholics managed a 2020 win

Conservative patriarch Edmund Burke died in 1797 in Beaconsfield, England.

This didn't prevent columnist Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, a Catholic conservative, from making Burke her write-in choice in the 2020 White House race. She wasn't the only voter who felt politically homeless, due to religious and moral convictions that clashed with the political and personal choices of President Donald Trump and, the odds are overwhelming, president-elect Joe Biden.

Once again, there was no way to ignore issues linked to faith, morality and, yes, character. This was especially true with Catholic voters who frequent church pews.

Considering Trump, Noonan stressed the coronavirus crisis, where the president finally "met a problem he couldn't talk his way out of. I believe that's what happened: He played down the pandemic, lied, made uninformed claims at briefings that serious people were struggling to keep useful. He produced chaos. The country can't afford any of that in a crisis that is sudden and severe."

What about the Democrat, a lifelong Catholic? Noonan predicted Biden would be a "hapless and reluctant conductor" on a "runaway train," especially on moral and cultural issues.

"The progressive left," she argued, "endorses and pushes for the identity politics that is killing us, an abortion regime way beyond anything that could be called reasonable or civilized and on which it will make no compromise; it opposes charter schools and other forms of public school liberation; it sees the police as the enemy, it demonstrates no distinct fidelity to freedom of speech and, most recently, its declared hopes range from court packing to doing away with the Electoral College and adding states to the union.”

The bottom line: The political realities of 2020 left many Catholics and other active religious believers torn between political options that no longer seemed acceptable.

It was easy to read between the lines in key passages of a new cover letter the U.S. Catholic bishops added to their "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" document (.pdf here).

"The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed," the letter stated. "At the same time, we cannot dismiss or ignore other serious threats to human life and dignity such as racism, the environmental crisis, poverty and the death penalty. …

, , , , , , , , ,

Memory eternal: The passing of a charismatic bishop with a big voice and an extended family

, , , , , , , , ,
Memory eternal: The passing of a charismatic bishop with a big voice and an extended family

Episcopal bishops in the 1980s were already used to urgent calls from journalists seeking comments on issues ranging from gay priests to gun control, from female bishops to immigration laws, from gender-free liturgies to abortion rights.

But the pace quickened for Bishop William C. Frey in 1985 when he was one of four candidates to become presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. A former radio professional, Frey was known for his bass voice and quick one-liners. His Lutheran counterpart in Colorado once told him: "You look like a movie star, sound like God and wear cowboy boots."

Other Denver religious leaders sometimes asked, with some envy, why Episcopalians got so much ink.

"I can't understand why some people want the kind of media attention we get," he told me, during one media storm. "That's like coveting another man's root canal."

A Texas native, Frey died in San Antonio last Sunday (Oct. 11), after years out of the spotlight. In addition to his Colorado tenure, his ministry included missionary work in Central America during the "death squads" era and leading an alternative Episcopal seminary in a struggling Pennsylvania steel town.

While critics called him the "token evangelical" in the presiding bishop race, Frey was a complex figure during his Colorado tenure, where I covered him for the now-closed Rocky Mountain News. He called himself a "radical moderate," while also attacking "theology by opinion poll."

“We need a church that knows its own identity and proclaims it fearlessly," he said, in his 1990 farewell sermon. "No more stealth religion! … We need a church that knows how to answer the question, 'What think ye of Christ?', without forming a committee to weigh all possible options. We need a church that doesn't cross its fingers when it says the creed."

Nevertheless, a conservative priest called him a "Marxist-inspired heretic" for backing the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the ordination of women. The bishop opposed capital punishment -- and abortion -- and welcomed stricter gun-control laws. He backed expanded work with the homeless and immigrants. Then gay-rights activists called him a "charismatic fundamentalist" because he opposed the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians and preached that sex outside of marriage was sin.

Also, before the presiding bishop election, Frey fielded questions -- and heard old whispers -- about the informal charismatic Christian community he led with his wife, Barbara (who died in 2014).

, , , , , , ,

Al Smith dinner 2020: Trump and Biden make pitches to very different Catholic voters

, , , , , , ,
Al Smith dinner 2020: Trump and Biden make pitches to very different Catholic voters

During a normal White House race, the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner allows the candidates to don formal attire, fire snappy one-liners and make subtle appeals to Catholic voters.

But nothing is normal in 2020. Thus, Joe Biden and President Donald Trump used this year's virtual dinner to preach to Catholic voters in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida. The event produced few headlines, coming a mere six hours before Trump announced his positive test for COVID-19.

Saluting Catholic progressive, Biden offered a litany about the pandemic, race, the recession and climate change. He warned that many Americans have lost faith "in one another, in truth, in science and reason."

The current pope, Biden stressed, embraced him during a 2013 White House visit, offering comfort shortly after brain cancer took his son Beau's life.

"Pope Francis took the time to meet with my entire family to help us see the light through the darkness," said Biden. "I live in an amazing country … where an Irish Catholic kid like me from Scranton, Pennsylvania, would one day befriend a Jesuit pope. But that's who we are as a country -- where anything is possible when we care for one another, when we look out for one another, when we keep the faith."

While stressing that he is guided "by the tenets of Catholic social doctrine" -- helping the "least of these" -- Biden didn't mention his vow to codify Roe v. Wade if the Supreme Court overturns that decision or his promise to reinstate policies requiring the Little Sisters of the Poor to cooperate in providing birth control and abortifacients to staff. He didn't mention his decision to officiate at the same-sex wedding of two White House colleagues, an action clashing with church doctrine.

