FAITH AND CHURCH

U.S.A SPECIAL

Has anti-Catholic bias disappeared in

American public life, or has it taken new

forms? Fay VincentSeptember 28, 2020

Anti-Catholic bias may not be as blatant as when John F. Kennedy entered the White House, but it still arises in subtle

forms. (Wikimedia Commons)

In 1970, to my surprise, I was invited to become a trustee of Williams

College, my alma mater. At the time, I was 32 and a lawyer in Washington,

D.C., of no particular achievement and little financial capacity, so the

invitation was puzzling. When I asked why I was selected, I was told that

Jack Sawyer, then the college president, wanted a younger trustee to expand

the age range on the board. It took me a while to learn the real story.

The first clue came before a board meeting early in my tenure, when Philip

H. Hoff, then the governor of Vermont and a trustee, suddenly asked me if I

was a Catholic. His inquiry jolted me. He explained the board had been told I

was a Catholic when I was being considered for election. He added that in

his experience Catholics were “superstitious and not very bright,” so he was

surprised when I seemed to be “a smart fellow who asks good questions” at

board meetings.

I avoided any disagreement by telling him I would buy him a beer one

evening so he and I could explore his views. We never had that beer, and

when I saw his obituary in 2018, I felt bad. I would have begun that

discussion with Cardinal John Henry Newman.

Wisely, Mr. Sawyer did not want to appear before the Massachusetts Legislature without at least one Irish name on his list of trustees.

After my exchange with Mr. Hoff, I learned that the college was about to go

co-ed. To effect that change, the charter of the college had to be amended by

the Massachusetts Legislature. Wisely, Mr. Sawyer did not want to appear

before that group without at least one Irish name on his list of trustees.

Thus, I became the first Catholic trustee of Williams College. (There was

already one Jewish trustee.)

In my 18 years on that board, the religious affiliation of a trustee nominee

never came up. And Mr. Hoff turned out to be an admirable man and one of

my friends.

Since then, there has been remarkable progress in the way Catholics have

become accepted in our society. The admissions quotas for Catholics and

Jews at places like Williams are long gone. As with anti-Semitism, overt anti-

Catholic bias has been reduced. Or has it?

In 2018, during a confirmation hearing, Kamala Harris—a U.S. senator from

California and now the Democratic nominee for vice president—challenged

Brian Buescher, a Catholic nominated by President Trump for a U.S. District

Court judgeship, over his membership in the Knights of Columbus, the

Catholic fraternal organization. Ms. Harris and another Democratic senator,

Maize Hirano of Hawaii, pressed Mr. Buescher to explain how he could serve

as a judge when the Knights of Columbus opposed “a woman’s right to

choose” abortion, as well as same-sex “marriage equality.” The two senators

slid around the constitutional prohibition of any religious test for office by

using the Knights of Columbus as a proxy for the Catholic Church. (Mr.

Buescher was ultimately confirmed.)

The two senators slid around the constitutional prohibition of any religious test for office by using the Knights of Columbus as a proxy for the Catholic Church.

That episode echoed one in 2017, also at a Senate confirmation hearing, in

which Senator Dianne Feinstein (another Democrat from California), told

Amy Coney Barrett, then a law professor at the University of Notre Dame

who had been nominated to a federal appeals court, that her “dogma” as a

Catholic who had written and spoken about church teaching raised serious

questions about her judicial qualifications. Judge Barrett was confirmed, and

last week President Trump nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court

following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I was surprised that these senatorial attacks on Catholic judicial nominees

did not provoke more of a response. Maybe the sources were taken into

account. Maybe the episodes were not considered important; surely the

church these days has more serious problems to deal with.

The tension between religious or moral beliefs and legal or official

obligations is at the core of any secular governance. The senators who were

concerned that Catholic judges would be compromised by their religious

beliefs were aggressively re-opening a debate that had been thought settled.

After all, many federal judges are Catholic, including several sitting on the

Supreme Court. Some tribute goes to Caesar and some to God. As the

Nazarene taught, neither side can ignore the other.

It is now 60 years since John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic to be

elected president of the United States. Anti-Catholic bias is no longer as

crude or as blatant as what Kennedy faced, or Al Smith before him when he

ran for president in 1928. But prejudice still arises in more subtle forms, as

in the notion that a Catholic identity is fine in public life but adherence to

Catholic teaching is not.

Anti-Catholicism is real—and it’s turning Catholics against one another

Bill McCormick, S.J.

