Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
On this Easter weekend, I was dismayed when I learned that the Roman Catholic Church recently decided that helping the poor in Colorado obtain health care is fine, as long as the organizations assisting these needy folks were not gay or “hanging out” with the Gays.
“For three years now, Compañeros, a small nonprofit organization in rural southwestern Colorado, has received thousands of dollars from the Roman Catholic Church to help poor Hispanic immigrants with basic needs including access to health care and guidance on local laws. But in February, the group was informed by a representative from the Diocese of Pueblo that its financing from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, an arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops devoted to ending poverty, was in danger.
The problem, the diocesan liaison explained, was Compañeros’s membership in an immigrant rights coalition that had joined forces with a statewide gay and lesbian advocacy group, recounted Nicole Mosher, Compañeros’s executive director.” New York Times
I attended Catholic Elementary schools and I just can’t imagine that the good Benedictine Nuns that taught us would agree with the Catholic Bishop’s stand that if there is any connection to an “evil” group, the funding that goes to the neediest among us will be stopped dead in its tracks. The Jesus that our nuns taught us about made no distinctions about helping the poor and needy. He didn’t say that we should only help the needy who are true Catholics!
While come Catholics and Catholic organizations are speaking out against the decision to defund Companeros and other needy organizations, the Bishops are holding fast to their decision.
“Some bishops, though, are pushing back. In September, Bishops Jaime Soto, chairman of the subcommittee on the antipoverty campaign for the bishops’ conference, and Stephen E. Blaire, chairman of its committee on domestic justice and human development, sent a memo asserting that virtually all the accusations were without substance. “We rely on the judgment of the local bishop and diocese, not the repeated accusations of those with clear ideological and ecclesial agendas,” they wrote in the memo, which went out to all American bishops.” New York Times
Is it possible that the Catholic Bishops are responding to the money that the conservative Catholic organizations bring to the table more so than the evil allegedly inherent in these cloudy ties with evildoers? Didn’t Jesus teach us to love our enemies? If we are supposed to love our enemies, how can the RCC continue to defund needy organizations that are doing the Lord’s work? How can helping poor people be a bad thing for the Church?
I have seen this type of head in sand mentality at work in our local Diocese when fundraising for the poor was stopped because the coordinating Protestant organization had a speaker from a Pro-Choice group speak at one of their conventions. It is sad that in an era of decreasing governmental assistance and programs for the needy, the Catholic Church cannot see past its nose to help people who, in many cases, have nowhere else to turn. The question that kids everywhere wore on bracelets in Catholic Schools has been forgotten by our Church’s leaders. What Would Jesus Do?
Which is why the Catholic Church must resort to banning contraception to keep it’s rosters up.
As a side note I know of Christian churches that won’t give to charities unless they sign a non-discrimination statement that includes being LGBT friendly.
Bob, thanks for sharing.
rafflaw,
Thanks for the article.
I also attended Catholic elementary school taught by Benedictine nuns, both good and bad.
I doubt that the nuns considered gay people very much. A bit out of their circle, perhaps. But the Jesus they told us about associated with lepers and defended a prostitute.
He never discriminated against folks that weren’t following Christian or Catholic principles. There was no such thing. Jesus was a Jew. He never said anything about gays or abortion, either.
I was speaking to a good friend of mine today that was raised strict catholic…. They have quit pledging as well as going to church….. They are so angry with the stance at present, they may never enter the doors again…..
Thanks raff for sharing this story….
“Love one another as I love you, ”
“And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”
“But I tell you, love your enemies.”
Their persecution and judgement of others is anathema to the Word.no matter which of those you choose.
The church has no justification but their own persecution, judgemental, antiChrist-like actions and words.
If you give a nickle to the Catholic Church, you give a penny to the pedophile priest lurking there ready to pounce upon the alter boy.
Great quotes junction!
Metro – Thank you. Well said, as rafflaw previously commented. Being a lateral transfer, I knew what I was getting into when I joined the Church. Still haven’t grasped a lot of concepts, but then again, didn’t grasp Methodism, Baptism, Episcopalism, Ba’hai, the Evangelical Free Movement and/or the Church of Christ. Like many things, it’s the journey.
