What happened to those homilies about the prodigal son and rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s? Parishioners were surprised with this Sunday’s homily by Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky comparing President Barack Obama’s health care policies to policies of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.
During the Sunday homily at St. Mary’s Cathedral Jenky noted that previous governments that “tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches . . . Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services and health care . . . In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda – now seems intent on following a similar path.”
Some have objected that the church should lose its tax exempt status over such advocacy. However, this is less political as hysterical. Churches are allowed to sermonize on public issues and condemn what they view as attacks on their faith.
What is more interesting is the response by Diocese Chancellor Patricia Gibson who insisted that Jenky had merely “offered historical context and comparisons as a means to prevent a repetition of historical attacks upon the Catholic Church and other religions.” A “repetition of historical attacks upon the Catholic Church”? That sounds like reaffirming this bizarre analogy. Gibson assured people, however, that “[w]e have currently not reached the same level of persecution. But Bishop Jenky would say that history teaches us to be cautious. … (He) is concerned that our government is truly treading on one of our most dear freedoms, which is religious freedom.” Well Jenky sure found his audience.
I would venture to suggest that there is a little distance between a squabble over health care and genocidal authoritarian regimes. But that is just me.
Source: Chicagoist
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/politics-elections/223227-two-week-protest-by-catholic-activists-may-hamper-presidents-reelection-bid
Notre Dame Professors Call For Bishop To Apologize or Resign From Notre Dame Board For Comparing Obama To Hitler
By Ian Millhiser on Apr 25, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/25/470325/notre-dame-professors-call-for-bishop-to-apologize-or-resign-from-notre-dame-board-for-comparing-obama-to-hitler/
Jeff,
[More quoting from the site]
” I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
Does your mother still take care of you?
Jeff,
Thanks for the link. I noted a misquote of Thomas Jefferson, and a very cogent remark about Thomas Jefferson’s opinion of the current Democratic Party, and the “current occupant” of the White House. An excerpt from my reply at the site:
[Quoting the site]
“Mostly Right thinks it is very safe to say that TJ would denounce the policies of the modern Democratic Party and handily condemn the current occupant at Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Well, yes, TJ would. He was a big-time slave owner. As in owning a village of slaves. Up to 130 slaves at one time.
Jeff,
You should be happy with Obama. He’s the most centrist Republican President since Eisenhower although he’s not nearly as much of a centrist as Ike was. Or are you one of those people who get their history from Skousen and think Eisenhower was Communist agent?
Jeff,
‘A stretch’? How about ‘a psychotic episode,’ instead?
I would be interested in reading your definition of ‘socialist.’
Which of Obama’s policies make his ‘socialist leanings’ clear?
Thanks.
I would say this analogy is a stretch but there is absolutely no doubt that Obama has socialist leanings. That is very clear in his policies.
Jeff Metz
http://www.mostly-right.com
Elaine M, I wrote a truly garbled response, didn’t I? I’m sorry. (Probably tired and trying to do multitasking thinking, when that just turned into double-speak.) I actually had to go back and re-read your and my comments to figure out what I had meant my-damn-self! So first, an apology. I sounded half-nuts in that comment I made, and it is well known that I am only one/third nuts most of the time.
Your comment had been: I wonder to which historical figures Bishop Lenky would compare the priests who sexually abused children????
And I just got mentally chaotic, in trying to answer. I’m putting my nose to the grindstone and my shoulder to the wheel now, to explain myself to you because you are, for me, one of the real intellectual authorities on the Turley blog.
Here was my incoherent response (written after I had written a comment, then posted it, THEN read your comment about Lenky comparing the pedophile priests to historical figures):
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Elaine M — comparisons of people you support are not necessary.
Child Sexual Abuse is the ultimate expression of patriarchal power.
I heard a judge once say to two lawyers (neither of whom would
confirm it officially for fear of this particular judge’s wrath):
I f*ck you, you f*ck me, whoever f*cks last wins. That’s life.