It was logical for Biden to avoid providing fresh ammunition for critics. But the speech, once again, trumpeted his Catholic credentials.

"Joe Biden's choice to run explicitly on the claim that he is a faithful Catholic squarely places on the table his claim to be a faithful Catholic," stressed legal scholar Robert P. George of Princeton University, writing on Facebook. He is a Catholic conservative who has also been a consistent critic of Trump.

“No way out of this, folks," he added. "It's not, or not just, Biden's critics who have raised the issue. It's the Biden campaign. …

, , , , , , ,

Pro-Catechism Catholics are watching Joe Biden's actions, not just listening to his words

, , , , , , ,
Pro-Catechism Catholics are watching Joe Biden's actions, not just listening to his words

In the summer of 2016, two White House staffers -- Brian Mosteller and Joe Mahshie -- tied the knot in a rite led by one of America's most prominent Catholics.

The officiant was Vice President Joe Biden, who later proclaimed on Twitter: "Proud to marry Brian and Joe at my house. Couldn't be happier … two great guys."

Leaders of familiar Catholic armies then debated whether Biden's actions attacked this Catholic Catechism teaching: "The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. … Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament."

Conflicts between bishops, clergy and laity will loom in the background as Biden seeks to become America's second Catholic president. Combatants will be returning to territory explored in a famous 1984 address by the late Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, entitled "Religious Belief and Public Morality."

Speaking at the University of Notre Dame, he said: "As a Catholic, I have accepted certain answers as the right ones for myself and my family, and because I have, they have influenced me in special ways, as Matilda's husband, as a father of five children, as a son who stood next to his own father's death bed trying to decide if the tubes and needles no longer served a purpose.

"As a governor, however, I am involved in defining policies that determine other people's rights in these same areas of life and death. Abortion is one of these issues, and while it is one issue among many, it is one of the most controversial and affects me in a special way as a Catholic public official."

It would be wrong to make abortion policies the "exclusive litmus test of Catholic loyalty," he said. After all, the "Catholic church has come of age in America" and it's time for bishops to recognize that Catholic politicians have to be realistic negotiators in a pluralistic land.

, , , , ,

Joe Biden and Democratic strategists face faith issues in 2020 that will not go away

, , , , ,
Joe Biden and Democratic strategists face faith issues in 2020 that will not go away

It didn't matter where Pete Buttigieg traveled in Iowa and the early Democratic Party primaries -- voters kept asking similar questions.

Yes, they asked about his status as the first openly gay major-party candidate to hit the top tier of a presidential race. But they also wanted to know how his faith journey into the Episcopal Church affected his life and his take on politics.

"Those who are on my side of the aisle, those who view themselves as more progressive, are sometimes allergic to talking about faith in a way that I'm afraid has made it feel as if God really did have one political party," said Buttigieg, addressing a webinar for clergy and laypeople in his denomination's House of Deputies.

"It was very important to me to assert otherwise, but also to talk about the political implications of the commandments to concern ourselves with the well-being of the most marginalized and the most vulnerable and the idea that salvation has to do with standing with and for those who are cast out in society. … That energy carried the campaign, in ways that I never would have guessed."

But highly motivated religious believers are, of course, often divided by conflicts about doctrine that then spill over into politics.

Buttigieg waded into one such controversy during the campaign when candidate Beto O'Rourke said congregations and religious institutions that reject same-sex marriage should lose their tax-exempt status.

“If we want to talk about anti-discrimination law for a school or an organization, absolutely. They should not be able to discriminate," said Buttigieg, on CNN's State of the Union broadcast. "But going after the tax exemption of churches, Islamic centers or other religious facilities in this country, I think that's just going to deepen the divisions we are already experiencing."

Other Democrats face similar hot-button issues. Former vice president Joe Biden, during his fight over the "soul of the nation" with President Donald Trump, is sure to hear questions about his Catholic faith and his evolving beliefs on moral and political issues.

Biden backed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993 and the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. His views changed, while serving with President Barack Obama.

, , , ,

Waiting for a judicial 'Utah Compromise' on battles between religious liberty and gay rights?

, , , ,
Waiting for a judicial 'Utah Compromise' on battles between religious liberty and gay rights?

No doubt about it, someone will have to negotiate a ceasefire someday between the Sexual Revolution and traditional religious believers, said Justice Anthony Kennedy, just before he left the U.S. Supreme Court.

America now recognizes that "gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth," he wrote, in the 2018 Masterpiece Cakeshop decision. "The laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights. At the same time, the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression."

Kennedy then punted, adding: "The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts."

The high court addressed one set of those circumstance this week in its 6-3 ruling (.pdf here) that employers who fire LGBTQ workers violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

Once again, the court said religious liberty questions will have to wait. Thus, the First Amendment's declaration that government "shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise of religion" remains one of the most volatile flashpoints in American life, law and politics.

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch -- President Donald Trump's first high-court nominee -- expressed concern for "preserving the promise of the free exercise of religion enshrined in our Constitution." He noted that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 "operates as a kind of super statute, displacing the normal operation of other federal laws." Also, a 1972 amendment to Title VII added a strong religious employer exemption that allows faith groups to build institutions that defend their doctrines and traditions.

Nevertheless, wrote Gorsuch, how these various legal "doctrines protecting religious liberty interact with Title VII are questions for future cases too."

In a minority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito predicted fights may continue over the right of religious schools to hire staff that affirm the doctrines that define these institutions -- even after the court's 9-0 ruling backing "ministerial exemptions" in the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School case in 2012.