More Catholic Church Hypocrisy

As a former Roman Catholic, even though I have left the Church because of it's disgustingly corrupt hierarchy and its horrifically anti-gay stance, I none the less follow the news stories involving the Catholic Church out of both curiosity and perhaps out of the hope that someday the Church will cease being an instrument of intolerance and hate. In this vein, two stories caught my today. The first involves a Catholic priest who denounced Proposition 8 from the pulpit and outed himself. The other is from the New York Times and focuses on liberal/progressive elements within the Church that are resisting the hierarchy's efforts to take the Church back to a Medieval mindset. First, here are highlights from KFSN-TV in Fresno, California, which focus on Father Geoffrey Farrow of the Saint Paul Newman Center, for whom I have the utmost respect. He spoke out for what is right and moral even though it will cost him dearly given the Church's extreme homophobia and intolerance (on a personal note, I ultimately came to believe as father Farrow that God made me gay for a reason):

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Father Geoffrey Farrow of the Saint Paul Newman Center in northeast Fresno shocked parishioners Sunday morning when he came out against Proposition 8, an initiative that would eliminate the right for same sex couples to marry in California. . . . The homily taught of acceptance, love and rejection. But it was his closing remarks that left some parishioners stunned. "What most Catholics hear about being gay or lesbian at their parish is silence," . . . *the Father said he must go against the Bishops recommendation and instead go with what he feels is right.

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"In directing the faithful to vote yes on proposition 8, the California Bishops are not only entering the political arena, they are ignoring the advances and insights of neurology, psychology and the very statements by the church itself that homosexual is innate," says Fr. Geoff.

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"I know that these words of truth will cost me dearly. But to withhold them would be far more costly and I would become an accomplice to a moral evil that strips gay and lesbian couples, not only of their civil rights but of their human dignity as well."

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We sat down with Father Geoff before mass, and he answered the question many are probably wondering... Is he gay? "It's a secondary issue. But yes, I am. And when I was a boy I asked God please make me normal and the prayer never got answered and I realized why. Because God would've made somebody else he wouldn't have made me."

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Joshua De La Cerda, Parishioner, says "This is something Jesus would have done, or Christ would have done, spoke out for the truth." Fr. Geoff said after months of struggling with what to do, said in the end he followed his heart. "In any event regardless of what I or anyone else does in their life, one day you die, and on that day were you true to your conscience, were you true to what you believe. And I think that's the question each of us has to answer. If the answer is no, hell already began before you died."

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The second article looks at efforts by members of the Catholic laity to rebel against the autocratic tyranny of the Church hierarchy. Unlike the ECLA and other Protestant denominations, the Roman Catholic Church is structured on a feudal model where to top reaches of the hierarchy have no accountability to anyone and are little better than willful autocrats similar to the Medieval Tsar, Ivan the Terrible (or in the case of Benedict XVI, perhaps Vlad the Impaler a/k/a Dracula). Thus, typically, only by voting with their feet and their pocket books can the Catholic laity have any impact on the arbitrary will of the hierarchy. Here are some highlights:

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As the Roman Catholic Church observes its annual “respect life” Sunday in this heated presidential election season, the unusually pitched competition for Catholic voters is setting off a round of skirmishes over how to apply the church’s teachings not only on abortion but also on the war in Iraq, immigration and racism. In a departure from previous elections, Democrats and liberal Catholic groups are waging a fight within the church, arguing that the Democratic Party better reflects the full spectrum of church teachings. . . . The escalating efforts by more-liberal Catholics are provoking a vigorous backlash from some bishops and the right.

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In the aftermath of the 2004 election, many liberal Catholics complained that parishes had distributed millions of copies of a voter guide created by a group called Catholic Answers that highlighted five “nonnegotiable” issues: abortion, stem-cell research, human cloning, euthanasia and same-sex marriage.

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In response, liberal groups like Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance quickly began preparing alternative guides emphasizing a broader spectrum of the church’s social justice teachings. Then the Bishops Conference, perhaps to forestall a blizzard of competing pamphlets, all but banned third-party voter guides from parishes, requiring the explicit endorsement of the presiding bishop.

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Alexia Kelley, executive director of Catholics in Alliance, said her organization was spending more than $250,000 on radio, print and billboard advertisements in Scranton and other heavily Catholic areas. The advertisements emphasize what Ms. Kelley described as the broader spectrum of Catholic concerns about the “common good,” including health care, jobs and home foreclosures.

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Douglas W. Kmiec, a Catholic legal scholar who was a legal counsel in the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush, has been telling Catholic audiences in Pennsylvania and other swing states that Mr. Obama’s platform better fits Catholic social teaching, including reducing the abortion rate.