October 07, 2020

Email

Photo by Jon Sailer/Christoph Schmid on Unsplash (composite by America)

Can Catholics be real Americans? This question has vexed many of us since

1776.

There are many reasons to think we are not. Historically many Catholics

have been immigrants, which is to say the wrong kind of immigrants: not

White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Ecclesially, we belong to a church from

which the WASPs’ British forebears freed themselves, a religion suspected

of allegiance to a foreign power in the Old World. Philosophically and

theologically, Catholics have long been associated with “illiberal” and

“medieval” political and social doctrines, teaching supposed to contradict

the dogmas of American democracy and Protestant civil religion.

When the Catholic faith of a public figure is called into question, this ancient

history suddenly becomes painfully present in our own time. Many Catholics

saw a return of just such anti-Catholic animus when U.S. Senator Dianne

Feinstein told Judge Amy Coney Barrett in 2017 that “The dogma lives

loudly within you.” That line, of course, has resurfaced in the wake of

Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination.

Philosophically and theologically, Catholics have long been associated with “illiberal” and “medieval” political and social doctrines.

Some Catholics have pushed back against this narrative, however. American

Catholics have come a long way since the anti-Catholic nativism of the 19th

century, they argue. We are fully assimilated into society—with the

exception of recent immigrants, of course. As Steve Millies recently tweeted,

“It’s hard to be a victim as the hegemon. Catholics are the largest group of

religious believers in the US. We have outsized social and cultural

influence.”

So is Senator Feinstein anti-Catholic? I do not know. But anti-Catholicism is

not just a personal prejudice: It is a tradition of American public life with its

own language and tropes born of a long history in this country. The word

“dogma” is uniquely suited to provoke a whole set of worries and tribal

fears about Catholicism in mainline Protestantism and its secular

successors, regardless of what the senator personally thinks and believes.

Yes, much that passes for “anti-Catholicism” today is political theater. It is

predictable, scripted outrage. But it is trading on a very real history that

serves to divide Catholics.

Indeed, one might object that Catholics become incensed only about certain

acts of supposed anti-Catholicism, namely those that offend their partisan

values. There is an important truth in this. Divisions between U.S. Catholics

mean some actions will count as “anti-Catholic” to some Catholics and not

others. Phrased differently: Some actions are intended to mobilize only

some Catholics. Massimo Faggioli has recently called this “cafeteria anti-

Catholicism,”

[Want to discuss politics with other America readers? Join our Facebook

discussion group, moderated by America’s writers and editors.]

Perhaps anti-Catholicism was originally meant to divide Catholics from “real

Americans.” But now its primary effect seems to be to divide Catholics

against themselves.

This is where we get at the heart of today’s controversies. As Liz Bruenig

noted in The New York Times, U.S. Catholics are virtually indistinguishable

“from the general population in terms of their political behavior, including

their pathologies.” (That column had a provocative title: “Biden Could Be

Our Second Catholic President. Does It Matter?”) This successful

inculturation ironically makes it difficult for us to avoid engaging one

another as political partisans, rather than as baptized members of the

church.

Much that passes for “anti-Catholicism” today is political theater. It is predictable, scripted outrage.

Our arguments about purported anti-Catholicism are no different. The

argument over anti-Catholicism between Catholics becomes yet another

proxy war for the bitter conflict over how Catholics ought to engage

American culture.

And who benefits from this arrangement? Not Catholics. It is rather the

guardians of the two-party status quo who are all too happy to secure their

respective shares of the Catholic vote. As the Canadian theologian Brett

Salkeld noted, “How convenient that both parties can take for granted that

their Catholic members will put so much time into justifying their own

political compromises and vilifying those of their neighbors that little is left

for challenging the parties themselves with the message of the Gospel!”

Or, as Fay Vincent recently commented in America, “a Catholic identity is

fine in public life but adherence to Catholic teaching is not.” I would qualify

this: “A Catholic identity is fine in public life but adherence to Catholic

teaching that questions the party platform is not.”

This brings me to another objection often made: Anti-Catholicism is self-

inflicted. Again, there is much truth to this. Catholics are no longer a

defenseless, marginalized minority in the United States. We have long since

graduated to marginalizing defenseless minorities. When priests abuse

children and bishops cover up for them, when Catholics give into nativism

against displaced persons who are often themselves Catholics, we are not

innocent.

Catholics have to acknowledge that we routinely fail to witness a better way for the world.

Another way anti-Catholicism is self-inflicted: Catholics are incredibly

hateful to one another in this country. When Catholics attack each other, we

reveal the incentives for others to exploit such divisions. The most casual

perusal of Catholic Twitter reveals that the worst conflicts are intra-

ecclesial.