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OK. “Comparisons of people you support are not necessary” meant:
Lenky is not trying to compare the pedophile priests (whom he supports) to anyone because he doesn’t want to try to obliquely slander them. He will invariably come out saying that they never did any wrong and that their accusers and detractors are all horrible sinners who, for no good reason, are trying to destroy these wonderful men and their wonderful church. And blah blah blah blah blah ad nauseam.
“Child sexual abuse is the ultimate expression of patriarchal power.”
This one is worth a book in itself, not that either (a) I have the expertise, authority or opportunity to write or even edit that book or (b) that the idea is in any way my invention or my intellectual property. But it has long been my opinion that the reason there are so many cases of pedophile priests does not really relate to the fact that the Catholic Church requires celibacy of its priests (which I believe is a misconception brought about by the same silly idea that makes men who have molested their children argue that it is the fault of their wives for not providing sexual satisfaction for them). In my view, the reason you have more sexual abuse by priests (at least more being reported and coming to light) than elsewhere is that the Catholic Church provides an environment that is very much like the extremely patriarchal family, and in that kind of environment, the father or father-figure is entitled to what was often called “Droit du Seignor” — and perhaps I misspelled that, but it means, “The Master’s Privileges.” In other words, fathers, father figures, masters in the sense of master and servant, owners in the sense of owners and slaves, priests in the sense of authoritarian figures who CONTROL the dishing out of sin and punishment, etc. etc. etc., HAVE the privilege of taking what they will from their subordinates. Included in that are sexual services if the subordinates are THAT FAR BELOW THEM as, for instance, a slave to her master, a child to her father, an altar boy to his priest, a maid to her boss, and many permutations, many many permutations. I am willing to bet that the actual proportion of youngsters molested by their priests, within a controlled experimental evaluation, would not work out higher than the proportion of children molested by their older male relatives, within the nuclear or extended family. Just guessing. Don’t know how to do the research. Of course, the NIJ could do the research if it wanted to — who knows if they are even interested. NIMH could do the research if they wanted to — who knows, again. That is a world I know nothing about.
But pedophile priests became vulnerable to the allegations a while back and then it became more and more possible to MAKE the allegations and families of children who had alleged such abuse began to come forward and support the allegations and slowly, the scene changed, and now, allegations against Catholic Priests — father figures in the most rigid and powerful community imaginable — are actually being held accountable. Is it possible that there are some accused who are not guilty? I think it could not be said to be impossible. Yet I had a remarkable experience once, and will narrate it here, although I fear I might have already (getting old). I was working on a case in Kentucky. A mother had stepped into custody court and made the unwelcome allegation that her ex-husband molested her four-year-old son. She lost custody in about two weeks, I think. On appeal, the judges affirmed but one judge wrote a very thorough and extremely forceful dissent, saying that the evidence used by the judge to buttress his decision that the mother was a liar and the father was innocent (and therefore that the mother did not deserve to keep her child and the father should have sole custody with only supervised visitation four hours once per month for mom) was without evidentiary support in the record. He wrote I think about a ten page dissent and footnoted it like a dissertation. I was wowed! It didn’t do a bit of good, of course, but he did it. I was then sending copies of the decision, with the dissent, to various legislators in Kentucky and asking them to introduce and pass a bill that said that if a parent made allegations of abuse about another parent within a custody dispute, the truth or falsity of the allegations themselves (proven either by clear and convincing evidence or beyond a reasonable doubt, or not proven by either standard) could not IN AND OF ITSELF become the sole factual foundation for a custody decision, which had to be made using a “preponderance” standard. I sent the proposed draft of the bill to all the legislators on the judiciary committees of the two houses of the Kentucky legislature. No response, no action, OK, that’s life.
About two, maybe three months later, I got a call from a Kentucky legislator who told me he was in DC for some kind of a conference and he saw my presentation to the legislators (he was not one of those to whom it had been addressed because he served on different committees at the time) and wanted to speak with me. I was thrilled because I thought he was going to back the bill somehow. He took me to lunch at a nice restaurant in downtown DC. I’d say the guy was in his early sixties at the time we met.
