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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Sunday Evening Open Thread: The Bishops Blink

Sunday Evening Open Thread: The Bishops Blink

by Anne Laurie|  June 27, 20216:46 pm| 141 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Open Threads, Religion

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After controversy, U.S. Catholic bishops say there will be “no national policy on withholding Communion from politicians” https://t.co/pe5nWaiUvV

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 25, 2021

I was raised ‘in the Church’, although I walked out of mine after parochial high-school graduation and never looked back. But anyone who’s read any European history knows that, going back as far as we have records, there has been tension between the upper ranks of The Hierarchy and the mere priests (not to mention parishioners) at the bottom of the pyramid…

Days after a vote that triggered a tsunami of Catholic debate about Communion and politics, leading U.S. Catholic bishops working on an upcoming document about the sacrament are now de-emphasizing direct confrontation with President Biden or other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights…

During the three-day meeting of the U.S. bishops and in its aftermath, the bishops made conflicting statements about the document’s intention.

The idea for the document came from a committee the USCCB created after the November election in order to deal with the “problem” of Biden and his abortion policy, and what some bishops see as a confusing scandal for other Catholics watching the country’s most prominent member of their faith.

During the meeting many bishops said Biden was exacerbating what many faith leaders see as an already big problem: Most U.S. Catholics, polls show, don’t attend Mass weekly and don’t believe in the supernatural aspect of Communion. But many other bishops pushed back to say there shouldn’t be a special emphasis on abortion and politicians, and such a document would politicize the sacrament…

Bishop Shawn McKnight, of Jefferson City, Mo., who had argued during the USCCB meeting against going ahead with the document, Friday said the Q&A was a good sign. The “needle shifted a little bit,” he said, away from a document aimed at a national policy and restrictions.

He also noted that Rhoades said there will be regional meetings of bishops this year in order to get more feedback…

Shorthand, as I cynically see it: Right now, there is a noisy activist minority of “traditional” Catholics (tradcaths) who would very much like to return to a pre-Vatican-Council-II era, when bishops could simply order priests to order their parishioners to stay in line. Most of these tradcaths are old enough to remember and regret the “loss” of the simple pieties and required memorization of the Baltimore Catechism, which was quietly dropped in my Bronx parochial school in 1965. But there’s also plenty of younger activists, quite a few of them converts (and some of them prominent media pundits), who want a Church with rigor — one where Good People get to boss around the Weak People who don’t have standards, such as making a public show of their piety before the world and its heathens.

While heterosexual marriages ‘blessed’ with plenty of children are the gold standard of this philosophy (no premarital sex, no ‘confusing’ sexualities, no birth control), for day-to-day purposes, attendance at weekly Mass and taking communion serve as a marker. Obviously, it annoys them most bitterly that President Biden actually does show up just about every week, despite his busy schedule, not to mention football Sundays, out-of-parish vacations, etc. He’s a prominent rebuke to their argument that public performance is the one and only guarantee of spiritual worth. Unlike so many modern American Catholics, he’s there in the pew and the Eucharist line, and yet still all too open to sinful non-Churchly social changes!

In their dreams, the tradcaths (backed by a real Pope, a hardcore dude like Benedict who didn’t mind telling off the liberals and kicking out nonconformists) would take over the global Mother Church and institute a glorious age of fewer, but purer, Catholics. Were this ever to happen (odds are against it, IMO), a great many professing American Catholics would very soon withdraw themselves, and their tithing, mostly to easily available community alternatives (the Episcopalians and Universal Unitarians, for instance)… but some parishes would, following preexisting history, simply declare their independence. Losing the funding would be bad enough — last I looked, the American Catholic Church was providing an outsized portion of global Church support — but another Great Schism would reduce the Mother Church to a shell of its current status. Which Pope Francis, not being an idiot, has no intention of permitting. But such a ‘purification’ would be just fine with the tradcaths, who are sure that this shell would give the Ross Douthats and Liz Bruenigs and every little local parish pest more power and status, as God intended. (If this reminds anyone of the current ‘purification’ battle within the Republican Party, well, yeah.)

Pope Francis and his defenders still have enough control, at the moment, to yank the professional priestly tradcaths back into line. But while they may have lost this particular battle (maybe), the skirmishes will continue.

ETA:

67% of U.S. Catholics said yes Biden should receive communion; 29% said no.

“This put the majority of bishops not only on the extreme end of Catholic opinion generally but also at the far end of Catholic opinion *even within the GOP*.”