What does all of this mean? Certainly not that two wrongs make a right. But

Catholics have to acknowledge that we routinely fail to witness a better way

for the world. When we choose hate and sin over love and virtue, then we

have to wonder why we chose to stop preaching Christ. As Tommy Tighe

recently tweeted, “If Catholics have to be hated or looked upon with

contempt in today’s world, I pray it’s because we love our enemies and pray

for those who persecute us.”

Many Catholics seem to want to invert the golden rule. They want to be

treated the way they refuse to treat others, and indeed the way they refuse

to treat their own fellow Catholics. No less, Catholics as a corporate body

will for a long time bear the stigma of what evil men in the clergy did to the

most defenseless members of the church. If Catholics want to criticize

someone for how he or she is behaving in the public square, perhaps we

could start by modeling a different way of behaving. We should repent for

how we have harmed others and continue to harm others. And we should be

at least as forceful in defending the defenseless as we are in defending

ourselves.

RELATED STORIES

Is Anti-Catholicism The Last Acceptable Prejudice?

James Martin, S.J.

What 19th-century German anti-Catholicism can teach us about our own church

Grant Kaplan

If we take seriously the durability of anti-Catholicism in United States

history, we see that common arguments against its presence have great

significance for how we interpret and engage that prejudice. Anti-

Catholicism is real, but American Catholics can choose how to respond to it.

We could turn the temperature down on this debate if we acknowledge that

anti-Catholicism is a real, multifaceted phenomenon that needs to be

understood but does not always require sharp denunciation.

The First Amendment and the bar on religious tests for public office (the

“No Religious Test” clause of Article VI) of the U.S. Constitution need to be

honored and respected, of course. But beyond that, what should guide us? A

Bible verse suggests itself: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me

first” (Jn 15:18). But even though the world hated Christ, he died for it. We

should imitate Christ in that attitude, as in all things.

Bill McCormick, S.J.

Bill McCormick, S.J., is a contributing editor at America and a visiting assistant

professor at Saint Louis University in the departments of political science and

philosophy

• CLASSIFIEDS

• OBITUARIES

Amy Coney Barrett's religion is important

but irrelevant Sep 28, 2020

by Thomas Reese, Religion News Service

President Donald Trump walks with Judge Amy Coney Barrett to a news conference to announce Barrett

as his nominee to the Supreme Court, in the Rose Garden at the White House, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020, in

Washington. (AP/Alex Brandon)

Amy Coney Barrett's religion is important to her nomination to the

U.S. Supreme Court. It's also irrelevant.

A conservative Catholic, Barrett was nominated to the court by

President Donald Trump on Sept. 26 to fill the seat vacated on the

death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Some who oppose

Barrett's appointment argue that her beliefs will influence how she

decides cases before the court.

To argue that a person's religious beliefs are not or should not be

influential in how they approach judicial questions shows an

ignorance of history and politics.

Politics is the way in which we make decisions binding on the

members of our political community. It is all about "What should we

do?" — a moral question by its very nature. Any sentence with a

"should" in it is a moral statement. It is judgment about what is right

and what is wrong.

Should we increase the minimum wage? Should we withdraw from

Afghanistan? Should we have Medicare for all? These are not only

economic or military questions; they are also moral questions.

Not all moral issues are political issues, but all political issues are

moral issues.

A distinction should be made, however, between personal and social

morality. Personal morality affects only the individual (and perhaps

another consenting adult); social morality covers those actions that

impact others. Social morality is the domain of politics. Politics is the

way in which we impose social norms on the community.

Whom I sleep with may be a moral issue, but it is not a political issue.

Whom we execute as a society is both a moral and political issue.

For much of the history of the West, people have gotten their notions

of what is right and wrong from Christianity, as mediated by their

parents and culture. For the more sophisticated Catholic, Greek

philosophy also played a role, thanks to theologians such as Thomas

Aquinas, who believed that faith and reason could not be in conflict.

At its best, Catholicism fostered a culture of love of neighbor; at

worst, it subjected the laity to the whims of the clergy.

The Catholic synthesis of faith and reason was broken by the

Reformation, which made Scripture preeminent, and by the

Enlightenment, which rejected religious input.

While both did much to free people from clerical authority,

Protestantism developed its own brand of clericalism, and attempts to

develop a religion-free morality produced totalitarianism on both the

left and the right in 20th-century Europe.

