Pope Paul VI Knew Five Decades Ago

The correct and authoritative recommendation was made in an Aug. 27, 1963 letter to then-Pope Paul VI from the head of the New Mexico-based Servants of the Holy Paraclete, which was founded to treat priests dealing with challenges such as alcoholism, substance abuse and sexuality. The Rev. Gerald M.C. Fitzgerald recommended to the pope that pedophile priests be removed from the ministry.

Forever.

Indeed, he later developed a plan for isolating such priests on an island, where they could live out their lives in some dignity without harming others.

Anthony DeMarco, a plaintiff attorney in Los Angeles, released the letter Wednesday. It was obtained by plaintiffs in Kentucky who are attempting to sue the Vatican for negligence in allegedly failing to alert police or the public about priests who molested children.

Even if Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is correct in arguing that the pope probably never saw the letter, it is clear that the letter gives written form to ideas that Pope Paul VI and Fitzgerald had discussed when they met. At the time Fitzgerald had two decades' experience working with problem priests and warned against leaving sexually abusive priests in the ministry.

The letter to Pope Paul VI was not the only one Fitzgerald wrote to church officials. In 1957, Fitzgerald wrote to Archbishop Edwin V. Byrne of Santa Fe, his ecclesiastical sponsor and co-founder of the Paracletes:

“May I beg your Excellency to concur and approve of what I consider a very vital decision on our part - that we will not offer hospitality to men who have seduced or attempted to seduce little boys or girls. These men Your Excellency are devils and the wrath of God is upon them and if I were a bishops I would tremble when I failed to report them to Rome for involuntary laicization. ... It is for this class of rattlesnake I have always wished the island retreat - but even an island is too good for these vipers of whom the Gentle master said - it were better they had not been born - this is an indirect way of saying damned, is it not? When I see the Holy Father I am going to speak of this class to his Holiness.”

DeMarco said, "It [the letter to Pope Paul VI] shows without a shadow of a doubt that ... how pervasive the problem was was communicated to the pope. He was able to share with him their knowledge of how pervasive this problems was, how destructive this problem was."

Whether plaintiffs in this case are successful in their effort to bring action directly against the Pope or not, the days of persuasive basic denial are over.

The letter tells us that the well-documented recommendations of the Roman Catholic Church's expert on such matters were communicated directly to then-Pope Paul VI almost five decades ago

Had those recommendations been heeded, so much of the devastation brought to the lives of the young by serial clerical abusers would never have occurred at all. Victims known and unknown, counted and uncounted, would have had real childhoods and would have grown up whole.

An unholy noncatholic sex row

The Revealer tells of the uproar in India over a sex tape featuring Nithyananda Swami. He frolicked his way to a resignation.

Italian exorcist: NYT is Satan's tool

Father Gabriele Amorth, who you may recall is calculated to vanquish demons at a workday rate of one every 2.42 hours, warns us that recent press unflattering to Pope Benedict XVI was “prompted by the devil.” Especially the work of the New York Times.

The 85-year-old exorcist explained to News Mediaset in Italy:

There is no doubt about it. Because he is a marvelous Pope and worthy successor to John Paul II, it is clear that the devil wants to ‘grab hold’ of him.

How do we explain this to the bishop-besieged NYT?

When are militia Christianist (not Christian)?

Andrew Sullivan is a gay Catholic who gently suggests:

Surely we can all assent to the notion that a Christian militia of the type now accused of planning domestic terrorism is not Christian. This is why I call them Christianist. Anyone planning to murder innocents by way of IEDs cannot plausibly call himself or herself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth.

To which Skeptic PZ Myers replied at some easy-to-read length, asserting that there are Christians (the real thing). And Christianists, a term William Safire traced back to Andrew Sullivan, who on June 1, 2003, wrote:

I have a new term for those on the fringes of the religious right who have used the Gospels to perpetuate their own aspirations for power, control and oppression: Christianists. They are as anathema to true Christians as the Islamists are to true Islam."

.

No friend of matters mystical, Myers of course fences almost everyone we know up with Christianists, but that's a part of what he does. Whereas most of us may seriously entertain the possibility that the Hutaree are Christianists. And we are not.

Williams afflicts the comfortable on behalf of those in need

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who can be slow to act and whom we have criticized for lack of force, rebuked Church of England clergy for complaining of persecution in England while Christians elsewhere face "terrible communal violence" and are "living daily with threats and murders."

He was referring in his ecumenical Easter letter to a group of Church of England Bishops who in a letter last week to the Sunday Telegraph asserted widespread British persecution, including "numerous dismissals of practising Christians from employment for reasons that are unacceptable in a civilised country.”

Jonathan Bartley of Ekklesia wrote in response to the letter to the Sunday Telegraph:

To my knowledge, even the most extreme pressure groups like Christian Concern for our Nation and the Christian Legal Centre who are stoking and reinforcing the Christian persecution complex, haven’t made the claim that there have been “numerous dismissals”. So far they have pointed to only a handful of examples where there is some alleged injustice. Rarely have this small number involved dismissal. And even where (if?) they have, upon further investigation, the claims have tended to fall apart. Indeed, in one case, it even seemed to be the intervention of Christian campaigners which brought the dismissal about, after confidential client details were given to a national newspaper. In another, CLC claimed dismissal and then reinstatement, when dismissal never actually seems to have occurred.

Williams suggested in his letter today that attention be focused instead where the need is compelling and the risk of meeting it considerable:

When St John tells us that the disciples met behind locked doors on the first Easter Day (John 20.19), he reminds us that being associated with Jesus Christ has never been easy or safe. Today this is evident in a wide variety of situations – whether in the terrible communal violence afflicting parts of Nigeria, in the butchery and intimidation of Christians in Mosul in recent weeks, in the attacks on the Coptic faithful in Egypt, or in the continuing harassment of Anglican congregations in Zimbabwe. As we mark the thirtieth anniversary of the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador, we acknowledge that Christians will never be safe in a world of injustice and mindless fear, because Christians will always stand, as did Archbishop Romero, for the hope of a different world, in which the powerful have to let go of privilege and rediscover themselves as servants, and the poor are lifted up into joy and liberty.

By comparison, the secure incantations to civil fear of the five prominent bishops and Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, pale.

Former Vatican Canon lawyer: '...it's all about power'

Father Tom Doyle, now 65, was a canon lawyer for the Vatican embassy in Washington when he was assigned to investigate a Lafayette, Louisiana, case of a pedophile priest who admitted molesting more than 30 children. Ruben Rosario of Pioneer Press discussed in an interview with Doyle how the priest's local archdiocese officials decided to hide the crimes and transfer the child predator from one parish to another, where he abused again.