He said he wanted to talk to me about child sexual abuse because he had never told anyone (no therapist, not his wife or family, never his parents while they lived, no priest, no colleague, no friend) about what had happened to him as a child, when he was an altar boy, and he was molested by a priest. I froze. I am not a therapist; I have no credentials for any professional job. He spoke. He spoke and spoke and spoke. We ordered more and more coffee. He spoke and spoke and spoke and spoke and spoke. I can’t remember what, if anything, I said. I think the conversation must have been about 3 hours; he did not stop speaking. His voice was a bit louder than a whisper. I believed every word that man said. It had invaded his entire life. It had devoured huge parts of his “life interest.” It had brought his very soul to the edge of the pit, because he was still a Roman Catholic, and he still believed in sin and redemption, and he had never “confessed” it and he had never been able to walk through the fire without feeling very Hell, for himself.
I do remember asking him why he thought it would be OK to speak with me about it, and he said, “You wrote that paper for us to read about the little boy being molested, and I thought, ‘this little boy should not have told anyone,’ and then I began to think, ‘this little four-year-old is braver than me.’ So I came here to tell you.”
He gave me details. I never give people who have been victimized any advice because I believe advice to a victim is an additional burden, for most of the time they can’t take the advice, and then feel like they deserved the victimization. But this time I gave the guy advice. I said, “Why don’t you just confess that you had angry thoughts toward a priest, and not say why you had those thoughts, and get your penance and perform your penance, and get forgive for THAT; wouldn’t that be enough?”
The patriarchal power (which this guy was a part of, as a legislator) brings with it the trappings of power, and within those trappings are the assumptions of guiltlessness and righteousness that do not fall magically away simply because the powerful may victimize someone. They do not fall away even with the greatest effort. The first thing a victimized person faces when fighting back against more powerful victimizers is the demonization, the blaming, the punishment, the condemnation — this is the real force of the abusers, and it is wielded with astonishing regularity and extremism.
Uhhhhh — so that explains my SECOND sentence. (You see that I was thinking in shorthand and writing as if you and I had already had years of conversations with each other and you would know exactly what I meant — how silly of me!)
And then finally, that story I told about the judge giving his version of what happens in court and in life. That was a Judge of the New York Supreme Court, circa 1994 — he died a couple of years later, had a heart attack while on the treadmill at his home in Manhattan. Well this judge was describing what he thought the world was made of, at least what HIS world was made of. I quoted it to illustrate what my version was of “patriarchal power” in reference to its use by the Catholic Church. The Church uses its power as it sees fit, and it changes the “religion” to fit the seeing-fit of its use of power, and this has been its history since it was established. This particular judge was not Catholic, by the way; he was Jewish. But the Church, and priests like Lenky, and many many others, all operate within the system that is actually very much like what the Judge said here.
Elaine M, I’m sorry this explanation was so long-winded, and I really regret writing such a little flip “burst of buckshot” reply to a pithy comment you had posted. Be well.
Matt,
I approve, or in this case, give my imprimatur.
Well, the Bishop should be familiar with Hitler for the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII was complicit in supporting fascism in Europe be it Mussolini, Hitler or Pavelic of Croatia. Pope Pius XII was a racist and anti-Semitic of which were factors of the resultant NAZI and the Ustasa (Croatian) Holocausts killing millions of Europeans. After WWII, the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII direction was instrumental in establishing “Ratlines” from Italy and Spain for thousands of NAZI and Croatian War Criminals to escape to South America, funded in a large part by the American Roman Catholic Church. Notable War Criminals such as Franz Stangl, Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Eduard Roschmann and Walter Rauff escaped justice by use of the Roman Catholic Church ratlines to South America. There is the unanswered question of the stolen gold taken from the victims of the Holocausts and nations defeated by NAZI Germany, which the Vatican has yet to reveal. For example, there is clear evidence that the Yugoslavian gold stolen by the Croatian fascists was secreted to the Vatican bank.
Pius XII was even worse than Mussolini since he complained to him about the fact that the Italian troops in Yugoslavia in the Italian zone would not turn Serbs over to the Ustashi for murder.
A morbidly obese guy who doesn’t need to worry about health insurance reeally should not be weighing-in (no pun intended) on health care reform.