Those who came to America from Europe brought with them this

history and identity. Most continued to base their morality on

Christianity, but many intellectuals were influenced by the

Enlightenment

Judge Amy Coney Barrett listens as President Donald Trump

announces Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court, in the Rose

Garden at the White House, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020, in Washington.

(AP/Alex Brandon)

American history is full of examples where religious beliefs

influenced how Americans approached political issues, beginning

with the Revolution and the Declaration of Independence ("all men

are created equal").

The founders of our nation, who were Christians and Deists,

recognized the importance of religion in people's lives but also

recognized how religious disputes had torn Europe apart. Most

believed that religion as a moral foundation is essential to the

operation of a democracy. As a result, they decided that individuals

should be free to choose their religion and declared that the

government should not favor one religion over another.

People motivated by religious beliefs were involved in every major

political movement in American history, including abolition, the Civil

War, Reconstruction, free silver, labor unions, Temperance, women's

suffrage, the New Deal, both world wars, civil rights and more. In

most of these movements, believers were on both sides of the

disputes. Many believers also made political decisions first and then

found religious or moral reasons to back them up.

People of different faiths, as well as people of no faith, joined

together to support or oppose specific policy goals without having to

share the same motivations. What mattered was agreement on policy

goals, not motivation. Politics is about getting people to agree even if

for different reasons. Moralists may care whether you do "the right

thing for the wrong reason," but politicians only care that you do what

they want.

This is why Barrett's religion is important but irrelevant. Her religion

may influence her views of the law, but the same is true of almost

every member of the court. Remember, Ginsburg had a quote from

Deuteronomy on her office wall: "Justice, justice shall you pursue."

What matters is how a nominee views the law, not why she views it

that way. What matters are her decisions, not her motivations.

Both Democrat and Republican senators know all they need to know

about what kind of Supreme Court justice Barrett will be by looking

at her decisions, her writings and her talks. She taught at Notre Dame

Law School for 15 years and has been on the U.S. Court of Appeals

for three years. They do not need to delve into her religion to decipher

how she thinks.

Senators know, for instance, what she thinks about Roe v. Wade, the

Affordable Care Act, gun control and many other issues. Whether she

belongs to a religious group like the People of Praise, which once

referred to women as "handmaids," is irrelevant.

It would be a serious mistake for Democrats to talk about Barrett's

religion because it will open them up to accusations of anti-

Catholicism from Republicans. If Democrats are serious about

appealing to Catholic swing voters, they will not antagonize them by

attacking Barrett's religion, which is important but irrelevant.

Don't you wish Trump had picked a

Methodist for the Supreme Court? Sep 28, 2020

by Michael Sean Winters

President Donald Trump arrives at the White House Rose Garden with federal Judge Amy

Coney Barrett Sept. 26 to nominate her to fill the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy.

(CNS/Reuters/Carlos Barria)

The president's nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court raises all sorts of issues, some of them complicated and difficult, some of them not. Let's examine them in order.

The decision to move forward with hearings and a vote, though undoubtedly within the constitutional prerogative of the president and Senate, reeks of hypocrisy so clearly, even I was taken aback.

Sen. Lindsey Graham gets the prize for the most egregious flip-flop: His 2016 statement regarding the decision not to move forward on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland was unequivocal. "I want you to use my words against me," he said. "If there's a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let's let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination." Now, he supports confirming Barrett and is presumably considering entering the gymnastics competition at next year's Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Second, the Republicans have the votes and there will be no stopping this nomination. Therefore, the Democrats should think long and hard about how they seek to obstruct it. They have a knack for shooting themselves in the foot, mistaking the mindset of their woke advisers and Twitter followers for the views of the American people.

If they attack Barrett's religious beliefs, they might as well hand President Donald Trump a second term. Having put the phrase religious liberty in scare quotes for years, Democrats have demonstrated a cluelessness about how to discuss religion in the public square that astounds. Sen. Kamala Harris' 2018 question to nominee Brian Buescher — "Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman's right to choose when you joined the organization?" — was as ignorant as it was offensive. Sen. Diane Feinstein's 2017 comment about Barrett — "The dogma lives loudly within you" — succeeded only in making Barrett a conservative icon.

Despite the decades long conceit that judges are impartial, and that it is wrong for them to speak during their confirmation hearings about a subject that might come before them on the bench, there is only one good reason to vote for or against a judicial nominee: You agree or disagree with their judicial philosophy.