Doyle, a fellow priest and a criminal defense attorney reacted in 1985 by assembling, on their own initiative, "a 100-page report warning church officials to come clean about the abuses and respond to the needs of victims rather than protect abusive priests from secular prosecution or protect — at all costs — the church's status and image. The report, sent to virtually every U.S. bishop, was largely ignored."

His initiative and prescient warning were followed by victim advocacy -- a path which led to demotion, the status of a pariah and ultimately cost him his job.

He told Rosario that the church can regain its reputation and restore lost confidence in it:

Doyle: To begin the process of restoration, I believe that the current pope needs to stand up and make a public apology. Not that those mistakes were made in the past — they always do in the past tense and there's a subtle message there that this is in the past and not now. The pope should say: "I'm sorry for what I did in my negligence to allow this to happen. I'm sorry that I did not fire bishops when I knew they were covering up."

But I don't believe that will ever happen in my lifetime.

Rosario: Why?

Doyle: Because to protect their own self-identity, they will cling to the premise that they are appointed by the Almighty and are the vicars of Christ and the essence of the church. They believe this will dissolve their power. It's all about control, and it's all about power.

Read the entire interview here.

David Gushee sets the record straight: Update (I & II)

Christa Brown challenged Baptist ethicist David Gushee's echo of self-exculpatory Baptist propaganda in an otherwise now, as revised, excellent commentary on churches and sexual abuse. To his credit, Gushee responded:

Christa, I thank you for this challenge, and grieve along with you that the evidence leads where it does. I should not have written that last paragraph as it now stands.

The keystone statement in Christa's blog, to which Gushee's comment is attached:

There is simply no comparative data to support David Gushee’s suggestion that, for Protestants, the problem has more to do with married ministers who “have affairs,” while for Catholics, the problem has more to do with priests who abuse kids. To the contrary, the data that exists — two decades’ worth of insurance data gathered by the Associated Press in 2007 — suggests exactly the opposite. It suggests that Baptists likely have every bit as big a problem as Catholics with clergy who sexually abuse kids.

Update I

Gushee adds in a second comment:

Today a revised version of my article will appear on ABP that reflects the lessons learned through this exchange. Thank you.

Update II

Gushee revised his column. His introduction says:

(Editor's note: The original version of this column, published March 29, contained an assertion -- regarding differences in clergy-sex-abuse scandals between the Roman Catholic context and the Protestant context -- that many readers found unsupportable. The author agreed to change the column. The version published below contains a slight alteration to the second sentence of the second paragraph, elimination of what had been the eighth paragraph, and a replacement of the final paragraph.)

His revised conclusion [bold face is ours]:

An angry population of abused Christians and those who love them and advocate for them is demanding that churches of all types stop the child sexual abuse in their midst. While many other structures of modern life have heightened the protections offered to children, the churches have lagged behind -- with disastrous consequences. The Baptist situation may be no better than the Catholic, only shielded more deeply from view. This situation demands reform, immediately, for the sake of the vulnerable and abused children among us -- not to mention for the sake of the gospel witness, so desecrated by the abuse behind our stained-glass windows.

Please read the entire piece here.

Resurgent acceptance of homosexuality

Homosexuals were not vilified before the 1870s because they had not been identified as "other," Cody Sanders writes for the Associated Baptist Press. Specifically, he argues:

French historian Michel Foucault reveals that the advent of conceptualizing the “homosexual” as a particular type of person with a specific “lifestyle” didn’t occur until the 1870s in medical discourse (History of Sexuality, Vol. 1). What’s more, one of the earliest known uses of the word “homosexual” in American English showed up in a medical paper in 1892 (the term “heterosexual” made its debut around this same time). Certainly, same-sex sexual acts have been commonplace from time immemorial -- but before the end of the 19th century, anyone could conceivably engage in same-sex sexual acts. It was only with the advent of “homosexuality” as a medical descriptor, that a specific type or kind of person was thought to engage in these sexual acts. What is significant about Everett’s anachronism is that, while in 1850 Texas Baptists may not have tolerated men having sex with men, they certainly didn’t deem “the homosexual lifestyle” abnormal or sinful. In 1850, same-sex sex acts may have been deemed “sinful” -- but no church held what [Executive Director Randel Everett of the Baptist General Convention of Texas] views as an unwavering “theological position” on homosexuality.

Everett was referring to the case of Royal Lane Baptist Church, which precipitated a standard Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) homosexuality crisis when its diaconate voted to say on its Web site:

Royal Lane Baptist Church is an inclusive, multi-generational congregation joined in Christian community. We are a vibrant mosaic of varied racial identities, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and denominational backgrounds.

Will Wilkinson finds in his analysis of World Values Survey data that attitudes in the industrialized world are going Royal Lane's way as people come to accept homosexuality as something people are, rather than a sinful decision they make.

Where Wilkinson's data shows the U.S. shifting back toward treating homosexuality as wrong, the latest Public Policy Institute of California poll comes to an opposite conclusion.

Despite the Catholic/Mormon investment in Proposition 8, a majority of Californians now favor same-sex marriage:

Among all Californians, residents are more likely to favor (50%) than oppose (45%) same-sex marriage for the first time in the PPIC Statewide Surveys. Support among all adults has never surpassed 45 percent since the question was first asked in January 2000. There are clear partisan divisions: majorities of Democrats (64%) and independents (55%) are in favor, and most Republicans (67%) are opposed.

There is much more consensus on the issue of gays and lesbians in the military. In the wake of Obama’s announcement that he would like to repeal the federal "don’t ask, don’t’ tell” policy passed in 1993, 75 percent of Californians say that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military.

Does the data imply a sort of Great Commission Resurgence for churches driven out of the SBC?

New top leadership required for the Legionaries of Christ

Removal of top Legionaries of Christ leadership is necessary and likely to attend actions following the apostolic visitation, Sandro Magister wrote in L'Espresso yesterday. It seems likely that "Vatican authorities will put the Legion under the command of an external commissioner endowed with full powers" over the organization, and findings suggest that the leadership must be replaced if renewal is to occur. For example:

According to some of the testimonies given to the apostolic visitors in recent months, some in this group knew about the founder's double life, about the carnal acts he performed with many of his seminarians over the span of decades, about his lovers, his children, his drug use. But in spite of that, a fortress was built around Maciel in defense of his virtues, devotion to him was fostered among his followers, all of them unaware of the truth, his talents were emphasized, even among the upper hierarchy of the Church. This exaltation of the figure of the founder was so effective that even today it inspires the sense of belonging to the Legion among many of its priests and religious.

The cohesion of the leadership group, originating from its decades-long connection with Maciel, endures today in the bond that binds and subordinates everyone to Corcuera, and even more to [Luís Garza Medina, vicar general and director of the organization's Italian province].

As a result, there are questions regarding whether to treat as "trustworthy" the "distancing of the Legion's leaders from their founder, and in particular from the "sudden revelation" – or so they say – of his misdeeds?"

