It seems as though Catholic Bishops are under attack in the last few years. Just in the last week, CBS news and an op-ed by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend as well as the recent "American Catholic Council" Conference, attack the Bishops as backward looking, overly-conservative rigid old men who can't embrace the future. We also have those on the "far right" of Catholicism who constantly point out the worst in the Bishops and lump them all together as a group of liberal, gay-loving progressives who all-in-all are a bunch of Obama Democrats who have forgotten Catholic teaching. Seems as though you can't win for losing. But for those who have ears to hear, and can read almost any source of authentic Catholic journalism, the truth is that the vast majority of what our Bishops do is preach the Gospel and defend the Teachings of Christ's Church. Al has a commentary on Bishops Behaving Boldly.
"lump them all together as a group of liberal, gay-loving progressives who all-in-all are a bunch of Obama Democrats who have forgotten Catholic teaching."
ReplyDeleteThe national group as it acts and makes pronouncements are many, not all, of the above things.
The USCCB makes many of these things seem true, its no wonder that people are confused when they talk of the bishops as a group, a singular, especially when so many liberal singular bishops make so many public pronouncements on their own version of liberal politics and seek to justify it with the faith to their flock. If the USCCB was not part of the problem than you wouldn't have the confusion that you deem so unfair. The USCCB is the problem, its tilted leftward and towards the patronage of the handouts of the Democrats and it will take time to straighten, through attrition, the USCCB out. In the meantime, those of us in the peanut gallery, who are tired of seeing our religious freedoms encroached and abortion praised in democrat politics and Bishops who kowtow and have pandered to the very politics that have virtually every anti-Catholic pay-player sitting at the political conference table(Democrat Party) have it approximately correct. Some of this is changing, but not quick enough or boldly enough to affect perceptions as yet.
RB