What It Means to Be a "Christian" In Trump's America

While Donald Trump received the votes of a little more than 25% of registered voters and lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by a significant margin, don't tell that to Trump and his giddy supporters, especially the 81% or so of evangelical Christians who voted for a trice married, serial adulterer, sexual predator who also happens to be a pathological liar.  If there is any silver lining to be found in the dire situation America now finds itself, it may be that the hideousness of fundamentalist Christianity has been laid bare for the world to see.  In its own way, it is just as toxic and poisonous as fundamentalist Islam, and Donald Trump seems only too happy in helping construct a Christian version of Sharia law here in America.  A column in the Washington Post looks at what a "Christian" - or a least one that voted for Trump - now means.  Here are column excerpts:

“What is a Christian?” grows out of an article this week by The Post’s Julie Zauzmer, which described jubilation among some Christians over Donald Trump’s victory — a win supported by more than 80 percent of white evangelicals.

“It really makes you feel great to be a Christian,” one person told The Post. “I think Christians took a big stand this time and said we’re going to stand up for our faith,” said a second. Referring to Trump, a third said, “I feel like we actually have an advocate now in the White House.”

Those attitudes are reflected in a Pew Research Center analysis of exit poll results, which show that high numbers of white, born-again evangelical Christians, as well as a majority of Catholics, went for Trump.

That notwithstanding, CNN exit polls also showed that 59 percent of nonwhite evangelical Protestants, 45 percent of Catholics and 71 percent of Jewish voters backed Hillary Clinton.

Their embrace of Trump isn’t, however, what prompts the “What is a Christian?” question.

It is raised because of “A Declaration by American Evangelicals Concerning Donald Trump,” a statement posted on change.org that has been signed by more than 22,000 evangelical leaders and their supporters. . . . Trump, they declare, “fueled white American nationalism with xenophobic appeals and religious intolerance at the expense of gospel values [and] democratic principles.”

They charge him with mocking women and the sanctity of marriage vows, disregarding facts, worshiping “wealth and shameful materialism,” and taking an already-weakened “culture of civility to nearly unprecedented” depths with his vulgarity and ugly personal attacks.

Hence the conundrum: A racially diverse community of evangelical Christian denominations and their supporters puts down Trump, beloved by a majority of white evangelical Christians, as “morally unacceptable.”  What is a Christian? What does it mean to be one?

[Martin Luther] King expressed disappointment at seeing white church leaders, in the midst of blatant racial and economic injustices, “stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities.”

King, . . .  saw segregation as morally wrong and sinful. Why didn’t his white co-religionists in the South see segregation statutes the same way?

In truth, some of the white Christians who professed belief in the authority of the Scriptures and the “good news” of the gospel were the backbone of racial segregation. They elected and reelected to public office some of the country’s most sexist, racist and religious bigots.

[L]ooking back at the election night outcome, a different, haunting question recurs: What is a Christian?

I have an answer that Christians of all stripes will not like.  On the one hand, the "Christians" who backed Trump are in truth bigots and racists of a modern day Pharisee mold that make the Pharisees of the Bible look upstanding and decent in comparison.  They make a mockery of the Gospel message and are defined by the hypocrisy and hatred of others, meaning anyone who isn't a white fundamentalist Christian.  On the other side, we see a group of timid, hand wringing folk who actually follow some of the Gospel message tenants but rarely do so outside of their churches and church halls which serve more as social clubs than messengers of what Christ allegedly preached.   They talk a good game, but shrink in fear in the face of hate and bigotry and act akin to the "good Germans" who stayed silent, sat on their hands, and allowed the rise of Hitler.  Neither form of "Christian" is a social positive.  Hopefully, more and more of the younger generations will recognize this reality and simply walk away from Christianity entirely.  The sooner Christianity is a dead religion in America, the better off the nation will be.