That "distancing" occurred by way of a statement on the Legion's Web site in which they took the extraordinary step of disowning their founder.

At the same time, the embedded leadership is taking steps to ensure its survival of the Pope's installment of an external commissioner.

Magister explains:

Freed from the annoyance of the visitors, and not yet subjected to the command of the commissioner, during this interim period which they are hoping will last for "several months" they are doing everything they can to consolidate their power and win the support of the majority of the 800 priests of the Legion, and of the other religious and lay members.

Maneuvering, reform and restoration? We will see.

Replace Pope Benedict XVI with whom?

It falls to Tom Flynn (the executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, for crying out loud) to raise the obvious question:

Sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests has emerged as a worldwide (or at least, First World-wide) phenomenon. It's no longer an American issue, nor an Irish issue. The fact that scandal has erupted in Europe and that the former Cardinal Ratzinger may have been involved in under-responding to it simply means that the problem is global, and within the church all lines of responsibility lead ultimately to the papal throne. Should Pope Benedict XVI be held responsible? Yes. Should he be investigated? Yes? Should he resign? Hold on, let's wait fo the investigation! But there's a bigger question here. If investigation reveals that Cardinal Ratzinger participated in covering up abuse in Europe, and if the pope resigns -- who could replace him? Across the world, a minority among Catholic priests apparently engages in sex abuse. Church hierarchs have pretty consistently responded by keeping it quiet, reassigning problem priests, sending them off for therapy but then sending them back to parishes. So if Pope Benedict needs to be replaced, where will Rome find a cardinal whom everyone can be certain has never played a role in mishandling an allegation of abuse?

Of course the other On Faith responders have differing views.

But where, indeed.

Baptist self-delusion about pastor/priest sexual predation

Ethicist David Gushee in an otherwise admirable column gets it exactly wrong when he writes:

Where Catholic and Protestant sexual misconduct tends to differ relates to the Catholic requirement that the priesthood be held only by men vowed to celibacy. Certainly there are Protestant ministers who abuse children. But more often Protestant ministers fall prey to heterosexual misconduct, as when married male ministers have affairs with women in their congregations. This violates chastity (not celibacy), and is still a form of clergy sexual abuse because it involves the abuse of clergy power.

Christa Brown at StopBaptistPredators politely corrects him, writing in part:

We’ve seen a whole slew of Baptist clergy abuse cases that involved married ministers. If priestly celibacy were the catalyst for child predation, then how should we explain the fact that so many molestation cases involve married men?

Basically, it’s impossible to explain because the assumption that underlies it is wrong. As Penn State religious studies professor Philip Jenkins said: “No evidence indicates that Catholic or celibate clergy are more (or less) involved than their non-celibate counterparts. Some of the worst cases of persistent serial abuse by clergy have involved Baptist or Pentecostal ministers, rather than Catholic priests.” (Jenkins, 2003)

There is simply no comparative data to support David Gushee’s suggestion that, for Protestants, the problem has more to do with married ministers who “have affairs,” while for Catholics, the problem has more to do with priests who abuse kids. To the contrary, the data that exists -- two decades’ worth of insurance data gathered by the Associated Press in 2007 -- suggests exactly the opposite. It suggests that Baptists likely have every bit as big a problem as Catholics with clergy who sexually abuse kids.

Another state opposes GCR proposals

Another Southern Baptist state convention executive opposes the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force's progress report recommendations.

David Tolliver, executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention, told staff members that the organization would be "devastated" if the report's proposals were adopted.

The task force released the progress report in February, but continues to work. It plans to release its final report in May, with a vote expected at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in June.

The Georgia Baptist Convention's Executive Committee asked the task force to reconsider one part of the report. Others, including the editor of a state Baptist paper, have also questioned the proposal.

Some think adoption of report recommendations would kill smaller state conventions. Numerous issues have been raised about various parts of the report. Some see the task force's approach as a recipe for disaster.

Tolliver said the Missouri convention would lose $720,000 plus other cuts and called for a cost analysis of the GCR proposals. He said he agreed with three of the six components of the task force report but opposed the others.

Opposition is clearly growing as state convention by state convention implications are calculated.

Holy Week American 'Christian' terrorists (militia)

The Holy Week arrest of the nine Hutaree Christians, for plotting to kill police officers and related crimes [.pdf], dismays evangelical author Brian McLaren. He wrote:

This is the week we recall that Jesus was willing to be killed, but not to kill ... to be tortured, but not to torture. This is the week he told Peter to put away his sword, saying, "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword" (Matthew 26:52). This is the week he contrasted his kingdom in this world with the kingdoms of this world by their opposite responses to the violence question (John 18:36 ff). (The prepositions in and not of are important.) Many of us believe that Jesus embodies the image of a nonviolent God, an image intended to transcend and correct violent images.

Even Juan Cole sees their behavior as of one piece with the bizarre view that Obama is the Anti-Christ. A flawed Harris Poll last week found that 14% of Americans believe President Obama "may be the anti-Christ" And one quarter of Republicans hold that view.

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

There is “no question” the catalyst was President Obama’s election, says Heidi Beirich, the [Southern Poverty Law Center’s] director of research. A similar upswing took place after President Clinton’s election in 1993. Militias and the antigovernment groups that spawn them often become more active when the federal government turns more liberal.

“A major shift to the left certainly helped” in both cases, Ms. Beirich says.

The economic meltdown and the growth of minorities such as Latinos are also a factor, she adds.

The Irregular Times makes a valiant attempt to make sense of Hutaree views and values mishmash. They are explicitly Christians. They seem to have given a twist to millennial expectation of the end times and they clearly see God as expecting them and other believers to use deadly violence on unbelievers. And practice of their theology resulted in being charged, TalkingPointsMemo reports, "with seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, teaching the use of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence."

You can certainly try to sort through their Web site yourself.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, whose expertise in this field is well-recognized, reported this month:

The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 groups in 2009, an astonishing addition of 363 new groups in a single year. Militias - the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement - were a major part of the increase, growing from 42 militias in 2008 to 127 in 2009.

. . .

"This extraordinary growth is a cause for grave concern," said Intelligence Report editor Mark Potok. "The people associated with the Patriot movement during its 1990s heyday produced an enormous amount of violence, most dramatically the Oklahoma City bombing that left 168 people dead."

Do the Covenant for Civility and the Democratic effort to ink a civility pledge with the Republicans seem at least a little more urgent, now?