⁦@EJDionne⁩: https://t.co/4KU7FLC0oH

— Eric Wolfson (@EricWolfson) June 27, 2021

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Reader Interactions

141Comments

  1. 1.

    A Ghost to Most

    June 27, 2021 at 6:51 pm

    Let’s hope the christian supremacists have a reckoning.

  2. 2.

    joel hanes

    June 27, 2021 at 6:52 pm

    “No national policy” means that the reactionary bishops can still be locally reactionary.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    June 27, 2021 at 6:53 pm

    last I looked, the American Catholic Church was providing an outsized portion of global Church support

    Isn’t that like the Olympics? Thought I read NBC money keeps them afloat.

  4. 4.

    HypersphericalCow

    June 27, 2021 at 6:53 pm

    I am so glad I left the Church a few decades ago.

  5. 5.

    Ruckus

    June 27, 2021 at 6:59 pm

    The church was all powerful for a very long time and in a historical timeframe the change is only moments long. And the Catholic church has had power in a lot of places, because of it’s structure and age. Few power centers give that up without time and real motivation. For a lot of the power structure I’d bet that losing that power is far worse for them than losing the level of attendance and followers. I’m saying that reality isn’t in huge supply in a lot of areas of the Catholic church and their dominance will not end easily or rapidly. It also helps if you listen to what President Biden actually says about the issue, rather than what it sounds like to some ears. He recognizes that he is the president of all US citizens, not just the Catholic ones. And he is acting like it.

  6. 6.

    Mike in NC

    June 27, 2021 at 7:00 pm

    My parents were devout, just like Joe Biden. I resented that the Church became another cheering section for the Republican Party due to its medieval policies on abortion and birth control.

  7. 7.

    guachi

    June 27, 2021 at 7:01 pm

    American Christians are on the brink of essentially being exempt from many laws at a time when their religion is collapsing in America. Actions like this (even if unsuccessful) by conservative American Catholics are exactly the thing that are leading to American Christianity’s collapse.

    Oh, well.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    June 27, 2021 at 7:01 pm

    Anywho, I’m glad Biden isn’t going to be placed in an awkward position or be denied something that’s important to him.

  9. 9.

    Ruckus

    June 27, 2021 at 7:02 pm

    @HypersphericalCow:

    I’m glad that my close exposure was only one year, 60 yrs ago, at a Catholic technical HS. That was far more than enough.

  10. 10.

    Anne Laurie

    June 27, 2021 at 7:02 pm

    @joel hanes: “No national policy” means that the reactionary bishops can still be locally reactionary.

    … And that local priests, who have enough on their hands already, can quietly go on pretending that their parishioners have never contravened official Church policy, at least not publicly enough to be denied the Eucharist.   The biggest parish supporters may have ‘unnaturally’ few offspring / a history of secular serial monogamy / other-than-heterosexual lifestyles, but don’t ask, don’t tell has a long and (dis)honorable social history.

    It takes a blunt weapon out of the tradcath’s hands — for the moment.  Think of it as the parochial equivalent of blocking anti-voting legislation in the secular sphere.  The Worst Party will still find ways to keep the ‘wrong’ people away, but it’s important those ways not be (further) codified by the sanction of law.

  11. 11.

    Catherine D.

    June 27, 2021 at 7:02 pm

    I like “parish pest” – so true on so many levels.

    As a marched-out-screaming Catlick (age 10), I don’t trust Francis the Jesuit, but he’s probably better than Ratzi the Nazi and JP the deuce.

  12. 12.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    June 27, 2021 at 7:03 pm

    This nothing to do with abortion or religious views, it was completely political.

    When Mario Cuomo was in office his was constantly attacked for being pro-choice, even though he was personally against abortion AND capital punishment.

    But when pro-choice republicans got elected (Pataki and Giuliani) the very same voices who clubbed Cuomo went silent.

    They did the same thing in 2004, attacking pro-choice John Kerry, but saying nothing of pro-choice Catholic Governor Schwarzenegger.

    Their double standard has always been transparent, except to The Village.

  13. 13.

    hells littlest angel

    June 27, 2021 at 7:03 pm

    The bishops’ resolve crumbled, and the conference descended into chaos, when a couple of altar boys walked by.

  14. 14.