Christians Need to Stop Hurting LGBT People

The bitter old men in dresses at the Vatican continue their farcical synod on the family and are making it very clear that LGBT families simply do not count under the Vatican's 13th century understanding of sexual orientation (I'd like to make them be limited to utilizing only 13th century medical treatment, if they think the 13th century provides all the answers).  Meanwhile, Sister Simone Campbell, the Executive director of NETWORK, a national Catholic social justice lobby, is call on the Vatican - and other homophobic denominations - to cease the harm being done to LGBT individuals.  Here are highlights from her post at Huffington Post:

I've been described as 'radical' by the Vatican; it's pretty funny really. I have no idea what some people find so radical about accepting 100 per cent of people on this earth.

As a movement, NETWORK, America's National Catholic Social Justice Lobby relates to everyone in society and that obviously includes the LGBT community. I've witnessed the amazing courage of folks in the LGBT community, who have come out and spoken publicly and respectfully on what had been taboo subjects. Because of their bravery, all of us have discovered we know at least someone - a friend, relative, colleague, whoever - who is LGBT, and I think that's been huge in moving society towards greater acceptance. 

I wonder if the challenge for some people in dealing with anxieties around sexual definition is their own lack of working through their sexual identity. When we're comfortable in ourselves, outside things can't threaten us. I know, when I'm nervous about something, it's usually got something to do with me and my own unresolved stuff. So I wonder that when folks are angry or judgmental or prejudiced if it's a reflection of their own insecurities. And I think there are some people within the Church, some priests and bishops included, that haven't wrestled with their own sexuality and instead spend a lot of time worrying about everybody else's. I think it comes from needing to judge others to feel better about oneself, or projecting onto others the things that one fears.

[T]he Bible doesn't really say anything about LGBT people. There is that line in the book of Leviticus, but really, give me a break! That is not the LGBT community as we in the 21st century understand it. Instead, what I see over and over in the gospels is Jesus walking towards all kinds of folks. The scriptures say repeatedly that you should walk towards everybody, no exceptions. If some folks have a sexual identity that's different to mine, so what? God doesn't make mistakes and if that's how folks are created, then that's a reflection of God's love too. We need to wake up to the fact that love is a wonderful thing, building families is a wonderful thing, and there are a variety of ways to do either.  

On our last bus tour, I met a young woman who had escaped from a program to 'cure' her of being gay. She's now married to her female partner and together they have a baby - she was just radiating joy! But then she started telling me that some years before, her Christian family had sent her away to a curing program. Her father - a preacher - told her that she was possessed by the devil, and she even came to believe that herself for a while. I don't know how she had the courage to break out of it, but five months in she ran away and hasn't had contact with her family since.

I could feel her anguish in the judgement from her family, but also her relief in being true to herself and trusting that she wasn't wrong or crazy or possessed.  

When folk hate or reject LGBT people, it affects the person who is doing the hating. If you spend your energy being fearful and criticizing others, that anger erodes who you are and really limits the joy and love that Jesus calls us to. 

For me, that means we have to listen to people rather than making assumptions about them. Anyone can create their own theory and feel very sure about what LGBT people are or are not, but when you meet people it changes everything. Talk to people. Be open and accept the truth of who people are. That's all we need to do.

I love the shots she takes at the Church hierarchy.  Would that Sister Simone was the pope.

Is Pope Francis Shaming the GOP Toward Change?

One of the most shocking examples of the hypocrisy of today's Republican Party is the manner in which the party claims to embrace - dare we say worship? - Christian values even as it pursues policies that are the absolute antithesis of the Gospel message of love, care for the poor and less fortunate.  Paul Ryan's budget proposals which savage the social safety net and which would leave millions of citizens in extreme dire straights is but one example.  Another is the way in which in the eyes of the GOP, if one is not a white, heterosexual conservative Christian, one is not viewed as even fully human.  Running in a head on collision with this GOP mantra of stealing from the poor to give to the rich (a reverse Robin Hood approach, if you will) is Pope Francis' statements on social justice.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at how the GOP may be called out on its ugly policies from this unexpected quarter.  Here are excerpts:

When Jeb Bush stepped up this month to declare illegal immigration “an act of love,” he provoked precisely the conservative pile-on you’d expect. The right’s favorite crabby uncle, Charles Krauthammer, dourly pronounced the comments “bizarre.”. Rep. Raul Labrador accused Jebbie of pandering.  Noted intellectual Donald Trump declared Bush’s thinking “ridiculous” and “dangerous.” And God help anyone who ventured onto sites like RedState.com. Most perfectly, fake-winger Stephen Colbert eulogized, “He will be missed.”