The current Kabuki-theater approach to confirmations is an intellectual sham. You shouldn't have to prove that a nominee smoked pot in high school or failed to pay Social Security wages for a

nanny or, in this case, that she holds religious affiliations about which you have questions in order to vote against a nominee whose jurisprudence you think will harm the country.

Liberal legal scholar Noah Feldman argued last week that Barrett deserves to be on the court, that she is supremely qualified, even though he knows he will disagree with many, perhaps most, of her decisions. He argues, "Some might argue that you should want your probable intellectual opponent on the court to be the weakest possible, to help you win. But the Supreme Court is not and should not be a battlefield of winner-take-all political or ideological division."

I am not sure what planet he is living on, but after the court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013 and the right to organize in 2018, overturning long-standing precedents to reach its decision, Feldman's hope for a court free of ideological division is at least a decade out of date. Don't get me started on Bush v. Gore.

I also want to challenge the idea that Barrett is a person of impeccable character. Watching her stand beside, and shower praise upon, the president in the midst of his concerted effort to undermine confidence in our democracy, mindful of the hypocrisy the Republicans are demonstrating in moving forward with this nomination and the long-term damage it will do to the fabric of our democracy, I most certainly call her character into question. Like Sen. Mitch McConnell, she is overlooking everything that is egregious and anti-democratic about this president and this moment in order to snatch some power.

She could have asked not to be considered for the post. She didn't. I hope there is a big and ugly asterisk next to her name in every annal of the Supreme Court because of her collaboration with this power grab.

Barrett's religion is already playing a central role in the debate about her nomination. While I am sympathetic to some of the concerns

raised at Politico by theologian Massimo Faggioli about Barrett's involvement with the charismatic group People of Praise, Senate Democrats should be careful.

It is appropriate to invite former members who have made serious allegations about the group, just as it is also appropriate to hear from members of the group who think it is wonderful. That testimony will not affect how the Senate votes, and if Democrats appear hostile to traditional religious beliefs per se, they risk undoing the careful, deft work Joe Biden has done to cultivate religious voters.

If I were on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I would come at the issue of Barrett's beliefs from a different angle: I would question the legal doctrine of originalism. The Notre Dame Observer reported on a talk Barrett gave that sought to introduce some sophistication into the legal doctrine that has so animated conservative legal scholars for the past 40 years, distinguishing between "original intent," which she admitted was problematic, and "original public meaning," which she embraced.

"The text of the Constitution controls, so the meaning of the words at the time they were ratified is the same as their meaning today," she said. Is that true? Certainly, when the drafters of the Second Amendment referred to arms, they knew about muskets, not AK-47s. So, is "the meaning" the same?

How does this implicate Barrett's religious beliefs? They might also ask about the anti-Catholic bias of many of the founders and how that affects her understanding of originalism. For example, the first chief justice, John Jay, was a fierce anti-Catholic bigot.

Federal officers, including senators, take an oath with an anti-Catholic slur in the middle of it: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without

any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

The reference to "mental reservation or purpose of evasion" evidences Protestant fears of Catholic casuistry. This is perhaps no longer obvious to us as an example of anti-Catholicism, but it would have been obvious to those who crafted the phrasing in the 18th century, the very people Barrett claims to understand so well she is merely following the meaning of their words.

The problem with originalism in any form has always been that it solves a complicated legal problem by replacing it with a historical problem that is just as complicated, and permits its practitioners to claim a veneer of fidelity to the Constitution when, in fact, their theories allow them just as much opportunity as the court liberals to reach the decisions they want.

As well, much of the ugly divisiveness in our culture is rooted in the excessive role judges and lawyers play in our society. The litigiousness of Americans goes back to colonial times, but it has gotten worse as our political system's dysfunctions make the courts more consequential, and legal theories suitable for academic debate have reached beyond their ivory towers to alter the everyday lives of millions of Americans.

Here I discern an additional reason to vote against Barrett: The court needs to have some members with experience of other branches of government and fewer former law school professors. Not since Justice Sandra Day O'Connor left the court in 2006 has there been a justice with experience as a legislator.

It is not appropriate for senators to chastise Barrett for being a particular kind of Catholic. That would violate the constitutional prohibition against religious tests for office. But, as a Catholic, I can voice the fear that Barrett is a kind of conservative, cafeteria Catholic that continues to damage the church in this country, content to let it

become an upper-middle-class club for people with conservative sexual ethics.

Recently, Archbishop Charles Chaput said of Attorney General William Barr that "he's disliked by all the right people." It was a remark worthy of a pundit, but unworthy of an archbishop. I am not a bishop, arch or otherwise, so I am going to borrow the remark and reverse it: Barrett is admired by all the wrong people.