    Ruckus

    June 27, 2021 at 7:05 pm

    @guachi:

    They’ve been on this road for a long time and some of them recognized the view over the next hill. Most of them seemed not to be able to see past their own noses. I’ll leave my view of the current day Catholic church to the imagination of the rest of you……

  15. 15.

    zhena gogolia

    June 27, 2021 at 7:05 pm

    @Baud:

    My Christian Scientist friend and I agreed that we see Biden as a very God-centered person.

    What struck me was that when he was asked a while back about the possibility that he would be denied communion, he said very confidently, “It isn’t going to happen.” I wonder how he knew.

  16. 16.

    Yutsano

    June 27, 2021 at 7:05 pm

    The thread is open and I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere else so…

    Mike Gravel has finally gone to the other side.

  17. 17.

    Ruckus

    June 27, 2021 at 7:07 pm

    @Catherine D.:

    He does seem to see and understand the view in the modern world, actually agreeing with it or not.

  18. 18.

    Geminid

    June 27, 2021 at 7:07 pm

    As practical matter, Joe Biden is more “pro-life” than these bishops.

  19. 19.

    Ruckus

    June 27, 2021 at 7:10 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    Likely the phone on his desk can connect directly with a lot of people that you and I never could. And it likely has for a very long time.

  20. 20.

    Brachiator

    June 27, 2021 at 7:10 pm

    Is the Catholic Church against the death penalty. Is the Catholic Church against poverty and the exploitation of the poor? Were they going to withhold communion from politicians “wrong” about these issues?

    I am not Catholic or religious at all and could not give a shit about Catholic doctrine or the attempts of adherents to establish rule of theocracy.

    It is ridiculous that these goons would use pretend sanctimony to try to bring pain to the Bidens.

    It’s a good thing if they have really retreated on this.

  21. 21.

    Baud

    June 27, 2021 at 7:10 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    Biden has a high EQ. He gets people on a personal level.

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    June 27, 2021 at 7:11 pm

    All these bishops need to be busted down to whatever the church equivalent of “private” in the army.

    I guess that would make them all parish priests.  Fuck these fucking political hacks masquerading as “holy” people.

  23. 23.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    June 27, 2021 at 7:13 pm

    @zhena gogolia: He has friends in high places

     

    WILMINGTON, Del. (CNS) — Pope Francis called President-elect Joe Biden early Nov. 12 to congratulate him on winning the U.S. presidential election.

    “The president-elect thanked His Holiness for extending blessings and congratulations and noted his appreciation for His Holiness’s leadership in promoting peace, reconciliation and the common bonds of humanity around the world.”

     

    Joe Biden fashions himself as a Pope Francis Catholic. He brags about his cozy relationship with Pope Francis. In 2016, the Vatican invited Joe Biden to a conference about medicine, a scandalous invite given that Biden supports making scientific use of aborted embryos. Biden gushed about the anti-capitalism of Pope Francis: “We need to create a culture which, as Pope Francis reminds us, cannot just be based on the worship of money. We cannot accept a nation in which billionaires compete as to size of their super-yachts.”

    (photo)

  24. 24.

    Baud

    June 27, 2021 at 7:13 pm

    @Geminid:

    As a practical and general matter, Dems are more pro-life than Republicans.

  25. 25.

    Matt

    June 27, 2021 at 7:14 pm

    I can’t even imagine the kind of moral Gordian knot that must be the minds of people who think, “I’m totally OK with covering up decades of child molestation, but giving communion to people I disagree with is OVER THE LINE!”

    After the residential school shit that’s surfaced recently, the only thing the North American bishops should be plotting and scheming about is “how do we keep our church open despite our deliberate participation in genocide”.

  26. 26.

    Ruckus

    June 27, 2021 at 7:14 pm

    @Brachiator:

    They are very, very well practiced at pretend sanctimony.

    Those at this level of the Catholic church have been doing it for centuries.

  27. 27.

    dexwood

    June 27, 2021 at 7:20 pm

    Fuck the bishops. It’s always the bishops. Fuck the Vatican, the pope, and all they control. 12 years of Catholic schools for me. Generally, a pretty good education, but I’ve been an atheist since I was 11. I still remember the moment.

  28. 28.

    Capri

    June 27, 2021 at 7:21 pm

    @Brachiator:  They have a (bullshit) answer for that line of criticism. They said abortion is different because it happens in the family or something equally lame.

  29. 29.

    debbie

    June 27, 2021 at 7:24 pm

    Good. I really didn’t think they’d back down.

  30. 30.

    Chetan Murthy

    June 27, 2021 at 7:26 pm

    @Catherine D.:

    JP the deuce.

