DANGER AHEAD -- PRIESTLY POLITICS

What happens in Peoria stays in Peoria? Hardly. Talk radio was all abuzz this morning with news that Peoria, IL Bishop Daniel Jenky (above, with Pope Benedict XVI) held a mass in which he essentially compared President Barack Obama to Hitler and Stalin. On April 14, Jenky had this to say during his mass, titled “A Call to Catholic Men of Faith”:

“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.”

Just to re-iterate: He said this in a MASS. There are so many things wrong with Jenky’s statement that one is hard pressed to know where to begin. Jenky, who has been a priest since the 1970s, was in the midst of a somewhat traditional sermon when he made these comments about two-thirds of the way through. It begs the question: Did the bishop inexplicably not realize how insensitive his statement was? Those who lived through the Holocaust to tell of its horrors surely would take issue with his comparisons. Those who uphold the time-tested tradition of the separation of Church and State would wonder why he ventured into this rhetorical territory. Clearly a personal political statement, did Jenky not realize he was putting his archdiocese’s tax-exempt status at risk by politicizing from the pulpit? And above all, whether he approves of Obama’s policies and job performance or not, is there no respect left for the office of the President? Comparing Obama to maniacal mass murderers is surely a stretch that most Americans would not support, many Catholics included.

Predictably, a number of Catholic Americans have come out in support of Jenky for making these comments, even though among them are surely thousands who know, in their hearts, that the President of the United States is not a supporter of mass murder. At issue is Obama’s health care initiative, which includes a provision that compels Catholic schools, hospitals and charities to provide birth control coverage for their employees via their health insurance. Although Obama’s plan prohibits federal dollars from being spent on abortions, it does make exceptions for rape and incest. Catholic leaders are incensed at what they perceive as Obama’s disregard of the Church’s strict anti-abortion stance.

That evidently prompted Jenky to add this comment to his sermon:

“This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries -- only excepting our church buildings – could easily be shut down. Because no Catholic institution, under any circumstance, can ever cooperate with the intrinsic evil of killing innocent human life in the womb.”

Those of us who are not Catholic have often been left to wonder about the Church’s rigid stance on social issues. We have often questioned policies such as denying birth control in third world countries where overpopulation has caused mass starvation. We wonder about people who go to the Catholic church every Sunday and worship, and then come home and use the exact artificial birth control methods the Church stands against. Why, we wonder, are women denied the right to ascend to the priesthood, simply because of their gender? We are astonished at the decades and decades of the church’s now-admitted coverup of sexual assault of children among priests. The Catholic church’s discrimination against homosexuals is now legendary.

If Jenky has strong convictions against Obama, or against the healthcare plan, the pulpit was the last place he should have expressed them. And even if he felt somehow compelled to do so, perhaps it would have been wise for him to at least foresee the media firestorm he was about to create, at a time when the Catholic church should be doing everything possible to avoid bad publicity. Just this week headlines were once again international in scope about the Vatican’s chastising American Catholic nuns for their “radical feminist themes.” Criticism was especially harsh for the nuns "protesting the Holy See's actions regarding the question of women's ordination and of a correct pastoral approach to ministry to homosexual persons." In its report to the nuns, the Vatican said, “Public disagreement with the bishops — ‘who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals’ — is unacceptable.”

Some critics of the Vatican see moves like this one as those of desperation. The Vatican (right) knows that traditional Roman Catholic doctrine stands in stark contrast to contemporary Western culture. The Pope, in his 80s and ailing, is largely seen as a leader who does not know how to reign in those he views as “radical.” The nuns who were the subject of the latest report from the Vatican are represented in an organization called the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which includes a reported 80 percent of the country’s’ approximately 57,000 nuns. Are we to believe that tens of thousands of American nuns are radicals?

That Jenky’s comments were ill-conceived is inarguable. But that they were so ill-timed is stunning. Barack Obama is not a threat to the Catholic church. In fact, he is probably no match for the massive, unwieldy, socio-industrial complex the Church has become. However, with mass communication and proliferation of media what it is in 2012, people like Jenky are the ones who stand to cause the church and its devotees the most harm.