Conservative intellectual honesty's price: Continued

David Frum, who lost his job at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) after his “Waterloo” analysis, clarifies the report that he said AEI scholars were being muzzled if they agreed too much with Obamacare. Frum wrote:

Did AEI muzzle healthcare scholars? I fear that in reproducing in print a private conversation from some months ago, Bruce Bartlett made a transmission error. I did not report as fact that scholars were laboring under any restrictions. What I did say was that AEI was punching way below its weight in the healthcare debate. I wondered, not alleged, wondered, whether AEI scholars were constrained by fear of saying something that might get them into trouble. To repeat: this was something I asked many months ago in private conversation, not something I allege today in public debate.

Well and obliquely said.

Bruce Bartlett then issued his correction. With elaboration. Summary: There's a compelling "circumstantial case" for the muzzling, and AEI has demeaned itself by letting Frum go.

'Dissent' (the magazine) comes to blogging

Literate American dissent, not the bizarre ramblings of attention hungry broadcast personalities, may be most closely identified with the small-circulation magazine "Dissent."

True to their history, they've launched a blog called "The Arguing World." Online Editor David Marcus explains:

Dissent has always been an international project. Founded with the hope of finding “what in the socialist tradition remains alive and what needs to be discarded,” the magazine took its early inspiration as much from the socialism and social democracy of postwar Europe as it did from its opposition to the growing conformity of American intellectual life. “American writers had [always] reached out toward Europe,” wrote Irving Howe in A Margin of Hope, and in the 1950s, “at the end of a line...the idea of Europe gave [us] a renewed energy.”

It is with this same hope for renewed, as well as new, energy that we are pleased to launch “Arguing the World”: a blog that will transcend borders and oceans, sects and parties. Our choice of comrades is transatlantic, and our arguments will be with those at home and abroad, on the right and on the left. Over the years, Dissent has become a platform for a breed of utopianism that has been, at once, democratic and radical, connected and cosmopolitan; and it is this vision of a grounded, worldly utopianism that will be a guiding spirit for our blog. “Arguing the World” will be an online conversation that not only traverses the world but will also be of it.

“Arguing the World” takes its name from Joseph Dorman’s documentary about four young radicals who gathered in a City College cafeteria to debate politics and literature. One of them was Irving Howe, who became a founding editor of Dissent; the others—Daniel Bell, Irving Kristol, and Nathan Glazer—went on to edit the Public Interest. Each went his own political direction—Bell once quipped that he was a “liberal in politics, a conservative in culture, and a socialist in economics”—but taken together they represented a particular way of thinking, and arguing, and worrying, out loud.

Theirs is a cultured, civilized dissent, informed by history like From Nixon to Prager, and mercy, like Too Many Children Left Behind. Worth a visit.

[H/T: Matthew Boudway]

Retro-innovative Georgia Baptist Convention time travelers

Seeking to disfellowship Atlanta's Druid Hills Baptist Church, the Georgia Baptist Convention (GBC) is fleeing present reality. The GBC executive committee recommended that change at its March 16 meeting and Shelia M. Poole of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote today:

“It seems sad that they decided to go backwards in time,” said the 52-year-old Mimi Walker, a former missionary in the Philippines. “I’m not sure what the value is of trying to go back in time when women were held in subservience.”

The overarching result, not value, is a steadily smaller, more strictly Batholic and of course less diverse Southern Baptist Convention.

SBC inerrancy collides with McLaren's emerging church: Multiple PI

Tony Cartledge's endorsement of Brian McLaren's book, "A New Kind of Christianity", may be enough to drive Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) to again brand Cartledge a "heretic."

During a panel discussion, Mohler calls McLaren's book a "straightforward rejection ... of the Christian meta-narrative." But Cartledge writes:

Brian McLaren, among the brightest and most significant Christian thinkers of our age, is on a mission to save Christianity from itself. With impressive erudition, genuine humility, and a deep love for Christ and the church, McLaren dares to ask questions that contemporary believers need to confront. Questions, however, are quite threatening to traditionalists who are confident that they already have the answers, thank you very much.

Like their last faceoff, then, this difference is over issues which cut right to the root of Mohler's theological world. Indeed, as Cartledge explains, Mohler "devoted a chapel service to a panel discussion designed to debunk McLaren's work and warn students against the sort of ideas the popular author might lead them to think."

Some say McLaren is "putting a progressive spin on traditional ideas." Others see him as part of a "a new reformation," as Pastor Paul Nuechterlein, of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Portage, MI., put it last week. One which is shaking the foundations at "8.8 on the Richter scale."

Cartledge goes right to the heart of the conflict:

[. . .] in discussing biblical authority, McLaren suggests that the Bible should not be understood as a legal constitution designed as binding law to be interpreted and enforced by religious authorities, but as a community library that "preserves, presents, and inspires an ongoing vigorous conversation with and about God, a living and vital civil argument into which we are all invited and through which God is revealed" (p. 83).

To Mohler and his brand of Baptists, that kind of thinking is outlandish. They used biblical inerrancy as a battle cry during the fight for control of the Southern Baptist Convention. Those in opposition were called "liberal," and "liberal" is the term Mohler and his panel repeatedly used to describe McLaren.

For receptive Southern Baptists, however, McLaren gently removes the foundations of legalistic Batholicism. He replaces the rationalization for frequent inquisitional disfellowshipping of churches like Druid Hills Baptist Church in Atlanta, with the necessity of dialogue. Fundamentalist-closed doors open to the dialogue which ensues. Reconsideration of red-hot issues, like the role of homosexuals in the church becomes possible, and necessary.

For those not afraid of thought and secure in their ability to manage their own thoughts, what's to be feared in following Cartledge's recommendation:

McLaren has much to offer for those who dare to think new thoughts and explore the future of the faith. It takes some effort to consider an approach as topsy-turvy to tradition as the one McLaren approaches, but it is well worth the work.

The debate over these issues is, after all, heating up, not cooling down. Prepare.

One priest speaking 'the truth to power'

The Rev. Kenneth Lasch, JCD is a retired Catholic Priest, trained in canonical law. Ruminating on what happened to Jeremiah when "spoke to the religious and political leaders of his age without equivocation," Lasch wrote on March 26:

It’s curious to me that our Church hierarchy that has taken such a prophetic stand for life is so reluctant to listen to the prophets that have been addressing another life issue – the abuse of minors and vulnerable adults by priests and even bishops. I am referring not only to sexual abuse but to physical and psychological abuse. As clear and explicit as the Holy Father has been on the rights of the unborn, why does he allow himself to be protected behind a wall of silence or prevarication and equivocation by those who surround him. Knowing what I know about how the Vatican system works, there is an inconsistency between the moral edicts of every kind it issues and its inability to hold itself accountable to the same moral standards and principles as they pertain to the inner workings of the Church. It is very disheartening indeed. The Pope’s credibility has not been enhanced and it will continue to decline until the full truth is exposed.

. . .

The Pope’s apology during his visit to the United States rang hallow and his latest apology is no better.

Jeremiah was beaten, put in stocks, thrown into a cistern and imprisoned because he continued to "speak the truth to power."

