I continue to be amazed at the ongoing theocracy this country has become. Mind you, I consider myself a Christian but I’m in no way represented by the continued bullying of right wing fanatics that seem to have taken over the government and pulpits.
The most recent example of the bullying by the extremists calling themselves the disciples of Christ is their attempt to keep their congregations from seeing the DaVinci Codes.
The controversy of the book DaVinci Codes has been going on for a number of years without a mass exodus of Christians from the churches but now the movie is coming out with an Oscar winning actor and the churches express outrage. They tell their lay people to support this movie is akin to a sin.
More reasonable reactions might be the use of the film and book to discuss the fictional accounts versus the theological lessons. Reasonable has been a missing reaction for many years with far too many leaders of the religions of our world.
History shows religions don’t want an informed laity, they want a controlled laity. Individual thinking can bring the wrath of clergy and lockstep parishioners. Think outside the established catechism and you become a heretic.
The terrifying aspects of the power we give over to the religions are the effects on peace and justice in the world. Wars and retribution are common results of the intolerance and narrow thinking of zealots.
When I see the depiction of books being burned in the press, I remember the days of Nazism and McCarthyism. We should be on guard to the totalitarianism we claim this country is against.
Instead, burning books and the refusal to allow informed thinking by the clergy is clear evidence we approach those ugly times again.
Recently in the state of Colorado, Archbishop Charles Chaput railed against a female legislator who introduced a bill allowing an extra one year statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse to file a lawsuit against individuals or institutions. The Archbishop called the bill “anti-Catholic” and accused the legislator of being a disgruntled Catholic.
She was, indeed, a Catholic. She felt it responsible to allow victims of such abuse as priest pedophilia to be given one extra year to seek reparations for lifetimes of suffering, therapy and denial.
The Archbishop felt it a direct attack on the Catholic Church. He moaned about public institutions such as public schools not being held accountable in the same way as the Church. He’s right about this, of course. Public school employees are subject to criminal and civil penalties while the Catholic Church allowed pedophile priests to be transferred to other parishes rather than face authorities.
It doesn’t seem a coincidence the Northern Colorado diocese has recently had a series of revelations about multiple offenses by priests who were transferred several times from parish to parish. Each parish had victims by the same priests.
It’s clear from the pattern throughout the United States, the Catholic Church made deliberate attempts to cover up the illegal and immoral behaviors of a small number of priests rather than being responsible to their victims. Diocese after diocese was getting sued for the offenses with millions of dollars going to damages.
Archbishop Chaput laid claim to having a modern and strict code of conduct for such offenses when he was first confronted by the issues of the other dioceses’ problems. He took a lengthy period of time before he came out with a statement against the institutional cover up of the sexual abuse.
When he did make a statement he avowed to do an audit of every parish in accordance with the Vatican’s wishes. After the audits were completed, a laity group headed by a female Catholic, who also happened to be a judge, recommended another set of audits to assure continued safety for parishioners.
Chaput became angered by the recommendation and lashed out at the judge during the time the national Archbishop’s Conference was being held in Denver. He chastised the judge, telling her such decisions should be left to the clergy. The same clergy in many cases that had covered up the prior abuses.
During the 2004 Presidential election, Chaput and Archbishop Sheridan in Colorado Springs were two of the most outspoken clergy to tell laity a vote for a Catholic politician taking a pro-choice view would be in violation of Church teachings. When confronted they were in fact endorsing George Bush, Chaput and Sheridan disingenuously denied doing so even though the Democrat, John Kerry who was Catholic was pro-choice while Bush claimed to be anti-abortion.
I wrote Archbishop Chaput during this time to confront him about a de facto endorsement of Bush. He tried to tell me he was actually a Democrat but the abortion issue was more intrinsically evil than the war perpetrated by Bush or the death penalty often imposed by Bush while Governor.
I suggested the Archbishop was delusional if he felt Bush was anti-abortion for any reason other than political expediency. The tenor of the Archbishop’s remarks went from being very condescending to being quite angry in his email response.
Shortly after the election, George Bush appointed Charles Chaput to a Presidential commission of clergy. There’s a file photo of Bush sitting next to Chaput at a prayer breakfast with his hand on the the Archbishop's arm. Both men were all smiles. The story spoke of Bush thanking Chaput for his help.
As the bill for the statute of limitations got closer to being passed, the Denver Archbishop hired a high profile lobbyist to lobby against the bill. Ads and remarks by the Archbishop in the weekly Catholic Register made the call for the laity to write their legislators in opposition.
The diocese refused to reveal the costs of the lobbyist’s services but a similar effort for the Governor of Colorado, a friend of the Archbishop, ran in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The lobbying took the form of attempts to discredit the woman legislator sponsoring the bill with distorted or half-truth remarks. Incredibly, there was also an effort to put the veracity of the victims’ claims of abuse in question.
Statements such as “after so many years, memories can be blurred” showed up.
It became clear the Archbishop was acting more as a CEO than the shepherd of the flock. His disregard for the victims and his smear of a responsible Catholic legislator were classic tactics of the Bush Administration led by Karl Rove.
I write as a disgruntled Catholic that Chaput likes to blame for attacks on the Church. I see it quite different, however. I think of people like Chaput as the ones attacking the Church. They attack it by deliberately portraying the words and actions of Christ to suit their personal agenda. They attack the Church by allowing themselves to become the modern day version of the Pharisees. They seek power and privilege and attack those who disagree.
Somehow, I never think of Jesus Christ as attacking His people. I think Christ would want the Church to be responsible and caring toward the victims of men claiming to be the teachers of the Church.
Sadly, there are far too many Chaputs who piously talk of morality and sanctity while in fact they impose control and power against their flocks. They say little or nothing to oppose wars killing children and innocents but tell women in impoverished parts of the world they must not use birth control. They say little or nothing about how a poor family must feed children. They only condemn their actions to avoid pregnancies or having other children.
Sadly, these pious men who won’t allow women to be equal in any part of life, cover up the sexual abuse of children but abhor and cry out against a man loving a man or a woman loving a woman.
We’re to love as they say. To bear children as they say and to read books and watch movies as they say. And we’re to vote as they say.
We bemoan the Shiites and Sunnis, the Imams and the ayatollahs and yet we’ve become no better in our own fear of people who might question and think for themselves. This is tyranny, whether in Iran, Israel or America.
Terry Leichner
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