If a Supreme Court nominee finds herself championed by conservative Catholic legal scholars, why is it per se unacceptable to ask about those associations? It can't be mere coincidence that when confirmed, Barrett will be part of a six-member conservative majority on the court, all of whom were raised Catholic and five of whom are still Catholic. I thought these conservatives were supposed to be proud of their faith in the public square, that it was supposed to be consequential, and now, all of a sudden, voilà, it has no effect on the nominee's reasoning? Senators may find such questions inappropriate but the rest of us are surely free to pose them.

When news leaked that Amy Coney Barrett would get the nod, and people started to call, my first thought was, "Why couldn't he have picked a Methodist!" The fact that Barrett would join four other Catholics in the conservative majority of the court will alter the way our fellow Americans view the church in ways that are regrettable.

She may be able. She may have the nicest temperament in the world. I just wish our church did not produce so many conservative jurists committed to a legal theory that is hooey.

[Michael Sean Winters covers the nexus of religion and politics for NCR.]

The Faith of Amy Coney Barrett Her record, not religion, tells us all we need to know.

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/faith-amy-coney-barrett?utm_source=Main+Reader+List&utm_campaign=ac44c6cfc1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_03_16_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_407bf353a2-ac44c6cfc1-92527613 By Matthew Sitman September 29, 2020

THE WORLD'S PREMIER INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC DAILY

Cafeteria anti-Catholicism: Trump, the Vatican and China

By Massimo Faggioli

The US presidential campaign seems at times to have become an almost

intra-Catholic affair, especially after President Donald Trump nominated a

Catholic to be the next Justice on the Supreme Court.

If confirmed, Amy Coney Barrett would be the sixth of the nine justices who

are members of the Catholic Church. A seventh justice, Neil Gorsuch, was

baptized and raised Catholic.

Barrett's nomination shows that Trump's administration and campaign team

have a Catholic agenda.

It is aimed at capitalizing on the antipathy that sectors of the United States,

including among vocal and influential Catholics, have shown towards Pope

Francis since the beginning of this pontificate in 2013.

Trump's Catholic agenda is a domestic strategy with an international

dimension.

Read More

THE WORLD'S PREMIER INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC DAILY

THE DECLINE OF PROGRESSIVE CATHOLICISM IN AMERICA

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

The decline of progressive Catholicism reflects not only a

reorientation of the hierarchy during the John Paul II and Benedict

years, but also a transformation of the American Church's social

base.

A 2015 Pew Research Center report found that nearly 13 percent

of all Americans are former Catholics, people who were raised in the

faith but who now identify with other religious traditions, or no religion

at all.

The Church's losses have been especially pronounced among the

young—only half of millennials raised Catholic have remained in the

Church, Pew found, and only 57 percent of Gen Xers have stayed.

Those who continue to identify as Catholic are thus older and, on the

whole, more conservative. This is a great loss for the Church as a

whole, but it is a loss that has specifically decimated social and

progressive Catholicism's successor generation.

There is a kind push-pull effect at work among the Catholic faithful,

and in religious America generally.

Read More

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French Catholics want open talks with bishops in run-up to next Vatican Synod Catholic organization calls on French bishops to include lay people in preparations for the Synod on Synodality, set for 2022 in Rome Claire Lesegretain France

September 28, 2020

The Catholic Conference of the French-speaking Baptized (CCBF), a group

founded in 2009 to promote the voice of the laity within the Church, has called on

the bishops of France to open a dialogue with all Catholics as they prepare for the

next assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome.

How can we think of a Church of France that is entirely synodal yet only speaks

to the 1.8% of regular practitioners? That was the main issue at the CCBF's first

meeting of 2020, which took place on September 26 in a suburb of Paris.

Because of ongoing measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus, only about

60 people turned out for this first session, compared to 230 last year.

The Catholic Conference of the French-speaking Baptized (CCBF) asks the bishops' conference (CEF) to "engage in dialogue" with all Catholics in France. (Photo by THIERRY GACHON/PHOTOPQR/L'ALSACE/MAXPPP)

The second session will take place between now and the end of the year and will

discuss "the lockdown and liturgy" and "abuse in the Church, the damage of

clericalism".

Although the crowd at the first session was much smaller than hoped, dozens of

others followed on YouTube. Five different speakers held conferences that

explored ways to open up avenues for the future.

