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You are here: Home / Politics / Religion / Religious Nuts 2 / Ostracizing Themselves

Ostracizing Themselves

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I fully support this:

For three years now, Compañeros, a small nonprofit organization in rural southwestern Colorado, has received thousands of dollars from the Roman Catholic Church to help poor Hispanic immigrants with basic needs including access to health care and guidance on local laws.

But in February, the group was informed by a representative from the Diocese of Pueblo that its financing from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, an arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops devoted to ending poverty, was in danger.

The problem, the diocesan liaison explained, was Compañeros’s membership in an immigrant rights coalition that had joined forces with a statewide gay and lesbian advocacy group, recounted Nicole Mosher, Compañeros’s executive director.

The Catholic Campaign, which doles out $8 million annually to about 250 groups nationwide, has been under increasing pressure from conservative Catholic groups to ensure that it is not unwittingly aiding organizations that run afoul of church positions on issues like birth control and marriage. While the amount lost is often relatively small, it can account for a significant chunk of a group’s budget. And it is not happening in a vacuum, coming at a time when other nonprofit organizations, like Planned Parenthood, also find themselves under fire from social conservatives trying to choke off their financing.

The fanatics are dead set on proving to everyone who and what they are. In the past, people would make excuses because of all “the good the Church does,” but now, with the lunatics firmly in control, they are making sure they alienate everyone who doesn’t live up to their 14th century standards. It’s great, from my perspective, because anything that alienates these fanatics and thier silly dogma is great news, imho, and even better, I don’t even have to do anything. They are doing it themselves.

So keep on with the purification, wingnut religionists.

I’ll make some phone calls tomorrow to find out how we can donate to Compañeros.

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  4. 4.

    Calming Influence

    I’ll make some phone calls tomorrow to find out how we can donate to Compañeros.

    Plowshares into money bombs. I’m in.

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    The conservative Catholics really are brainstorming for new and impressive ways to be assholes, aren’t they? I’m pretty sure we’re only a few months away from “you once talked to a gay person, therefore you are Unclean.”.

  6. 6.

    El Cid

    “Liberation theology” — i.e., Catholic leaders who actually gave a shit about not just the condition “of” but the self-directed will of the poor — was targeted for elimination by both a reactionary Catholic hierarchy and its allies in the Reagan administration / Cold War consensus, in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s by the bloodiest means possible.

    We shouldn’t be surprised that a hierarchy devoted to the subtle and occasionally overt encouragement of the slaughtering of priests and nuns among the Brown People World gets motivated to use their tactical advantage to attack anyone in the church’s structure who seems vulnerable in their 21st century non-revanchist outlook.

  8. 8.

    RSA

    I see that Catholic leaders have lost their moral compass: Let he who has never covered up sexual molestation of children cast the first stone.

  9. 9.

    fasteddie9318

    But the laity is the real Church, stop slandering all Catholics, don’t condemn the whole Church for the actions of a few, blah blah. No True Scotsman, etc.

  10. 10.

    Schlemizel

    And this is example 63,931 why private charity will never be an adequate replacement for government assistance.

    If my church had a thing against root canal because it violated our cosmic muffins rules then we would refuse to help a starving child if it might in anyway be even marginally make it possible for someone somewhere to get a root canal. Its just sad

  12. 12.

    fasteddie9318

    @El Cid: Well, shit, you can’t have clergy going around telling the poor that it’s OK to demand a better lot in this world! They’re supposed to quietly accept their misery because it’ll all be cool in the next world, or the one after that, or whatever. Besides, it starts with the poor browns thinking they should have rights and dignity, and the next thing you know the kids are demanding not to be buggered anymore, and you’ve got total chaos.

  13. 13.

    Schlemizel

    “That which you do for the least of these, my children . . . WTF!? they share resources with queers? Ah frack ’em!”
    – GOP JAY-zuz

  15. 15.

    Joseph Nobles

    From the article:

    In Colorado, Compañeros is still waiting on the potential fallout. Last fall, the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, whose affiliation with Compañeros prompted the controversy, began a partnership with One Colorado. It was One Colorado’s support for civil unions that was at issue, Mr. McCloud said.

    They are definitely demonstrating to all concerned why the separation of church and state is one of the best ideas the founders of this country had.

  16. 16.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Makes me sad. Angry, but mostly sad. Why do right-wing nutjobs have to shit all over everything?

  17. 17.

    cathyx

    Yes, Catholic Church, keep doing things like this and see how much more difficult than it already is to recruit potential priests. Keep it up and you won’t have anyone to lead your churches.