In the midst of all the huffing and grumping, it was easy to miss the smaller, quieter sounds of satisfaction emanating from some of Bush’s fellow Catholics, particularly those on the social-justice-minded end of the spectrum. For these faithful, the governor’s assertion—with its decidedly biblical ring—was yet another sign of the change in conversation being driven, even within the fetid swamps of U.S. politics, by the wildly popular Pope Francis.

[D]ebate continues to rage throughout the church over the question of just how radical this pope really is, and the degree to which he might shift the Catholic spotlight from issues of sexual morality onto those such as poverty, immigration, torture, and even the environment.

“A fair number of bishops have always been deeply committed to the social doctrine of the church, but that isn’t what made headlines,” says Michael Sean Winters, who writes for the National Catholic Register. “Now it makes headlines.”

And where the headlines go, the politicians soon will follow.   Case in point: In his first pastoral visit last July, the pope journeyed to Lampedusa, a tiny island off the coast of Sicily through which more than 200,000 migrants and refugees have entered Europe since 1999. Lamenting “global indifference” to the plight of migrants and refugees, Francis threw a wreath into the Mediterranean in remembrance of those who had lost their lives there.

[T[he pope makes it awkward for political leaders of faith to ignore the human costs of poverty or the need for immigration reform, asserts Winters. “It’s really hard to justify, say, your opposition to immigration as coherent with your religious principles when you have the pope and the bishops out front saying otherwise.”

Sure enough, in the wake of Bush’s “act of love,” the proudly Catholic Bill O’Reilly rushed forward to claim that Jeb had stolen the line from him.  Meanwhile, Marco Rubio, a champion of comprehensive immigration reform until it tanked his popularity with the GOP base, felt compelled to wade back into the issue—even if his on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand, good-immigrants-versus-bad-immigrants hair-splitting made him look more impotent and befuddled than ever.

Carr acknowledges that while “the tone and the content of the discussion” have changed, “what is not clear is whether that leads to a change in policies or priorities.”

Indeed, Rep. Paul Ryan may talk a good game about the poor, but his policies still give social-justice advocates an ulcer. Similarly, John Boehner may have invited the pope to address a joint session of Congress, but that doesn’t mean the speaker is looking to become his party’s point man on immigration reform.

Still, the wheels of government—like those of the church—move slowly. And just getting Washington talking about these issues in even a slightly new way is seen by many social-justice advocates as a solid first step.

“There is a palpable sense among those of us on the Catholic left that the wind is at our back in a way that it has not been in at least 40 years.”

Despite these positives by Pope Francis, until he does a thorough house cleaning of the hierarchy of those who aided, abetted and covered up sexual abuse and until he truly changes Church dogma on sexual issues, the "change" he is bringing to the Church will be largely just smoke and mirrors.  Better PR skills do not equal real change.

Ken Cuccinelli's Faux Devotion to Catholicism

Ken Cuccinelli - Hypocrite Extraordinaire

Admittedly, there is little I like about Virginia Attorney General Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli who will be crowned as the GOP nominee this coming weekend at the GOP coven of extremists party  convention.  The man is a ragging homophobe (and I suspect a self-loathing closet case) and seems to be pretty much on the same page as Mitt Romney when he made his infamous statement about the "47%" disdaining nearly half of the American population.   These attributes are bad enough, but where his hypocrisy is truly off the charts is when he gushes about his Catholic faith and religiosity in general.  On almost ever social gospel issue Kookinelli's policy positions are the exact opposite of the espoused beliefs of the Catholic Church.  Indeed, the only areas on which Kookinelli is on the same page with the Church is on abortion, the demonizing of gays, and the subjugation of women to a chattel like status.   An analysis in Blue Virginia looks at Kookinelli's hypocrisy.  Here are highlights:

During an address to foreign ambassadors to the Vatican, Pope Francis had VERY strong words regarding capitalism having created a "tyranny," and about the need for countries to "impose more control over their economies and not allow 'absolute autonomy, in order to provide 'for the common good'." Pope Francis added that "while the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling," and that "the worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly human goal."  He declared, "I encourage the financial experts and the political leaders of your countries to consider the words of St John Chrysostom 'Not to share one's goods with the poor is to rob them.'"

In sum, Pope Francis just condemned pretty much everything Republicans - aka, the "I've got mine so screw you!" party - believe in when it comes to the economy, while endorsing pretty much everything progressives believe in on economic fairness and social justice. Now, of course progressives don't agree with the Pope on issues related to sexuality and women's rights, but when it comes to economics, I'd say we're all singing from the same sheets of music. As for Roman Catholics like Ken Cuccinelli, apparently he disagrees with the Pope - and with the teachings of Jesus Christ, as well - on caring for the poor, the stranger, the naked and the hungry. I'm not sure what Cuccinelli bases that on, exactly, because it certainly couldn't be clearer in the Gospels.

By the way, while we're on the subject of Ken Cuccinelli disagreeing with his own church on fundamental issues of his faith, how about environmental protection, which Pope Benedict - the "green Pope" - made an important part of his papacy? It appears that Pope Francis is following in Benedict's tradition on "lov[ing] and car[ing] for creation." In stark contrast, Ken Cuccinelli comes from the "drill baby drill," slash-and-burn, Koch brothers wing of the Republican Party.

These criticisms of Kookinelli, of course are applicable to the Republican Party at large which wraps itself in the cloak of Christianity yet then pushes policies that make the Pharisees of the Bible look like  liberal philanthropists  in comparison.  For me, it all translate to the reality that the members of the  "godly Christian" crowd - and their puppets in the GOP - are not nice people and that hypocrisy is their most pronounced trait.

The Sad Decline of the GOP

As I have noted many time before, once upon a time I was a Republican - but the party is not what it once was as illustrated by the image above and the statements of President Dwight Eisenhower.  Today's GOP has become something both ugly and frightening in how it has thrown compassion and decency to the wind as it seeks to transfer wealth from the working poor and middle class.  I'm sure that some readers will disagree with my sentiments, but a review of what today's GOP seeks to do to the social safety net is obscene and certainly not the least bit in keeping with the Gospel message despite the Party's self-prostitution to the nastiest elements of the Christofascist far right.

Quote of the Day: Greg Presley on the Catholic Church's Rejection of Social Justice

If one puts aside the moral bankruptcy of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy demonstrated by its many decades - possibly centuries - of protecting child rapists and sexual predators within the clergy, the Catholic leadership still comes up morally deficient in the way in which it has now thrown away the goal of social justice.  Now, the sexual obsessions of the bitter old men in dresses at the Vatican and in bishoprics around the world (San Francisco's new archbishop is a case in point), trump what had been perhaps the Church's most noble endeavor: social justice for the down trodden and unfortunate.  A letter to the editor in the Spokesman-Review sums up well the face of Catholicism has become under Benedict XVI and his Nazi like lieutenants:

A Catholic priest invented the term social justice in the 1830s and, for a time, especially from the 1930s through the 1970s, the Catholic Church was a refuge and a beacon for oppressed people, workers, peasants, women and minorities because the Sermon on the Mount was taken seriously as Jesus’ guide for living a spiritual life.

Unfortunately, the hierarchy of the church, and some of the laity, have visibly retreated from this role, and the public face of the Catholic Church now is that of a medieval institution whose only concerns are abortion, birth control, opposition to gay rights, the bashing of women and nuns, and the stifling of theological dissent.