Jeremiah was still among Lasch's concerns on March 27 when he wrote:

There is an ancient axiom that predates the reformation and is as poignant now as it was when it was first spoken: “Ecclesia semper reformanda est!” – The church is always in need of reform – from the top to the bottom. And if it doesn’t change from the top down, it will change from the bottom up. In the words of my dear mom, “Mark my words!”

In his complex Palm Sunday message about denial, Lasch wrote:

Even the Church can slip into denial about it’s own need for reform from the top to the bottom. Years ago when the news of the sexual scandal broke in this county, blame was assigned to messengers rather than face the truth of mismanagement and cover-ups.

We were led to Lasch after encountering Catholic League President Bill Donohue's use of false comparisons and red herrings to argue that the real problem is, somehow, criticism of the church.

Is it not cautionary that failures of church self-criticism seem to please Richard Dawkins? While simultaneously recognized by decidedly Christian Rod Dreher as "discrediting the authority of the church"?

[H/T: Andrew Sullivan]

Nonpartisan call to civility II

Key parties are absent from the interfaith Christian Covenant for Civility. Like vociferous HCR opponent Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention. Yet with more than 100 signatories of varied background, that's not enough to rob it of effectiveness. And more will sign.

Whereas Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele declined to join DNC Chairman Tim Kaine in signing a straightforward call for civility that Kaine proposed. Thus killing a worthwhile joint effort.

Talking Points Memo reports that the draft statement said:

As leaders of our respective national parties, we want to speak to all Americans about the importance of conducting our political debates in a manner and tone that respects our political system and demonstrates to the world the strength of our democracy.

We have a system of government that allows the great issues of our day to be resolved peacefully and civilly and that serves as a beacon of hope to those around the world who yearn for political freedom, political stability, and governing without the threat of violence.

We have a system that allows people to express approval of their government or change the party in power peaceably through the ballot box.

Our Constitution affords Americans the right to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Clearly, we have different positions on the merits of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. However, we together call on elected officials of both parties to set an example of the civility we want to see in our citizenry. We also call on all Americans to respect differences of opinion, to refrain from inappropriate forms of intimidation, to reject violence and vandalism, and to scale back rhetoric that might reasonably be misinterpreted by those prone to such behavior.

Steele's weak rationalization for refusing to sign was, “we don’t need to do anything on their schedule or on their timetable.” There's no political percentage in looking weak, and refusing to stand up with your competitors against racist slurs and threats for civil behavior is worse than weak. Especially when you've recently been castigated by a key donor -- Civility Project founder Mark DeMoss -- for using "fear" and other incivility to raise money.

Image from an RNC presentation on donor motivation

Chairman Steele might recoup by invoking his time at the Augustinian Friars Seminary at Villanova University as qualification for signing the multi-faith Covenant for Civility. He would find good Republican company -- Chuck Colson, Harry Jackson and others. Although the covenant makes far more rigorous requirements than the written-to-be-accepted Democratic proposal.

Steele could be, in short, serious. Even if that entailed (heaven forefend) a slight adjustment in the Republican fund-raising strategies which have helped build the fire others are now trying to put out.

The Twurch of England's reformation

Overnight the Twurch of England Web site briefly became a promotional for British Conservative Party Parliamentary Candidate for Harlow, Robert Halfon. DNS redirect strangeness, we are told. And fixed.

Earlier, however, It is as The Church Mouse (creator of the site) explained, it was a service which "allows you to follow the conversation in real time" of CofE "Archbishops, Bishops and Clergy on twitter." Using twitter's list capabilities, as you see at right. (No laity, and that's something of an issue, as you will see below.)

The Mouse offers monthly rankings of the Top 20 twittering bishops and clergy in the CofE from the Twurch of England. The site offers a convenient widget. There is other useful information there. All very nice indeed.

Yes, the Twurch of England has apparently been quite well-received, save with one widely-adopted quibble from David Walker:

The Twurch of England is the Church of England on Twitter. The bishops, the clergy, and the… hang on… it’s only the bishops and the clergy! The laity (ordinary people) are nowhere to be found. This is an unjust state of affairs which sends out the message that the ordinary people are not as important as the bishops and clergy. Being mildly deeply upset about this I started a ‘Reform the Twurch’ campaign yesterday – you can read all of the tweets on the subject via the hashtag #reformthetwurch. It was great fun and a most creative protest. Proceedings were conducted calmly and peacefully, and from time to time nuns came out and brought us tea.

. . .

My challenges to Twurch administrators (The Church Moose and Peter O) are as follows:

1) First of all I think you really need to include CofE laity if you are to go on calling it the Twurch of England. It’s OK, there aren’t many of us and we’re declining in number all the time.

2) Secondly, I understand that you may want to restrict membership of the Twurch of England to members of the Church of England. However, if you don’t find a way to include the wider groups of people (Anglicans, UK Christians) in some way I suspect someone else will. There is an opportunity for a creative individual to form the Anglican Twitter community or the Christian Twitter community, and sooner or later someone will do so.

Commenter Ann Fontaine at The Lead at Episcopal Cafe summed up with:

Love Tweeting clergy - twergy-- from the comments. Are there also twishops? but what kind of church has no laity? oh right a dead one.

Which helps explain why there is plenty of twitter traffic tagged #reformthetwurch.
Will Mouse call a Council of the Twurch?

And see to restoration of the former site? We do hope so.

'I’m Sorry I’m A Christian' (Are you?)

Chinese Canadian Chris Tse won “Poetry Slam” in Vancouver, BC, in December 2009 with this performance.

Poetry Slam helps keep alive "blood, sweat, and tears poetry delivered live inches from your face," as 2009 National Poetry Slam co-director Henry Sampson put it.

Whether Tse really speaks with blunt eloquence to "what makes young believers tick," as Marty Duren argues, this is a fine work and more than worth the time spent listening to it.

Christian health reform opposition hat

From the Psychology Today essay by Nathan Heflick who [without mentioning Richard Land] wrote:

There are about a zillion verses in the Bible saying we should help the poor, show compassion, be loving (it is the chief virtue right?) etc etc. What I cannot find is a verse where Jesus doesn't help others, or even argues for that. It seems I live in a parellel universe where somehow this equates to "but people who are poor are lazy and shouldn't get our help." Do you really think Jesus would oppose universal healthcare because his taxes would get raised? Really?

Read the rest here.

[H/T: Mainstream Baptist]

Conservative UK Anglicans call for decisive break with TEC(US)

Fulcrum, a conservative British Anglican group, issued a leadership team statement Friday arguing that "the election of Mary Glasspool as bishop suffragan in the diocese of Los Angeles" is a bad-faith break by The Episcopal Church (USA) with the larger Anglican Communion.