  18. 18.

    PhoenixRising

    @Joseph Nobles: The CIRC is the sponsoring org that holds the funds for Comapneros and a number of other programs serving SW CO immigrants.

    They’re presumably the source of the other half of the funding that Catholic Charities is taking away $30K of. My sister’s church does partnership work with CIRC, in the form of getting the Boulder hippies to pitch in money and door knocking for specific issue campaigns. I can vouch for that group.

    They are the ones who allied with the One Colorado campaign, which is the rub–they’re also hardworking volunteers, trying to make CO more inclusive for LGBT couples and our kids. IOW, anti-Catholic bigots and haters, as demonstrated by the outreach to immigrant rights groups and coalition with CIRC around some married same sex couples with mixed citizenship status.

    We do this work because we want the bishops to cry bitter tears, and for no other reason, obviously.

  21. 21.

    Uncle Glenny

    These guys see cooties everywhere.

    If DOMA gets overturned and the IRS adapts, they’ll get bent out of shape mingling their tax dollars…… Oh, wait…

  23. 23.

    Steve in DC

    Donations do not good people make. Take Goldman Sachs, who are now the corporate face of the Human Rights Campaign. It makes the HRC into a bunch of fuck heads that they’d associate with assholes like that.

    Ditto with every organization that accepts church money. They are giving a good face to the church. I currently work in global health and church money is all fucking over the place. It’s complicated as all hell though. We mostly deal with maternal and infant mortality, and the church LOVES to deal in that area. HIV/AIDS though… gay people! The problem is that most HIV/AIDS in the regions we work in (Asia and Africa) is now among heterosexuals. But they always love to stipulate “we’ll give you the money, just no dealing with those gays”. I’ll note we don’t take that money.

    To be fair though not all religious organizations are that full of shit, but the vast majority of them are. We don’t take the cash, and the people who do are enabling this. We should be more aggressive against non profits that flagrantly enable this sort of shit.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    The number of people who say there has been too much religious talk by political leaders stands at an all-time high since the Pew Research Center began asking the question more than a decade ago. And most Americans continue to say that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of politics. Source

  26. 26.

    Steve in DC

    @Spaghetti Lee

    Catholics aren’t right wingers at all. Most Catholics are liberals. What you have to realize is that the “left” as it exists in America isn’t a true left and is fucked up. The faction that runs it is very socially liberal and full of “fuck the poor, anybody without a masters degree is a worthless pile of shit” types just like the right. The economically populist portion of it, is pretty damn ass backwards on social issues.

    It’s the problem of having a big tent.

  29. 29.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Steve in DC:

    No, I agree that not all Catholics are like this, I know a lot who aren’t. I’m just wondering how the right-wing fucks got in charge.

  33. 33.

    Mark S.

    @Heliopause:

    A year later in 1995, the Vatican’s doctrinal department, which the current pope then headed when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, ruled that the teaching on an exclusively male priesthood had been “set forth infallibly,” meaning it could not be changed.

    I didn’t know that particular nonsense was considered infallible.

    The Catholic Church teaches that it has no authority to allow women to become priests because Jesus Christ willingly chose only men as his apostles when he instituted the priesthood at the Last Supper.

    He also chose Judas, which probably wasn’t his best decision ever.

  34. 34.

    scav

    Matthew 12:9-14
    New Ratzinger-RedBeanie Version (NRRBV)

    (9) Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, (10) and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

    (11) He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? (12) How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

    (13) Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out. (14) He said unto him “Hold on, have you at any time spoken well or assisted any gay issue or spoken well of them? Has any money that ever touched your hand either upstream or downstream of the touch ever been spent to assist a gay or a woman that has not submitted in all things to our authority, whether she believes in us or no?” (15) “I cannot say,” said the man, “But it may very well be so.” (16) “Well then piss off, cripple.” said Jesus and strode out of the temple. (17) And the Pharisees were much reassured and ceased to plot how they might kill Jesus.

  36. 36.

    Gex

    The good they do is 2/3 taxpayer funded. I’d rather have a social safety net funded by that hat doesn’t proselytize of hate on gays for sport.

    Members get privatized benefits of the RCC. The costs are externalized, abused kids, gays, and women bearing the brunt of it.

  37. 37.

    shortstop

    @cathyx: They will still have priests, but even fewer of them, and the ones they’ll get will be the most twisted, emotionally dysfunctional, exploitative, self-justifying, knee-jerk authoritarian societal misfits imaginable.