The Catholic Church has acknowledged the broad consensus of science that homosexuality is innate, but that acknowledgment has not prevented it from oppressing gay people at every turn and doing everything in its power to prevent them from living fulfilled lives. That’s exactly comparable to kicking someone because he was born blind. Where’s the social justice in that? Where’s the “Jesus-inspired-life” in that?

Catholic Group Criticizes Paul Ryan and Rejects His Social Views

Throughout the GOP primaries one think remained an interesting constant: ultra far right GOP candidates - i.e., Rick Santorum - consistently lost the Catholic vote to less strident and theocratic candidates. The far right loves to wrap itself in religion yet embraces social policies that are the antithesis of Christ's Gospel message of social justice and charity for the poor, hungry and homeless. That's right, the very people that the Republican Party seeks to throw under the bus if not throw into the trash heap as the party pushes to give huge tax breaks to the wealthy and treat corporations as if they were people. Fitting the mold of the - at least in my view - hypocrites in the GOP leadership is Paul Ryan who recently sought to justify his draconian pro-wealthy budget based on his Catholic faith. Many Catholics were not amused, and as Politico reports some have called Ryan out. Here are highlights:

Nearly 60 progressive Catholic leaders released a statement Friday, condemning Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s assertion that his budget proposal was shaped by his Catholic faith. “When a high-profile Catholic congressman is mangling church teachings, that should be challenged,” John Gehring, Catholic Outreach Coordinator for Faith in Public Life, the organization that put together the statement, told POLITICO.

In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network released Tuesday, Ryan said that his religious convictions influenced his budget plan, claiming that the proposal reflects Catholic teachings of local control and concern for the poor.

But some Catholic leaders disagree strenuously that Ryan’s policies represent their faith. “If Rep. Ryan thinks a budget that takes food and health care away from millions of vulnerable people upholds Catholic values, then he also probably believes Jesus was a tea partier who lectured the poor to stop being so lazy and work harder,” said Gehring. “This budget turns centuries of Catholic social teaching on its head. These Catholic leaders and many Catholics in the pews are tired of faith being misused to bless an immoral agenda.”

Indeed, 59 Catholic leaders and theologians took issue with Ryan’s claims, signing a scathing letter that slammed the Ryan budget plan. “Simply put, this budget is morally indefensible and betrays Catholic principles of solidarity, just taxation and a commitment to the common good. A budget that turns its back on the hungry, the elderly and the sick while giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest few can’t be justified in Christian terms,” argue the signatories.

The signatories include the leadership team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, a women’s Catholic organization, a retired Priest in Ryan’s district, and the former Associate General Secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Not surprisingly, porcine anti-gay bigot extraordinaire and one of the architects of the fraudulent "religious liberty is threatened" campaign, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, has not condemned the Ryan budget. Treating the poor and unfortunate as so much disposable garbage is apparently perfectly fine with Dolan.

NYT and Boston Herald Op-Ed's Slam Santorum

It's comforting to see that it's not just gays who loath Rick Santorm. Maureen Dowd has a great take down of Santorum in the New York Times and Margery Eagan goes after his false piety in a column in the Boston Herald, Boston's conservative newspaper when compared to its rival the Boston Globe. Both writers find Santorum's desire to inflict a pernicious form of Catholicism on everyone offensive (not to mention it flouts the U. S. Constitution) and also bring up examples of his lies and willingness to fleece taxpayers. First these highlights from the New York Times column:.

The man who fondly recalls nuns rapping his knuckles with rulers did some verbal knuckle-rapping of his own on Thursday with students at a forum in Concord hosted by New England College.

Not satisfied with mentioning homosexuality in the same breath as bestiality and pedophilia, as he did in 2003, Santorum tried to win over the kids by equating homosexuality with polygamy. Even for Santorum, it was a masterpiece of antediluvian abrasiveness — slapping gays and Mormons at the same time. . . . The grating Santorum was their worst nightmare of a bad teacher. He merely got booed; he’s lucky the kids didn’t TP his car or soap the windows.