One Nation, Under God...DIVISIBLE

Growing up in the 1960s, every morning in school we had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the singing of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” We would stand by our desks with our right hand over our hearts – every single day. There are so many words in those two pieces that simply don’t work anymore. First, in the Pledge, we would say, in part, “…one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” By the late sixties we found out that our country was indeed divisible, and liberty and justice were relative terms. Today, there is controversy brewing even over the use of “God” in the Pledge. Citizens coast to coast are questioning the concept of liberty in America, throwing around words like socialism and dictatorship. And justice? Well, according to some Americans, justice has everything to do with your skin color, sexual orientation and/or socio-economic status. America is divided right now unlike any other time in history, except for the Civil War in the 19th century and the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. We are fractured. We all know it, even though we go on about our daily lives as though we were still that America that pledged and sang every morning.

After the divisive health care debate last week, the façade that we have counted on for so long began to crumble. Here are a few recent examples of how divisible our country has become:
• Item: John Lewis, U.S. Representative from Georgia’s 5th District, who once marched his heart out with Dr. Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery, and who was viciously beaten by police (left) for doing so, was once again victimized last week. On his way into the Capitol, Tea Party members demonstrating against the soon-to-be-voted on health care bill yelled, “Kill the bill, nigger.”
• Item: Barney Frank, U.S. Representative from Massachusetts’s 4th District, distinguished as one of the first openly gay members of the House, was called “homo” and “faggot” as he approached the Capitol.
• Item: An Alabama man, Mike Vanderboegh, who refers to himself as a “militia leader” is openly leading an effort to break windows in Democratic party headquarters coast to coast. The movement has succeeded so far in doing so in Arizona, Kansas, Rochester, NY and Niagara Falls. On his blog, he writes, “Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats.”
• Item: Reportedly, as many as 10 members of Congress have requested added security for their homes and offices. Some have received death threats. Watch:


• Item: Rep. Louise Slaughter, of Niagara Falls, one of those whose office windows were broken, reports that a voice mail was left on her office phone threatening to “assassinate” the children of lawmakers who vote in favor of the health care bill.

The anger many Americans feel right now is often exacerbated by talk radio hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh. Recently, Limbaugh said some surgeries cost about the same thing as buying a new car, so if one can buy a car he should be able to pay for his own operation, without health insurance. He also told a caller who said he broke his wrist and had to pay $6,000 out of pocket for treatment, “Then you shouldn’t have broken your wrist.” Entertainer Glenn Beck called last weekend’s vote on health care reform an “affront to God,” because it was being conducted on a Sunday. Beck, of course, is the one who recently told his listeners to leave their churches if they were being encouraged to support social or economic justice. He invoked communism and Nazism in his rhetoric.

Sean Hannity has been getting himself so worked up over healthcare reform lately that he appears ready for his first stroke. Of course, this comes just as it was revealed that his and Oliver North’s charity, Freedom Alliance, is spending inordinate amounts of its donations on travel, perks and accommodations, and donating only 12% of its revenues to the children of wounded soldiers education funds.

What we are witnessing now is much like what we saw during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, except with a high tech element. Talking heads are rallying their troops to fight the government in the name of freedom. Those among them without health insurance have yet to tell us how their medical expenses will be paid if they get sick. They will expect to be promptly and well-treated in emergency rooms coast to coast, without insurance. Further, even if their objection to national health insurance were valid, we have yet to hear from them any viable alternatives. All we have heard so far is that Americans should have a choice whether to be insured or not. If a grass roots movement is to gather true steam, it needs substance. It cannot go the distance on hate alone.

When supporters of health care reform point out that auto insurance is required of every driver, opponents say we are comparing apples and oranges. Are we? I think not. When supporters of health care reform point out that Medicare and Social Security could be considered just as socialist as the new reform, the opponents do not seem to respond. But they do expect their Medicare reimbursement and social security checks to arrive on time.

We are indeed a nation divided by ideology, temperament and intolerance. Racism is boiling, anti-government rhetoric has turned threatening and vile, and grass roots organizers are protesting the very initiatives that were designed to allow them to enjoy their freedom, not rob them of it. Violence, death threats and uncivil disobedience notwithstanding, however, this too shall pass. Just as the violence that rocked urban streets in the late 1960s in opposition to racial equality passed, this will pass. Still, how many broken bodies and spirits will lie in its wake is yet to be seen.