    ISWYDT.

  31. 31.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    June 27, 2021 at 7:27 pm

    My 78 year old mom goes to the same Catholic church every Sunday.  She was pissed when I asked her how she felt about the church wanting to refuse communion to Biden.  And she never gets pissed.

  32. 32.

    debbie

    June 27, 2021 at 7:28 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    I heard him asked that question last week and he replied that it was a personal matter.

  33. 33.

    lollipopguild

    June 27, 2021 at 7:29 pm

    @Baud: The smarter Bishops understand that cutting Biden off from communion will only backfire on the Church.

  34. 34.

    Brachiator

    June 27, 2021 at 7:30 pm

    @Ruckus:

    Those at this level of the Catholic church have been doing it for centuries.

    They are practiced at the art of deception.

  35. 35.

    debbie

    June 27, 2021 at 7:31 pm

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:

    I hope the toes of Benedict’s little red slippers curl in rage.

  36. 36.

    Ruckus

    June 27, 2021 at 7:31 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Some of them are damned close to perfecting that art.

  37. 37.

    E.

    June 27, 2021 at 7:33 pm

    I hate the church about as much as anyone but can I just say that it is 108F outside and I live in a very old house without cooling. It’s freaking hot in here.

  38. 38.

    dexwood

    June 27, 2021 at 7:34 pm

    @Brachiator: Is that you, Mick?

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    June 27, 2021 at 7:35 pm

    @Baud: M.D. Russ makes this argument in his September 2020 article in Bearing Drift, titled “Joe Biden is the Pro Life Candidate.” Russ compares the lower abortion rates under Clinton and Obama to the higher rates under Reagan and Bushes 1 and 2. He then cites studies suggesting that overturning Roe v. Wade would result in a drop in abortion of as little as 4%. Then he refers to a study by William Johnston, a researcher at the Global Life Campaign, that found 25-40% of abortions are for economic reasons. Russ concludes:

         …addressing the economic concerns of parents could save two to ten times as many pre-born children as reversing Roe would.

    Which major party candidate is more likely to support these policies? Who is more likely to get these policies enacted? Who is more likely to leverage support at the state and local levels…

    Answer: Joe Biden.

  40. 40.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 7:35 pm

    Sixth hole of playoff’s at the Travelers!

  41. 41.

    Baud

    June 27, 2021 at 7:37 pm

    @E.: ouch.

  42. 42.

    Bex

    June 27, 2021 at 7:39 pm

    Said in the voice of the Church Lady from SNL:  Who does the bishops’ PR?  SATAN???

  43. 43.

    Catherine D.

    June 27, 2021 at 7:39 pm

    @debbie:

    I hope the toes of Benedict’s little red slippers curl in rage.

    Ooh, does he wear stripey socks?

  44. 44.

    Elizabelle

    June 27, 2021 at 7:42 pm

    @E.:   Poor thing.  I would be thinking “hotel” about now.  108.  Brutal.

    WRT the topic:  I think it’s the conservative bishops that are driving Catholics out of the pews.  Pope Francis is actually liked and respected, much more than the culture warrior types in dresses.

    Ratzinger.  All I can say is that my fellow lapsed Catholics and I just called him Ratzinger.  Horrible choice.

    I think it’s interesting that the Bidens can see past all the ugliness fomented by the conservatives, and hone in on the more inclusive and loving message of the Catholic faith.  It’s in there, obscured by centuries of Church dogma.  Just think about what Jesus had to say. And what he never said anything about.

    I hope Pope Francis was taking names and retires a lot of the right-wingers who tried to pull this stunt.  They are poison.

  45. 45.

    J R in WV

    June 27, 2021 at 7:44 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    he said very confidently, “It isn’t going to happen.” I wonder how he knew.

    Il Papa told him… duh!

  46. 46.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 7:45 pm

    7

  47. 47.

    geg6

    June 27, 2021 at 7:48 pm

    @joel hanes:

    The bishops have always been able to do that.

  48. 48.

    Elizabelle

    June 27, 2021 at 7:50 pm

    Deciding to make the Catholic Church all about abortion.  Ridiculous.  Does anyone remember how that became so prevalent?

    The Catholic Church should not have anything to say about sexuality.  Except love and respect each other.  They are so wrong on all of it, and covering up sexual abuse by priests as well.

    They should allow women to serve as priests.  They should allow priests to marry.  The current system is not working out for them.  It has actually perverted them, and separated them from their parishioners and the larger community, although not in the direction of the Creator they profess to serve.  Rather the other.

