The Catholic Right

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-five

What does McCain's use of Catholic Right icon Deal Hudson as a campaign advisor and surrogate tell us about the presumptive GOP nominee's view of American Catholics?  Simple: just like President George W. Bush, his Catholic constituency is not the rank and file faithful, but a small reactionary faction in the hierarchy here and in the Vatican.

This is significant for many reasons, not the least is that it signals a disregard for one of American Catholicism's most recent painful episodes.

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-four

On July 16, 2008 Catholics United sent the McCain campaign a a letter calling on the Arizona senator to remove the controversial Catholic Right mover and shaker Deal Hudson from the Catholics for McCain National Steering Committee. Hudson, a Catholic Right activist who was forced to resign from a similar position in President Bush's 2004 presidential campaign when The National Catholic Reporter broke a story about sexual harassment on Hudson's part while teaching at Fordham University.

So, who would be brazen enough to defend such a man from a similar firing?  The Catholic League's Bill Donohue, of course.

Bill Donohue has described Deal Hudson as "the ultimate networker," adding: "If you wanted to get something to the top inner circles of the [Bush] White House from a Catholic perspective, you could contact Deal Hudson and it was delivered."

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-three

"The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.

The slaves of the householder came to him and said, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?' He answered, 'An enemy has done this.' His slaves said to him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up? He replied, 'No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.

Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, "First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn."'" Matthew 13:24-30

On June 27, 2008 the Vatican announced that St. Louis, Missouri's Archbishop Raymond Burke was promoted to Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura -- a position that except for the Pope is considered the highest judicial position within the Catholic Church. It is essentially being the Chief Justice of the Church's Supreme Court.

Originally Posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-two

In last week's post I discussed how the Catholic Right organization Fidelis may be possibly violating IRS proscriptions against electioneering by non-profit, tax-exempt organizations. This week we take a closer look at one of its principle figures -- attorney Patrick T. Gillen. Although not exactly a household name, Gillen has been in the middle of many of the religious right's biggest court battles in recent years.

A Googling of Gillen reveals, among other things, that he is a visiting faculty member at Ave Maria Law School as well as the former chief litigator for the Thomas More Law Center.

As I wrote previously of TMLC:

TMLC makes no bones that its members are engaged in a culture war against the supposedly ungodly:

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-one

A little more than a year ago Fidelis, an umbrella advocacy group consisting of various not-for-profit entities, sought to derail the presidential prospects of pro-choice Republican (and Catholic) Rudy Giuliani. It is now going after presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (the junior senator from Illinois is also pro-choice, pro-embryonic stem cell research, and perhaps what truly horrifies these folks, he favors contemporary liberal economics).

However, my question of May 2007 still stands: Is Fidelis violating the Internal Revenue Code's provisions regarding not-for-profits?

If you visit the Fidelis web site, you will be confronted with a cornucopia of Catholic Right causes. Under "Issues" the only subsections we find are Abortion, Education (focusing exclusively on school vouchers) and Traditional Marriage ("Marriage is the union of one man and one woman"). A November 14, 2007 press release congratulates the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops "...for asserting the primacy of opposing abortion."

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Fifty-nine

As several of us here at Talk to Action have discussed, reports of the Religious Right's demise are greatly exaggerated. For the moment their movement is stalled. But stalled is not the same as finished. But it might mean -- in transition, And as we've seen in the recent past it is a movement that is both resilient and well-funded.

With that thought in mind, it is time to take another look at one of the up-and-coming faces of the Religious Right, Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal -- who may be viewed as the poster-child for Religious Right's new brand of ecumenical politics.

Jindal may get his face on the poster because he is a traditionalist Catholic whose brand sells well to conservative evangelicals, and as The Wall Street Journal recently noted has a "gift for oratory."

As I noted in Part Thirty-three of this series:

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

Recently, I described how the Catholic Right has abused Holy Communion by using it as political tool, doing so by denying the Sacrament to pro-choice (i.e., liberal) elected officials. Now, according to Catholic Democrats certain Church hierarchs with close GOP connections have begun using this debasing tactic to target a potential Democratic running mate.

As I noted in Part Fifty-six of this series:

For Roman Catholics, Holy Communion is the height of the Mass. It is when the bread and wine, consecrated in the Eucharist, become the body and blood of Christ. This holiest of sacraments further serves as a reminder of the Passover Seder that became the Last Supper.

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Fifty-six
On Tuesday I read the news that Cardinal Edward Egan (Archdiocese of New York) criticized former Mayor Rudy Giuliani for taking Communion during a Mass attended by Pope Benedict XVI.  This comes as no surprise, as the archbishop was repeating an  an increasingly common Catholic Right refrain - that those who support a woman's right to choose should be denied Communion.

For Roman Catholics, Holy Communion is the height of the Mass. It is when the bread and wine, consecrated in the Eucharist, become the body and blood of Christ. This holiest of sacraments further serves as a reminder of the Passover Seder that became the Last Supper.

Originally posted at Talk to Action

The Catholic Right, Part Fifty-five

Bill Donohue heand of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is on a mission -- not so much to defend the Church as to defend the powerful from efforts to hold them accountable.  Witness what happened during Pope Benedict XVI's recent US visit when Bloviating Bill employed the prejudicial to obscure the probative in defending Bishop William Murphy, head of the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

Murphy was a top aide in the Boston Archdiocese, where the pedophilia scandal broke in 2002, and who played a pivotal role in the cover-up. As Newsday reported:  

This was originally was posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, a Series

As the saying goes, even a broken watch is correct twice a day. Well, with the Catholic League's Bill Donohue's condemnation of Senator John McCain endorsement by Evangelical John Hagee, ole Bill is at least half right.

Yet though this watch may seem broken, it is still wound up to start ticking again in 2012.

In that regard it is worth reminding ourselves about Donohue's thinly-veiled anti-Semitism, his defense of the Inquisition, and most relevant to this post, his past soft-peddling of John Hagee and his very real anti-Catholicism.