As a non-Catholic, I found the Roman Catholic Church working way too hard to shove their doctrine/dogma down my throat all my life. I have been appalled at all the Republicans who have lost all sense of decency and good manners when they speak about our first African-American President. I am surprised that a church official would join the Republicans in this boorish behavior toward the President of the United States. I believe this official of the Catholic Church was totally out of line and should suffer some backlash as a result of his very bad manners–not to mention is lack of moral authority regarding the raping of young boys and covering it up.
God bless you Bishop!
Kevin Phillips has written many books on the Republican party and its political prospects in America. In one of his latest, American Theocracy: the peril and politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st century he writes:
“The excesses of fundamentalism, in turn, are American and Israeli, as well as the all-too-obvious depredations of radical Islam. The rapture, end-times, and Armageddon hucksters in the United States rank with any Shiite ayatollas, and the last two presidential elections mark the transformation of the GOP into the first religious party in U.S. history [emphasis added].”
Sheldon Wolin adds, in America, Inc: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, that the “key components” of this new religious party are “corporate capital, the very rich, small business associations, large media organizations, evangelical Protestant leaders, and the Catholic hierarchy [emphasis added]. Models of organization tend to be corporate as well as military.”
The Catholic hierarchy now unabashedly functions as an overt component of the first religious political party in American history. Its spokespersons loudly denounce America’s secular Constitution as, well, “secular” — a term of unspeakable evil to them. They need to crawl back into their caves and back under their rocks where they can fester and decay in the darkness they so dearly love. The political affairs of the nation do not concern them.
Speaking of National Socialists — i.e., Nazis:
“At first … both Hitler and Ley tried to assure the workers that their rights would be protected. Said Ley in his first proclamation: ‘Workers! Your institutions are sacred to us National Socialists. I myself am a poor peasant’s son and understand poverty … I know the exploitation of anonymous capitalism. Workers! I swear to you, we will not only keep everything that exists, we will build up the protection and the rights of the workers still further.’
“Within three weeks the hollowness of another Nazi promise was exposed when Hitler decreed a law bringing and end to collective bargaining and providing that henceforth ‘labor trustees,’ appointed by him, would ‘regulate labor contracts,’ and maintain ‘labor peace.’ Since the decisions of the trustees were to be legally binding, the law, in effect, outlawed strikes. Ley promised ‘to restore absolute leadership to the natural leader of a factory — that is, the employer. … only the employer can decide. Many employers have for years had to call for the ‘master of the house.’ Now they are once again to be the ‘master of the house.'” — William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
This National Socialist kind of thing sounds more like the current crop of union-busting Republican governors — especially Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich of Ohio and Snyder of Michigan — than President Obama, a rather pathetic corporate tool who seems simply bewildered by the bitter resentments his many concessions to Republicans and their ideology predictably elicit from them.
lmao@pete
Gene H.
1, April 20, 2012 at 7:00 pm
seamus,
Salted or unsalted? Personally I think they need a dash, but a man of the Monsignor’s stature should probably stick to low-sodium children.
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likes them same as he likes his donuts
cream filled
Actually the reasoning behind not taxing churches is sound and based in the Free Exercise Clause. The surest way to have government influence religion is to allow taxation. However, when religious organizations start engaging in secular politics – endorsing candidates, lobbying, etc. – they are attempting to impose their religion upon others using the force of law just as the RCC is doing in this instance which is arguably in violation of the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause regarding people of other creeds. If churches and religious organizations want to maintain their tax exempt status, I think that it is only fair that they not engage in politics and keep their influence in its rightful place: the pews of their own domain. When they engage in politics, their exemption should be lifted. Quid pro quo. Government keeps its hands of churches and churches keep their hands off government. If churches choose to ignore the Separation Doctrine to further their ecclesiastical agendas politically, then they should have to play by the same rules as everyone else. Separation of Church and State. That’s equitable.
And that doesn’t even address the hubris of the organization in trying to manipulate the law via lobby while at the same time systematically aiding and abetting pedophiles escape justice.
The arrogance of the RCC is simply astounding.