The German synodal path Among them were Julia Knop and Dorothea Sattler, two German theologians who

are involved in the current "synodal path" of the Church in Germany.

They explained to what extent this "path" could contribute to the universal

Church since "it allows the exercise of a form of synodality not yet provided for in

canon law".

Knop noted that the Church in Germany has significant resources at its disposal

(the rate of practice remains at 10%) with "lay people accustomed to democratic

participation and interdisciplinary dialogue."

But she admitted that such a synodal way seems difficult to envisage in France

because of secularization and the absence of an official, united body of the laity

(such as the Central Committee of German Catholics or ZdK).

Jean-Louis Schlegel, a well-known Catholic publisher in France, said a further

difficulty is due to the disappearance of so-called "open-minded Catholics" in

favor of "identity Catholics".

He contended that the former "have gradually distanced themselves from the

liturgy (...) while the priests -- and then the bishops -- were mainly recruited"

from among the latter.

He said the older bishops were "unquestionably more open than the younger

ones" and would be in favor of structural reforms. But he lamented that "they

have little say" today within the bishops' conference (CEF).

"Delivering believers from an infantile relationship with authority" Robert Scholtus, a theologian who is a former superior of the Carmelite house of

studies in Parish, shared that view to some extent.

He insisted that theology in France should "come out of its self-segregation" and

contribute to "the advent of an intelligent and intelligible, living and visionary

Christianity that can deliver believers from a second-hand Christianity, from an

infantile relationship with authority".

This has led participants to question the possibility of a schism within the Church

of France.

Father Nicolas de Brémond d'Ars, a sociologist, pointed out that his was not a far-

fetched fear, based on the fact that conflicts cannot be resolved since Catholics

remain in "their (separate) cultural and political islands".

"What ruling bodies, what models of participatory democracy in the Church will

make it possible to express and resolve these conflicts?" he asked.

At the end of the day, the CCBF noted in a statement "the considerable increase of

those who share its approach and want the Church to renew itself".

It therefore urged the French bishops "to begin dialogue today" with all Catholics

in their country "to negotiate an agreement on the method and makeup of the

French delegation" that will participate in the preparatory work and travel to

Rome for the Synod on Synodality.

Forced nationalism: How Papuans wrestle with the church Church should speak out against right abuses and not promote 'false patriotism' espoused by Indonesia, critics say Ryan Dagur , Jakarta Indonesia

September 28, 2020

Papuans attend a protest to demand an independence referendum in Papua's Nabire district, on Sept. 24. (Photo supplied)

The slogan "100 percent Catholic and 100 percent Indonesian" was first coined

by Indonesian bishop and national hero Albertus Soegijapranata during the fight

against Dutch colonialism in the 1940s.

To Indonesian Catholics today, it emphasizes the spirit of nationalism. However,

Catholics look on it differently in Papua, an Indonesian region still marked by

conflict and where many harbor aspirations for their own independence.

A group of Catholics and activists in the country's easternmost region recently

called on Catholic Church leaders to stop using a slogan which they said

represented Indonesian nationalism and not their own.

"Chanting or reciting this slogan implies that people recognize themselves as

Indonesian 100 percent. The situation in Papua is different — we are 100

percent pro-Papuan independence," said one such activist, Korneles Siep.

He said the slogan has been increasingly uttered and quoted since 2018, along

with new trends to promote Indonesian nationalism in Papuan Catholic

churches.

They include covering church altars with the red and white Indonesian flag on

the country's Independence Day, at Christmas and at Easter, as well as allowing

police and military officials to give speeches in church before Masses end.

"This is something new. We feel the Church is leaning in favor of the Indonesian

government," Siep told UCA News.

He said this has made many Papuan Catholics stay away from the Church,

including himself.

"I had been very active in various church activities since 1993, including being an

organist and educator in my parish in Jayapura. However, I quit all this in 2018,"

the 49-year-old father of six said.

This perceived alignment of the Catholic Church's position has also become a

concern among indigenous Papuan priests, who have become more vocal in

recent months in condemning violence.

Father John Bunay, their spokesman, said the Church needs to be free of divisive

symbols.

"Let the Church be a neutral space for all parties. Take political views elsewhere.

Despite the volatile situation in Papua, the Church must be a place to maintain

communion between believers," he said.

If the Church is forced to display state symbols, he said, resentment among

Papuans will become even stronger.

According to Yuliana Langowuyo, director of the Franciscan Justice, Peace and

Integrity of Creation (JPIC) in Papua, this issue was raised in a letter to bishops in

Papua last November.