  39. 39.

    Gex

    @cathyx: Worse. They loudly demonstrate they will go to the mat for pedos. Guess where pedos might want to work? Some place they’ll be 99% sure they’ll never be caught by secular authorities.

  43. 43.

    Petorado

    So the essence of the Church is now boiled down to being “whatever hates on teh Gay, updated daily.”

    And all this time I thought they were about “love thy neighbour as thyself.” Well, fool me twice — won’t get fooled again.

  44. 44.

    nellcote

    So I guess they’re gonna loose their shit when the dems add a marriage equality plank to the convention platform.

  45. 45.

    mainmati

    @cathyx: It already is changing. Since at least the 1980s, extreme Protestant fundamentalists have been down in Central America converting Guatemalans, Hondurans and others. Eventually, at least some of them will end up here, adding to the Talibanization of America.

  48. 48.

    mainmati

    @Spaghetti Lee: Well, as someone who grew up Catholic (but who is lapsed) and who also works in developing countries, I’m sure you know there is a huge divide between the lower clergy: priests, brothers and nuns and the upper clergy: bishops, cardinals and Il Papa. The latter are, for the most part, reactionary (Cardinal Sin (my favorite name) and Archbishop Romero being rare exceptions). John Paul II, the Polish anti-Communist shut down liberation theology and other activist Church doctrine to help the poor and then really solidified the modern Church’s political conservatism. There are a lot of good Catholic clerical and lay activists still working with the poor and the politically marginalized but they get no recognition from the hierarchy.

  49. 49.

    Citizen_X

    @Steve in DC:

    the “left” as it exists in America … is very socially liberal and full of “fuck the poor, anybody without a masters degree is a worthless pile of shit”

    I will see you in court for the case of “How the hell did we end up here?” whiplash that that gave me.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @mainmati:

    There are a lot of good Catholic clerical and lay activists still working with the poor and the politically marginalized but they get no recognition from the hierarchy.

    Yep — Father Greg Boyle is never going to be a monsignor or a bishop.

  51. 51.

    Citizen Alan

    @Mark S.:

    What horseshit! Slacktivist talked about this just a few months ago. In the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul specifically identified the woman Junia as someone who had been an apostle before he was, and the fucking Catholic Church changed her name and has been falsely identifying her as a man named Junius for the last 1100 years rather than admit that there were woman leaders in the Early Church!

  53. 53.

    Mnemosyne

    @Citizen Alan:

    IIRC, they’ve found paintings of early church “patriarchs” that were painted over with beards and masculine clothing to conceal the fact that they were originally paintings of women.

  54. 54.

    Chris

    @mainmati:

    Based on my recollections from Cuba, you’re correct. The priests, nuns and other local Catholic organizations were good people, many of whom seemed to genuinely care about their congregations and agitated for change on their behalf. The nuncio and his bosses back at the Vatican, OTOH, truly couldn’t care less and are guided mainly by “don’t upset Castro.”

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    this reminds me, a small Catholic college in MA invited Victoria Kennedy (Ted’s widow) to speak at their commencement, and then disinvited her under pressure from the Archbishop of Boston

  57. 57.

    Little Boots

    the church needs to do itself a huge favor and stfu about gayness for about 20 years. then, come back and pretend it never said anything at all.

    this is how a 2000 year old institution gets by. it’s worked over and over and over again.

    it’s actually pretty simple.

  62. 62.

    AA+ Bonds

    because anything that alienates these fanatics and thier silly dogma is great news, imho

    I’m not sure they all agree with you here in America, gringo

  66. 66.

    Rogers

    Splendid! Is there an actively revanchist faction of the beanie brigade I can donate to? Since the Dead Enders seem hellbent to “Burn Down the Mission” I’d be eager to chip in some gas money. Always keen on “giving back”.

  67. 67.

    Jesse

    @scav: That’s just fantastic. “Strode” made me think of “rode”, and this variation of your text:

    (16) “Well then piss off, cripple.” said Jesus and rode out of the temple on his brontosaurus.

  68. 68.

    Robert

    Is it really that big a surprise that, now that the pope is the man whose job it was to strictly adhere to the letter–not the intent–of every Catholic rule, the Church is going uber conservative right now? That’s what he was trained to do. When he drops dead in a couple years, they’ll elect another pope who has the chance to update those infallible policies. “Infallible” in the pope’s speech means, in context, this pope doesn’t care to rewrite that rule. It was infallible at one point that Catholic parishioners would not be allowed to own and read their own copy of the Bible because Jesus held all the teachings himself.