In a campaign where W. is an unmentionable, Santorum is an unexpected revival of Bushian uncompassionate conservatism.

He got more scattered boos on Friday at a library in Keene and a private high school in Dublin. In Keene, he was asked if he would protect gay rights, since gays are “children of God” too. “Serving in the military is not an unalienable right, it’s a privilege, you’re selected,” replied the candidate, who wants to restore “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He also called marriage “a privilege, not a right,” for the purpose is procreation.

Rick Perry baits gays because it’s good politics; Santorum sincerely means it. His political philosophy is infused with his über-Catholicism but lacks humanity.

New Hampshire’s feisty voters don’t seem as enraptured with Santorum’s rigid conservatism and sweater vests as evangelical voters in Iowa were. . . . . He bashes President Obama as a European-style socialist and preaches fiscal conservatism. Yet in the Senate, he made sure dollars from the socialistic Medicare program went to Puerto Rico on behalf of a hometown firm — United Health Services — that later gave him nearly $400,000 in director’s fees and stock options.

While Karen Santorum was home-schooling their seven children in Virginia, Santorum soaked the Pennsylvania taxpayers to the tune of $100,000 by enrolling the children in a Pennsylvania cyber charter school.

Santorum’s hot politics of aggrievement have competed with Mitt Romney’s cold politics of convenience. But soon Santorum will be gone and Mittens will reign as the calculating consultant type, unpersuasive in premium denim mom jeans, his hair slicked and gray, a lead in a ’50s B movie.

Santorum thinks he’s a bold color and Romney’s a pastel. But the whole Republican field seems ensconced in a black-and-white ’50s diorama. It’s like they’re running for president of Leave It to Beaverland.

Egan's column in the Boston Herald isn't any kinder and also brings in Santorum attempt to blame the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal which first exploded in Boston on that city's "cultural liberalism." Santorum conveniently ignores the fact that the sexual abuse in the Church happened EVERYWHERE all around the world, including backward conservative nations in Africa. But why would Frothy Mix want to worry about inconvenient facts. Here are some highlights from Egan's column:

Yesterday morning, while Rick “Faith, Family, and Freedom” Santorum was preparing for another I’m-holier-than-you-are day in New Hampshire, I was sitting in a Cambridge Street Holiday Inn conference room. It was packed with survivors and advocates celebrating the 10th anniversary of the uncovering of Boston’s horrific Catholic Church sex abuse crisis. Two times in a half hour the name Rick Santorum, the self-proclaimed uber Catholic, was mentioned. Two times he was politely and genteelly booed. I loved it.

This was a mostly Catholic gathering. There were nuns, ex-nuns, ex-altar boys, and middle-aged and elderly people. And many in the crowd couldn’t stomach Santorum for one big reason. Just as the depths of this sex abuse deprivation were revealed, Rick Santorum, in 2002, went on the record to blame the rape of children in and around Boston on “cultural liberalism.” He’s never said he was wrong.

Think about that obnoxiousness before you vote, New Hampshire. Let me add. The website BishopAccountability.org lists bishops and priests credibly accused of abuse, which means priests with multiple accusers or with cases settled by the church. More than 60 such priests were accused by hundreds and hundreds in New Hampshire.

Perhaps Rick Santorum blames New Hampshire’s “cultural liberalism” for those assaults, too, though liberal is hardly a word I’d use to describe the Granite State. It is not clear what he blames for priestly attacks on teenagers and children in Ireland, throughout Europe, parts of Africa, South America and most recently Haiti.

Unfortunately for Santorum, however, the corrupt church hierarchy that knew of and then covered up these many crimes was not made up of cultural liberals but cultural conservatives. Like Santorum, the pope, most bishops, Bernard Cardinal Law and John B. McCormack (Law’s accessory and until September the bishop of Manchester, N.H.) oppose premarital sex, sex between married couples using birth control, any kind of gay sex, of course, and abortion.