The letter called on the Catholic Church to be more careful in the way it

approached the upheaval in the region, given that many Catholics had pro-

independence sympathies.

"These sympathies will never die because it is based on the belief among

Papuans that the region was integrated into Indonesia by subterfuge," she said,

citing the Act of Free Choice in 1969.

This was an allegedly rigged election when 1,025 men and women selected by

the Indonesian military voted for the region to be taken over by Indonesia

Langowuyo said the letter asked Catholic leaders "to become good shepherds

and peacemakers who stand above all interests in responding to the political

situation."

Bishop Petrus Canisius Mandagi of Amboina, who is also apostolic administrator

of Merauke Archdiocese, says he doesn't know what all the fuss is about.

The slogan "100 percent Catholic and 100 percent Indonesian" conveys the truth

that Papua is still part of Indonesia, he told UCA News. "We shouldn't mess with

the truth. Tell the truth, which is that Papua is part of Indonesia."

As such, state symbols like the flag being placed in a church is also fine, he said.

"People who question it are those who seek their own political gain," he said.

Father Paulus Christian Siswantoko, executive secretary of the Bishops'

Commission for Laity, however, said the criticism from Papuan Catholics is

"borne from their life experiences, which since becoming part of Indonesia has

been decades of living in poverty and being victims of violence," so was

understandable.

"When they question such a slogan, that's fine. This is something that demands

reflection on how the state and church should present themselves to Papuans,"

he said.

He also said the Church needs to use words and symbols that can be accepted by

all.

Siep wants the Church to remain faithful to its commitment to humanitarianism.

"We need a church that affirms a prophetic voice, which goes beyond politics," he

said. "They don't need to touch on the issue of independence. We just want the

Catholic Church to recognize our suffering and fight against rights abuses."

According to Father Siswantoko, the Church must to be more grounded in its

pastoral care and respond to the needs of Papuans, including having the courage

to speak up for, defend and glorify life.

"Of course, that requires serious commitment from the Church, so that His

presence can greet everyone," he said.

Join us for a series of conversations with lay leaders on

how U.S. Catholicism is being transformed by new forms

of leadership, learning, and institutional life.

Mondays in October

3 PM ET / 12 PM PT

* Only a one-time registration required for access to all

four virtual events.

Free + open to the public.

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MONDAY, OCTOBER 5th

Prophetic Inclusion: Women in Church Leadership

In this conversation, join us in exploring the transformative power of women's

leadership, speaking prophetically from the margins and challenging the status

quo, at times in spite of institutional barriers.

Moderator:

Carolyn Woo, Distinguished President’s Fellow for Global Development, Purdue

University

Participants:

Lydia Doyle, Student at Trinity College, Dublin. Former Director of Planning &

Operations, Diocese of Charleston

Marta Rodríguez, Director of the Institute of Superior Studies on Women at the

Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum

Julie Sullivan, President, University of St. Thomas

MONDAY, OCTOBER 12th

Modern and Just Catholic Education & Formation

In this conversation, join us in examining how educators and parents are being challenged to

reimagine creative and just methods of learning that can meet the current and future needs of

Catholic education and formation.

Moderator:

Michael Peppard, Professor of Theology, Fordham University

Participants:

Mollie Wilson O'Reilly, Editor at Large, Commonweal

Cecilia González-Andrieu, Professor of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University

Elsie Miranda, Director of Accreditation, The Association of Theological Schools

Hosffman Ospino, Chair of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry, Boston College

MONDAY, OCTOBER 19th

A Reckoning of Catholic Institutions

In this conversation, join us in imagining how Catholic institutions, large and small,

must be transformed in the ways they are governed and led, and what ideas,

practices, and leaders need to emerge to support those changes.

Moderator:

Jeri Eckhart Queenan, The Bridgespan Group

Participants:

Massimo Faggioli, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, Villanova

University and Contributing Writer for Commonweal

Rosanne Haggerty, President, Community Solutions

Myriam Wijlens, Professor of Canon Law, University of Erfurt (Germany)

Michael Okińczyc-Cruz, Executive Director, Coalition for Spiritual and Public

Leadership

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26th

The Future of Community & Sacramental Life

In this conversation, join us in exploring what our spiritual and community life looks like now

that it's less centered on a building, and how the pandemic, even after it recedes, will change the

future of worship.

Moderator:

Claudia Avila Cosnahan, Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles

Participants:

Neomi De Anda, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Dayton

Brett Hoover, Associate Professor of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College

Darius Villalobos, National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry

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