    I’m Catholic. I do not agree with where the church is going right now. Neither do my two local priests, who add commentary to all the ridiculous new translations and stringent rules during services and lead us in prayer for a better direction for the goals of the church. For example, one of the priests turns off his microphone during funeral services so that he can add in a prayer based on personal interaction with the deceased for the grieving family (walking right up to them, shaking their hands, giving them hugs, etc.), even though newly released church documents basically say “stick to the script, it’s not your place to comfort the families.” We actually do a lot of good for the local community, such as running the largest food kitchen in the area. Our nuns run nursing homes and our parishioners are working hard to put together youth groups.

    The only way I can explain how the relationship between parishioners and the pope works is this. The US has a president. He is elected through an electoral college system that doesn’t account for everyone’s votes or desires. Yet, as leader of the United States, we–as US citizens–are expected to respect him. We can disagree with his policies. We can campaign for change. We can follow our own beliefs so long as we’re not doing harm to other people. Now substitute president for pope, electoral college for cardinals, and US citizens for Catholics. Unless you really think that every US citizen is terrible because [insert terrible policy, like unjust wars here], you’re applying bias reasoning to how people should or should not support any large hierarchic organization they belong to.

    Do you really think that there is no room to question or discuss what the president says? That “well, it’s law now so it will never change” is the truth? Change takes time and our nazi pope is out of the position that made it so more liberal popes like John Paul II couldn’t reform social issues as much as they would like. He is, after all, the pope who added “infallible” rules about animal rights and environmental protection to a church that for centuries essentially said “do what you want, God gave it to you to destroy.”

  69. 69.

    floridafrog

    @rageahol
    Here’s what the Unitarians are up to on these topics:
    1) LGBT, women and people of color at all levels of leadership
    2) allied with immigrants’ rights groups – working hard to repeal laws like SB1070 in AZ
    3) speak out for full reproductive freedom – some congregations have a mission to escort and protect women seeking abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics
    4) lobby for and advocate in many ways for marriage equality

  70. 70.

    Rafer Janders

    @Mark S.:

    T

    he Catholic Church teaches that it has no authority to allow women to become priests because Jesus Christ willingly chose only men as his apostles when he instituted the priesthood at the Last Supper.

    To be more acccurate, he willingly chose only Jewish men. So if we were to keep to his wishes, that’s the pool of potential recruits to the Catholic priesthood we’d have to fish in….

  72. 72.

    Karmicjay

    Read this article with increasing dismay. Look forward to your post about how we can help.
    Long time lurker here btw.

  73. 73.

    elftx

    I now refer to them as the catholic Pedo ring..since I am almost convinced this so called church has been this way from the start.

  74. 74.

    someofparts

    Interesting, don’t you think, that religious extremism surged just when feminists started to make real gains for women.

    The feminists said the church had a history of stomping on women, but I didn’t believe them. Then the fanatics proved them right.

    Mary Daly was right, and got sacked for the presumption.

    So now thirty years later we get around to noticing that the the churches are pretty, oh … satanic. Ya think?

    Who would imagine that the heirs to holocaust measures against pagan female clergy, aka the Inquisition, would turn out to be bad faith actors?

    Kind of like imagining that the heirs to slave owners would promote economic policies that turn 99% of us into virtual sharecroppers. Only unreasonable people would suppose such a thing!

  75. 75.

    Jay C

    @shortstop:

    …and the ones they’ll get will be the most twisted, emotionally dysfunctional, exploitative, self-justifying, knee-jerk authoritarian societal misfits imaginable.

    “Will” get?

    Seriously. what does the RCC think they are going to get out of ramping up this sort of crap – what? Cutting off funding for any organization or charity that dares associate in any wise with Teh Evil Icky Gheys? Have they never even considered the notion that – in the US, anyway – restricting their support for otherwise worthy causes via ideological or theological prejudices is going to be more likely to alienate them from what passes for a “mainstream” in this country? And probably not harm their supposed “targets” all that much?

  76. 76.

    DavidTC

    I have to agree with the Catholic church: Only people of the gender selected to positions in the early church should be allowed to hold that position now.

    I now await them removing all _male_ deacons, as the only individual listed in the entire Bible as a ‘diakonos’ in a church is, in fact, a ‘Phoebe’, a name which was the same gender then as it is now. This of course proves that men are not eligible for that position.

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