Santorum, despite his uber Catholic posturing, is a cafeteria Catholic in reverse. Or maybe I should call him an “all about sex” Catholic because he only agrees with the church’s doctrines on matters sexual.

Look at his record. He’s for the death penalty and a foreign policy macho hawk (both against Catholic teaching). He’s opposed to illegal immigration and social justice for the poor (both big time against Catholic teaching from the Vatican and the American church).

Yet what really got me this weekend, hearing retold the brutal stories of small Catholic children molested, is how Rick Santorum both belittled and politicized their suffering. I wished they booed him louder at the Holiday Inn yesterday. I hope New Hampshire sends this creepy guy packing.

Ladies, very well said. Like so many of the Christianists and members of the Catholic Church hierarchy, Santorum makes a mockery of Christ's Gospel message of love and compassion. For a great run down on how Santorum goes against true Catholic and Christian teaching, check out a great piece at Huffington Post that rips Santorum a new one in terms of his hypocrisy. Here's the lead in to the list:

[I]t's a political delusion to think Rick Santorum is a standard-bearer of authentic Catholic values in politics. In fact, on several issues central to Catholic social teaching -- torture, war, immigration, climate change, the widening gap between rich and poor and workers' rights - Santorum is radically out of step with his faith's teachings as articulated by Catholic bishops and several popes over the centuries.

Newt Gingrich's War on Poor Children

Serial adulterer and GOP presidential candidate claims to have changed his ways and is wearing his new found Catholicism on his sleeve almost wherever he goes. Of course, Gingrich can easily be called a cafeteria Catholic inasmuch as he happily ignores just about all of the Church's social justice teachings. You know, things like assisting the poor, the homeless, the sick and caring for children. For Newt, its all about trying to look good and pander to the vilest elements of the GOP base. The folks who cheer at letting someone uninsured die of medical maladies, jeer a gay soldier serving the nation in combat, and who preach hate and intolerance against gays, Hispanics, Muslims, liberals - the list is nearly endless - on a daily basis. A column in the New York Times looks at Gingrich's utter hypocrisy when it comes to protecting children. It's pretty disgusting, but then disgusting ought to be Newt's middle name. Here are some highlights:

Newt Gingrich has reached a new low, and that is hard for him to do. Nearly two weeks after claiming that child labor laws are “truly stupid” and implying that poor children should be put to work as janitors in their schools, he now claims that poor children don’t understand work unless they’re doing something illegal.

On Thursday, at a campaign stop in Iowa, the former House speaker said, “Start with the following two facts: Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash’ unless it’s illegal.”

This statement isn’t only cruel and, broadly speaking, incorrect, it’s mind-numbingly tone-deaf at a time when poverty is rising in this country. He comes across as a callous Dickensian character in his attitude toward America’s most vulnerable — our poor children. This is the kind of statement that shines light on the soul of a man and shows how dark it is.

Gingrich wants to start with the facts? O.K. First, as I’ve pointed out before, three out of four poor working-aged adults — ages 18 to 64 — work. Half of them have full-time jobs and a quarter work part time.

Furthermore, according to an analysis of census data by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College, most poor children live in a household where at least one parent is employed. And even among children who live in extreme poverty — defined here as a household with income less than 50 percent of the poverty level — a third have at least one working parent. And even among extremely poor children who live in extremely poor areas — those in which 30 percent or more of the population is poor — nearly a third live with at least one working parent.

You’d have to slice the definition of neighborhoods rather thinly to find a few areas that support Gingrich’s position. Lastly, Gingrich vastly overreaches by suggesting that a lack of money universally correlates to a lack of morals. Yes, poverty presents increased risk factors for crime. But, encouragingly, data show that even as more Americans have fallen into poverty in recent years, the crime rate over all — and, specifically, among juveniles — has dropped.

“Facts” are not Gingrich’s forte. Yet he is now the Republican front-runner. It just goes to show how bankrupt of compassion and allergic to accuracy that party is becoming.

The Republican Party has truly become something very ugly. Click on the image below for details on the children of the working poor.

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.