They argued that Glasspool's election violates the terms of The Windsor Report, which was written in response to the consecration of Gene Robinson, the first openly gay, noncelibate priest to be ordained as an Anglican bishop, in the Episcopal Church in the United States and the blessing of same-sex unions in the Diocese of New Westminster. The report recommended a moratorium on the election of additional homosexual bishops.

Fulcrum asserts that TEC promised to maintain that moratorium:

It is important that this is not simply a matter of disagreement about biblical interpretation and sexual ethics although these are central and important. It is now very clearly also a fundamental matter of truth-telling and trust. In September 2007, at the Primates’ request and after meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, TEC bishops confirmed they would “exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion”. They made clear that “non-celibate gay and lesbian persons” were among such candidates.

As a result, Fulcrum further argues, in effect, that a break by the larger communion with TEC is required:

In fact, the situation is now such that it may be better for the Archbishop simply to state – as one of the Instruments and a focus and means of unity - that TEC as a body has rejected the Communion’s repeated appeals for restraint, made false promises, and confirmed its direction is away from Communion teaching and accountability. It has thereby rendered itself incapable of covenanting with other churches and made it unclear what it means when it claims to be in communion with the see of Canterbury and a constituent member of the Anglican Communion.

They conclude by calling for guidance from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, possibly declaring that TEC has made it clear that it has elected to ‘walk apart’ from the rest of the Anglican Communion. Or some other unstated "decisive action."

CNN already under fire from Scientology

Anderson Cooper's series, "Scientology: A history of violence," starts next week, but he's already the target of "some sort of organized email campaign" from the declining "church."

BTW, Cooper explains:

For the record, I just want to point out that this series is not about the beliefs or activities of the Church of Scientology. It is not about the religion or the vast majority of Scientologists. This series simply has to do with what some former high ranking church officials say went on within the upper management of the church, and what happened to them when they left the church.

More not-quite-secrets anymore unmasked?

We'll be watching, just in case.

Infallible papal innocence (no matter what)

John Cornwell, author of Hitler's Pope explained in The Guardian that we need not expect the Vatican to admit papal responsibility:

The complex paper trails are measured now in many tens of thousands of cases spread over half a century and across five continents. It would be astonishing if there were not at least a handful of documents leading back to the powerful orthodoxy watchdog, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as Benedict once was. From 1982 until 2005 he was responsible in large measure for the disciplining of the clergy. His failure to answer two letters in the late 1990s from Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee relating to an abusive priest 20 years after his crimes appears substantive enough. But the Vatican has responded with impressive casuistry as to the facts, and vehement indignation as to the insinuations, and will continue to do so with this or any other allegation brought against Benedict.

The Vatican and Benedict know, moreover, that there have been much worse cases of recent papal culpability in the matter of paedophile priest cover-ups. It is just eight years since Pope John Paul II first declined to investigate a priest called Father Marcial Maciel. Maciel founded an order known as the Legionaries of Christ and systematically engaged in sexual abuse of minors for 40 years. Nine former members of his order went public with accusations in 1997. Two investigators claim that Cardinal Ratzinger tried to have Maciel brought to book but he was allegedly overruled on John Paul's orders. John Paul claimed that he had "discerned" that Maciel was innocent. To his credit, and not before time, it was Ratzinger who in January 2005 (barely three months before John Paul's death) had Maciel, then 84, relieved of his priesthood. But Maciel, who died in 2008, was never referred to any country's criminal justice system. Benedict has since formally apologised to Maciel's victims.

No matter what the resulting damage. Which amid perhaps the worst crisis since the Reformation, Cornwell suggests, is likely to be the Catholic church's fragmentation.

Nonpartisan Christian call to civility

Amid hyperventilating rhetoric, seasoned by calls for revolution and racist shouts at members of Congress, comes a Covenant for Civility:

The church in the United States can offer a message of hope and reconciliation to a nation that is deeply divided by political and cultural differences. Too often, however, we have reflected the political divisions of our culture rather than the unity we have in the body of Christ. We come together to urge those who claim the name of Christ to “put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).

For some of the signatories, it was perhaps a commitment to repentance. As Kyle observed, the signatories included Harry Jackson, Samuel Rodriguez, Robert George, and Chuck Colson:

Let's see, Rodriguez recently participated in the right-wing anti-health care reform "prayercase" where he declared "the same spirit of Herod who 2000 years ago attempted to exterminate the life of the Messiah today lives even America. The legislation that incorporates death and infanticide all under the canopy of reform."

Jackson has been militantly crusading against marriage equality in Washington DC , declaring that it is an effort by gays to oppress blacks and warning of "bloodletting" if the issue is not put to a vote.

And Colson, who believes that gay marriage causes terrorism, recently teamed up with George to produce The Manhattan Declaration, which they sold as Christians' last hope for preventing America from sliding into totalitarianism and Nazi-like dictatorship.

Even so, evangelical minister Jim Wallis said in explaining the motivation for the pledge:

Members of Congress have been calling me saying 'It's never been as bad as it is now, but we can't do much about it because we're not credible to a lot of Americans.' They said to the faith community, 'please help us.'

The document has 114 signatories, among them the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, the head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the general superintendent of the Assemblies of God and the president of the progressive Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Not on the list, points out Mark Silk, "is anyone from the Southern Baptist Convention, whose prime spokesman on public policy issues, Richard Land, has been among the most vociferous opponents of HCR." (Note in the lede our "hyperventilating rhetoric" link to a comment on Land.)

Their pledge is sevenfold:

1) We commit that our dialogue with each other will reflect the spirit of the Scriptures, where our posture toward each other is to be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19).

2) We believe that each of us, and our fellow human beings, are created in the image of God. The respect we owe to God should be reflected in the honor and respect we show to each other in our common humanity, particularly in how we speak to each other. “With the tongue we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God …. this ought not to be so” (James 3:9, 10).

3) We pledge that when we disagree, we will do so respectfully, without impugning the other’s motives, attacking the other’s character, or questioning the other’s faith, and recognizing in humility that in our limited, human opinions, “we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror” (1 Corinthians 13:12). We will therefore “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2).

4) We will ever be mindful of the language we use in expressing our disagreements, being neither arrogant nor boastful in our beliefs: “Before destruction one’s heart is haughty, but humility goes before honor” (Proverbs 18:12).

5) We recognize that we cannot function together as citizens of the same community, whether local or national, unless we are mindful of how we treat each other in pursuit of the common good in the common life we share together. Each of us must therefore “put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body” (Ephesians 4:25).

6) We commit to pray for our political leaders—those with whom we may agree, as well as those with whom we may disagree. “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made … for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

7) We believe that it is more difficult to hate others, even our adversaries and our enemies, when we are praying for them. We commit to pray for each other, those with whom we agree and those with whom we may disagree, so that together we may strive to be faithful witnesses to our Lord, who prayed “ that they may be one” (John 17:22).