While attributed to Jesus, I think there’s just so much common sense in this – Love one another as we would love ourselves. It doesn’t get any more fundamental than that.
As regards Heaven:
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons. – James Thurber
If dogs don’t go to Heaven, I want to go where they went. – Will Rogers
Well said Metro.
You could be right frankly. These men have to see the donations declining along with the parishioners at Mass.
It’s hard to explain to a non-catholic how a person who was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school feels about the church….The nuns, I had Precious Blood Sisters, were hard working and caring. I had sisters from kindergarden thru high school. I first should say that I come from a family with both teaching and nursing sisters in it…Their love of God and people was amazing to see, I’m not talking about bishops and cardinals who live like princes these women had/have nothing but love and dedication…were some of them hard to get along with..yeah they are human like all of us but most people who had trouble with them were asking for it…
Most Catholics never had a priest who fondled them…I’m no apologist for the church…it has lots of very serious problems I dont know if they will ever be able to fix the things that are so wrong with the church, we see it every day in the way the hierarchy who by and large is so out of touch with every day people. Rome and much of the church authority really want to go back to oh about 1200 AD or so.
I didn’t mean to ramble on but I know so many men and women of faith who are not the uncaring, authoritarian, power hungry people who run the church. and they are trapped because they really have faith and believe in what the gospel says about Jesus. For me it was easy to leave, when I was alot younger all it took was listening to my teachers talking about the Trinity, and transsubstansiation and I knew in my heart this was all a bunch of hooeey…
The long and short of it comes down to as long as the church is run by men who crave power and control it won’t change, I don’t know how it can..
There seems to be a huge gulf between the lower levels, lay members and the upper ranges of the church. One or the other is going to have to change or the organization can not survive. I know many Catholics & almost none of them agree with their Bishops & Cardinals while none actually live by the entirety of those guys dictates. Why they remain in the church is they question. Plenty are leaving already, at some point the bleeding has to be damaging enough to the receipts that the leadership will have an epiphany and a new encyclical will be issued “Ex Cathidra” that will enumerate the number of things God has had a change of heart about. That or the RC church will cease to exist in the first world and become a third world cult.
Good for you Junction!
As a member of the Diocese of Pueblo, I’ve not given to the Bishop’s Diocesan Fund for some time. Charity begins at home, and this house supports causes and charities directly, without interference from certain powers that be. My parish may take a hit in the Diocese tax, but I’ve found ways around that, as well. And as much as we on the Western Slope would love to have our own Diocese, it’s about 70/30 for funds provided, and 33/66 for funds needed. That’s why they won’t let us go…
I wish we had some standing threads here. Am sure it must have been discussed. My nomination would be religion, pros and cons.
It is a sad day when the nuns, laymen and congregation must lead their leaders aright.
Or damn right, rafflaw.
The bracelet almost got me where it hurts. Hope the kids took it to their hearts between all the other stuff life distracts with.
Your nuns have raised my opinion a good notch.
You have, I hope seen my post on the patriarch thread, where I question a folk who deny the Pope the right to govern their reproduction, but let him decide over their souls. What say ye? When time permits.
Sister Joan Chittister recently wrote of another instance where Church policy trumps Jesus’ teachings:
“A journey of painful discovery” http://tinyurl.com/cmfkknq
“Why?” I said, thinking out loud and looking out over their heads to the throngs on the pavement outside. “Explain to me why my church cavalierly allows these women and their children to die rather than actually insist that morality demands that these men use condoms. Are women’s lives expendable? Is this sexism at its worst? Is the morality of contraception greater than the morality of life? How can they call that kind of theology holiness and the people who have doubts about it heretics for having the effrontery to ask an obvious question?”
hilarious Gene!
“Compassion. It’s not just for heterosexuals any more.” – Jesus (in a speech to the Ghost of Anita Bryant and the RCC’s Council of Bishops at a dinner commemorating 2,000 plus years of religious based stupidity and hypocrisy)