Rick Santorum and Catholic Extremism

Even as we see new daily stories on sexual abuse horrors - and now forced castrations of youths - involving the Roman Catholic Church, we learn more and more about Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum's slavish embrace of the most extreme aspects of the batshitery within the Catholic Church. Santorum's embrace of Opus Dei - considered something scary even by many Catholics - is but one example of this alignment with reactionary and extremist elements. While Santorum rants about gays, contraception and abortion, one never hears a word from him about feeding out the members of the Church hierarchy who aided and abetted sexual predator priests. Or accountability for members of the hierarchy who participated in the worldwide conspiracy to cover up crimes against children and youths. True, Santorum has the right to hold his own personal religious beliefs no matter how crazy they may seems to rational, thinking individuals. What he doesn't have the right to do is inflict his religious extremism on others and I do not believe that Santorum, given his extremism - almost mental illness in my view - has the ability to separate his personal beliefs from what he would try to enforce as a matter of public policy. The Washington Post has coverage on Santorum and the most disturbing aspects of Catholicism. Here are highlights:

In January 2002, prominent Catholics from around the world gathered in Rome to celebrate the Spanish priest who founded one of the church’s most conservative and devout groups, Opus Dei. The event drew cardinals, bishops and other powerful Vatican officials. And among those invited to speak was a future presidential candidate: Rick Santorum . . .

In a speech at the gathering, Santorum embraced the ideas of Opus Dei founder Josemaria Escriva . . .

Within the story of how Santorum grew up and decided to run for president, there is the story of a boy who grew up to become ever more devoutly Catholic, a journey all the more relevant as Santorum has vigorously asserted a role for religious conviction in the realm of governance.

Less well known is Santorum’s embrace of the Catholicism of Opus Dei, a relatively small yet influential group within the church that is defined by the intensity with which followers are urged to live out church doctrine . . . The group encourages “unity” between followers’ personal and public lives as Catholics, the rigorous practice of church sacraments and, to some degree, gestures of self-denial. Its most devoted members follow a daily two-hour ritual of wearing a spiked metal chain on their thighs to recall Christ’s suffering — a practice followed by Mother Teresa.

Opus Dei, whose name is Latin for “Work of God,” has become a significant presence in his life. Santorum has for years attended a church with a number of Opus Dei followers and other affiliations with the group, and he has sent two of his sons to a school run by Opus Dei members.

In his address, Santorum embraced Escriva’s view that it is “absurd” to leave one’s Catholicism aside in conducting politics. He said that “as an American, and as a public figure, I am deeply troubled by this turn away from God.” . . . . “Without a shared belief system that is held and enforced,” he said, “a culture disintegrates into moral chaos.” For guidance on these matters, Santorum said, he turns to “blessed Josemaria.”

About 70 percent of its members are “supernumeraries,” who can marry, while about 20 percent are “numeraries,” who live in celibacy. Numeraries typically wear the spiked chain and perform “the discipline,” occasionally striking themselves with a braided cord as a reminder of Jesus’s suffering.

In 2002, the scandal over sexual abuse by priests was shaking the Catholic Church, including Santorum’s former parish in Butler, St. Paul, where one of the young, long-haired priests of the 1970s was accused of molesting three boys, including a classmate of Santorum’s, and placed on leave that April.

It is unclear whether Santorum knew that when he gave a speech in July, expressing “profound sympathy” for victims and blaming the abuse on the moral relativism he had just spoken of in Rome. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture,” he said. “When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected.” What was needed, he said, was greater fidelity to church teachings instead of “watered-down versions of our faith.”

When two of Santorum’s sons were around the age he was when he met Father Alex, he sent them to the Heights, a private liberal arts boys school in Potomac run by Opus Dei members. Its headmaster, Alvaro de Vicente, is a numerary.

When Santorum is home in Virginia, he attends St. Catherine of Siena in Great Falls, one of the few churches in the diocese that host a monthly Opus Dei spiritual meeting. A priest from the group comes in to hear confessions. Santorum often attends the noon Mass in Latin.

He [Santorum] said that Satan has used “the great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality” to corrupt universities, politics and even most Christian churches, except one.

“You say, ‘The Catholic Church?’ No,” Santorum said, explaining that Satan aimed at the country’s Protestant roots. “. . . If you look at mainline Protestantism in this country, it is in shambles. It is gone from the world of Christianity.”

I'm sorry, but I find Santorum down right scary. Moreover, as one who threw myself into devout Catholicism in a futile attempt to escape my sexual orientation and inner demons, I cannot help but feel that something is not quite right with Santorum's mental/psychological state. I've known too many other Catholics who did as I did, and there's just something going on with Santorum that he isn't facing up to. And as he seeks to flee his demons through religious extremism, I cannot help by worry about the damage he'd do to the nation if he were to win the presidency.