This is the most recent in a series of similar efforts in the past year. One in October was greeted on the right as a conspiracy. More recently, before the health-reform-related race baiting, a Southern Baptist Republican balked at GOP incivility. In October, the Interfaith Alliance called for "a restoration of civility." And there have been others.

The alternative, however, is to concede the field to the proliferation of political strategies based on fear.

Dear Pope Benedict XVI, a little Southern Baptist advice ...

Christa Brown's Letter to the Pope strips the hide right off Southern Baptist Convention enabling of sexual predation by clergy who are so inclined.

She says, for example:

For starters, take a lesson from the Baptists and quit keeping so many records on your clergy. I know you’ve got that pesky little problem of Catholic canon law, which requires record-keeping. But since you’re the top-dog, why don’t you just issue some sort of edict?

You could just say, “No more record-keeping.”

That’s how it works in Baptistland. No records -- no trace -- no trouble.

Read the rest here.

Legionaries ask forgiveness and disavow their founder

The Legionaries of Christ's leaders have apologized once again, and have in a formally constructed statement taken the extraordinary step of disowning their founder.

On the Legion's Web site, they said of their founder:

For his own mysterious reasons, God chose Fr Maciel as an instrument to found the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi, and we thank God for the good he did. At the same time, we accept and regret that, given the gravity of his faults, we cannot take his person as a model of Christian or priestly life.

Christ condemns the sin but seeks to save the sinner. We take him as our model, convinced of the meaning and beauty of forgiveness, and we entrust our founder to God’s merciful love.

The language of the admissions seemed well calculated, like their well-timed admissions just over a year ago. For example, they said:

We had thought and hoped that the accusations brought against our founder were false and unfounded, since they conflicted with our experience of him personally and his work. However, on May 19, 2006, the Holy See’s Press Office issued a communiqué as the conclusion of a canonical investigation that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) had begun in 2004. At that time, the CDF reached sufficient moral certainty to impose serious canonical sanctions related to the accusations made against Fr Maciel, which included the sexual abuse of minor seminarians. Therefore, though it causes us consternation, we have to say that these acts did take place.

Indeed, “the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, […], mindful of Father Maciel’s advanced age and his delicate health, decided to forgo a canonical hearing and ask him to retire to a private life of penance and prayer, giving up any form of public ministry. The Holy Father approved these decisions” (Communiqué of the Press Office of the Holy See, May 19, 2006).

We later came to know that Fr Maciel had fathered a daughter in the context of a prolonged and stable relationship with a woman, and committed other grave acts. After that, two other people surfaced, blood brothers who say they are his children from his relationship with another woman.

We find reprehensible these and all the actions in the life of Fr Maciel that were contrary to his Christian, religious, and priestly duties. We declare that they are not what we strive to live in the Legion of Christ and in the Regnum Christi Movement.

Their apology, however, was sweeping and inclusive. Most important was their commitment to provide continuing support to those who have been harmed:

It is also our Christian and priestly duty to continue reaching out to those who have been affected in any way. Our greatest concern is for them, and we continue to offer them whatever spiritual and pastoral help they need, hoping thus to contribute to the necessary Christian reconciliation. At the same time, we know that only Christ is able to bring definitive healing and “make all things new” (cf. Rev. 21:5).

Lest anyone wonder about the pope's ability to impose the decisions he bases upon the apostolic visitation, they promised to accept those, whatever they are:

We will embrace with filial obedience whatever indications and recommendations the Holy Father gives us as a result of the apostolic visitation, and we are committed to putting them into practice.

Altogether the letter seemed not so much a dodge as a necessity, dictated by their circumstances, as they said.

Conservative intellectual honesty's price: Part II

Just as David Frum was fired for his "Waterloo" analysis of the Republican health reform loss, Bruce Bartlett was fired by National Center for Policy Analysis in 2005 when he shared with them the manuscript of his book, "The Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy."

Bartlett reflected Thursday on the scope of the scope of the intellectual dishonesty involved in Frum's dismissal.

The takeaway:

Since, he is no longer affiliated with AEI, I feel free to say publicly something he told me in private a few months ago. He asked if I had noticed any comments by AEI "scholars" on the subject of health care reform. I said no and he said that was because they had been ordered not to speak to the media because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do.

It saddened me to hear this. I have always hoped that my experience was unique. But now I see that I was just the first to suffer from a closing of the conservative mind. Rigid conformity is being enforced, no dissent is allowed, and the conservative brain will slowly shrivel into dementia, if it hasn't already.

Indeed, some Religious Right minds have already descended into doleful echolalia.

Read the NY Times' predator-priest documentation yourself

Don't fall for anyone's spin. Read the underlying documents from the online repository the New York Times created for you. No one is out to get the pope, except perhaps the facts.

Churchly pain and same-sex marriage in DC (as elsewhere)

Pastors may not have noticed when by a vote of 59-36, the Senate rejected an amendment to the health care reconciliation bill that would have stopped same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia, pending a referendum.

Several pastors whose denominations oppose or are undecided about same-sex marriage may have been wrestling with how to meet the demands of conscience and the yearning for marriage ceremonies by homosexual couples in their flock.

Daniel Burke of the Religion News Service wrote of Methodist Rev. Mary Kay Totty, who plans to risk church discipline by performing same-sex marriages at Dumbarton United Methodist Church (UMC). She told ABC 7 News:

We will celebrate love and loyalty wherever it's found. And love and loyalty are the same, whether it's shared between a man and a woman or two men and two women.

The UMC is unequivocal about same-sex unions. Linda Bloom of the United Methodist News Service wrote in November:

The denomination’s top legislative body, the General Conference, first took a stand on the incompatibility of Christianity and homosexual practice in 1972. Since then, Dell said, “the General Conference has moved steadily to more and more explicitly conservative positions.”

The Rev. Dean Snyder, whose Foundry UMC the Clintons attended while in the White House, is one of 19 current and former UMC clergy in DC who support Totty, without taking the final step of agreeing themselves to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest U.S. Lutheran denomination, has no clear policy. What they have, is an open issue:

The ELCA has no policy on the blessing of same-sex unions. In 1993 the Conference of Bishops (65 synodical bishops elected by congregations on their territories) stated that there was no basis in Scripture or tradition for an official ceremony by this church for the blessing of same-sex unions, but that "Nevertheless, we express trust in and will continue dialogue with those pastors and congregations who are in ministry with gay and lesbian persons, and affirm their desire to explore the best ways to provide pastoral care for all to whom they minister." The Conference of Bishops provides advice and counsel but is not an ELCA legislative body.

As a result, Bishop Richard Graham of the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Synod says, “This is a live issue for us.” And when ELCA pastors have asked him for permission to marry gay couples, he has granted it, contingent on the approval of their congregations. But that is an interim approach until the Washington synod draws formal guidelines.

The Rev. Amy Butler of Calvary Baptist Church, plans to marry same-sex couples and faces no such denominational obstacles.

They're Baptist, you see, but not Southern Baptist Convention (where disfellowshipping usually follows policies of gay acceptance). The larger Baptist groups with which they do affiliate [1, 2, 3] are most unlikely to act against them, and the diaconate adopted an unequivocal "statement of equal access affirmation[.pdf]." Among other things, it says:

After prayerful discussion, a smaller group came up with the statement listed above. We felt this statement captures the spirit of our church at this time, that all members of Calvary are welcome to participate in the life of the church as the Spirit moves them, including as members of boards or in other leadership opportunities. In addition, we agreed that all members of our church should have full access to all pastoral services.

Passionate warnings against the "acid" of theological liberalization issue from Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his peers. Yet public support for same sex marriage, even in California where it was recently rejected at the polls, continues its long shift toward general approval. With church and denominational policies moving, often quite fractiously, with apparent inexorability in the same direction.

Conservative intellectual honesty's sometime price

Sometimes, politics is a religion, and heretics are punished, even when they're right. Former Bush speech writer David Frum laid out in a few words the cause and effect of the Republican health reform loss, and three days afterward, "was forced out of his job at the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday."

Did the New York Times corroborate BBC 2006 account?

Inaction and concealment involving the current pope and documented today by the New York Times make it difficult to believe the secret-keeping was not systematic, as alleged by BBC in 2006.

Please decide. View BBC's Friday, September 29, 2006, Sex Crimes and the Vatican:

[H/T: Pam Spaulding]

Catholic sex abuse scandal in the South

She did not say, "It's over." What Laurie Goodstein did write for the New York Times is:

Roman Catholic bishops in the United States received fewer accusations of sexual abuse by the clergy in 2009 than in any other year since 2004, according to an annual audit based on self-reporting from Catholic dioceses.

The self-reported nature of the numbers does raise serious questions:

David Clohessy, national director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, reiterated victims' skepticism about self-reported abuse figures. He said it's naive to think an institution that has concealed abuse and protected its own for so long would suddenly be honest and forthcoming

The same questions arose when Catholic Diocese of Charlotte press spokesman David Hains' tried to minimize the problem in North Carolina by arguing that his diocese hasn't had the extensive sex abuse problems of, say, Boston.

Returning fire today, Neal Evans wrote in the Asheville [North Carolina] Citizen-Times:

I beg to differ.

The St. Eugene's music minister who also taught at Asheville Catholic School pled to a 30-year federal term for child pornography while his boss, then-pastor of St. Eugene's, awaits trial for covering up that crime. There's the music minister's predecessor, who left after an internal investigation; the diocesan co-director of youth ministry, a priest reassigned to Virginia after allegedly abusing an adolescent; another priest who served in Tryon, Maggie Valley and Charlotte, removed based on “credible evidence”; the Charlotte priest, extradited from New Jersey, sentenced last year up to 10 years for sexually abusing an altar boy.

There's much more. Priests involved in sexual abuse and cover-up have served in every Catholic parish and school in Buncombe County. Abused at St. Joan of Arc in West Asheville and now representing SNAP (Survivor's Network of those Abused by Priests), I frequently receive calls from survivors and families, painfully but bravely sharing their stories of abuse and betrayal by their church.

Germany, Guam and Switzerland and other places an ocean away are by no means the only ones where new cases are surfacing. Every day, it seems. So that neither a papal pastoral letter of apology nor the processed-at-last resignation of an Irish bishop are solutions. They merely impinge on a problem whose sheer magnitude is still becoming apparent.

Richard Land, echoed (or was he the echo)?

The Christian Coalition issued a statement yesterday which compared "Sunday, March 21, 2010," when health reform was adopted, to "a very infamous day full of betrayal and deceit" like Japan's "sneak attack on America at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941." And so on.

Did they steal that image from Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission chief Richard land? Who after all went on from his Pearl Harbor to forecast an electoral Battle of Midway (casting the Democrats in the role of the Japanese Imperial Navy), whereas the Christian Coalition took another path.

Coordinate it with him?

Or was the ineloquent lack appropriate restraint merely perchance?

Wingnuts unfound

Flaws make Harris Interactive's "Wingnuts" poll more distracting than informative, perhaps because it is touched by a promotional intent. The poll is driven by publication of a "new book, Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America by John Avlon," which deals with people who express extreme views of President Obama.

As Gary Langer writes for ABC News:

The purpose seems to have been to see how many people the pollsters could get to agree to pejorative statements about Obama. Quite a few, it turns out – but with what I see as a highly manipulative approach to questionnaire design.

The shaky findings are nonetheless startling. Harris reports:

This Harris Poll seeks to measure how many people are involved. It finds that 40% of adults believe he is a socialist. More than 30% think he wants to take away Americans' right to own guns and that he is a Muslim. More than 25% believe he wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a world government, has done many things that are unconstitutional, that he resents America's heritage, and that he does what Wall Street tells him to do.

More than 20% believe he was not born in the United States, that he is "the domestic enemy the U.S. Constitution speaks of," that he is racist and anti-American, and that he "wants to use an economic collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers." Fully 20% think he is "doing many of the things that Hitler did," while 14% believe "he may be the anti-Christ" and 13% think "he wants the terrorists to win."

Langer, director of polling at ABC news, points to the poll's sampling issues before walking point by point from the poll's "biasing introductory phrase," through its lack of balance in choices offered respondents and other techniques which are outside the realm of best scientific polling practice.

At no point does this Harris Poll fall to the level of propagandistic accumulations like the anti-health reform stunt by National Center for Policy Analysis/ Salem Radio Network or essentially meaningless lists of unverified names like the one being accumulated on behalf of the Manhattan Declaration. Nor is it flatly dishonest, as the Christian Medical & Dental Associations is when asserting that its poll shows that "95 percent of faith-based physicians say they will be forced to leave medicine without conscience protections."

Although Harris does go a little over the edge, as Langer explains:

Admittedly it’s a challenge to measure these sorts of sentiments. Unless carefully crafted, with balance and an approach that encourages due consideration and probes for meaning, simply asking the question can turn into little more than the old reporter’s trick of piping quotes. It’s a shopworn use of true/false and agree/disagree questions, one long overdue for retirement.

Harris indeed goes the next step by reporting its results as what its respondents’ “believe” and as opinions they “hold,” as if they themselves came up with these notions, rather than having them one-sidedly set before them on a platter. Call me what you will – and I know it can get nasty out there – but from my perspective, this is not good polling practice.

Another poll would be helpful. Until then, things probably aren't as bad as they look.