  49. 49.

    mac8

    June 27, 2021 at 7:53 pm

    @Brachiator: ​
     

    Is the Catholic Church against the death penalty. Is the Catholic Church against poverty and the exploitation of the poor? Were they going to withhold communion from politicians “wrong” about these issues?

    Yep. Pro-life means you value life at all stages, no exceptions or excuses. At least, that’s what the nuns at my high school taught me. I increasingly wonder if they were supposed to emphasize the broad definition of pro-life as much as they did or if they were really meant to indoctrinate us a bit more. Either way, I’m grateful, as once I started voting, that bit of teaching definitely sped up my realization of “republican policies/politicians are generally awful” and also of the fact that republicans are generally hypocrites.

    I am nominally still a Catholic, but every time the bishops pull a stunt like this, I am this much closer to saying screw it and leaving officially.

  50. 50.

    trollhattan

    June 27, 2021 at 7:53 pm

    As it’s a mere 90 degrees here in the Sacramento metroplex I checked in on the PNW: Seattle is 101 and Portand is an unreal 109. 114 is predicted for tomorrow. Fresh out of can’t-evens.

  51. 51.

    Elizabelle

    June 27, 2021 at 7:55 pm

    If the bishops are going to say this kind of outdated shit, maybe they should go back to speaking only in Latin.

    It won’t offend us as much.

  52. 52.

    HumboldtBlue

    June 27, 2021 at 7:55 pm

    Fuck’em all. The fucking sanctimonious fucks.​
     
    And they have suspended the US track and field trials until 830 PM PST due to excessive heat in Eugene, Ore.

  53. 53.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 7:56 pm

    @trollhattan: 8

  54. 54.

    ian

    June 27, 2021 at 7:56 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    The DC Bishop has said for many years he will give communion to Pelosi, Kerry, Biden, any catholic pro-choice politician.  So the pro-choice dems were not in danger in DC of being denied communion by this decision of the bishops.  Not sure if that is what your friend may have been referring too.

  55. 55.

    FelonyGovt

    June 27, 2021 at 7:57 pm

    I wonder if some of the US bishops are concerned about the possible loss of their tax exemption if they get too overtly political. They should be.
    As a non- practicing Jew observing from the sidelines, I’ve known many Catholics who are good, devout people but who don’t accept the Church’s teachings on divorce, contraception and other matters.

  56. 56.

    Doug R

    June 27, 2021 at 7:58 pm

    I thought this was made even worse by the timing of the announcement coming mere weeks after 215 unmarked graves and over 700 unmarked graves were found in former Catholic run residential schools. There’s been 4 churches burned down in the last week within a few hours’ drive of the Kamloops school, all on reserve land.

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    June 27, 2021 at 7:59 pm

    @dexwood:

    Well, these bishops are finding that they can’t always get what they want.

  58. 58.

    Louise B.

    June 27, 2021 at 8:02 pm

    @Elizabelle: Hotels in Portland are expensive this evening – I priced out a Holiday Inn Express at $196 a night.

  59. 59.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 8:04 pm

    8

  60. 60.

    zhena gogolia

    June 27, 2021 at 8:04 pm

    @ian:

    Oh, I meant Biden said that, not my friend.

  61. 61.

    RSA

    June 27, 2021 at 8:06 pm

    The Catholic hierarchy is much more conservative than everyday Catholics in the U.S., especially those raised in the faith who are now just cultural Catholics or C&E Catholics (Mass attendance on Christmas and Easter). For a different example, divorced-and-remarried Catholics who haven’t received an annulment are officially forbidden from taking communion. But surveys show that most Catholics in that category don’t follow the restriction and most Catholics in general think this shouldn’t be a problem.

  62. 62.

    dexwood

    June 27, 2021 at 8:11 pm

    @Brachiator:  Now that’s satisfaction.

  63. 63.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 8:12 pm

    Harris English in 8 extra holes for the win! Lot more fun than worrying about some fucking mackerel snappers!

  64. 64.

    Kelly

    June 27, 2021 at 8:14 pm

    107 in the shade here in the western Cascade foothills. Many all time heat records are breaking including the hottest temp ever in all of Canada 46.6 C as they measure it 116 F to US-ian.

    Our main heat is a heat pump which also gives us central air conditioning so we’re staying inside.

  65. 65.

    Another Scott

    June 27, 2021 at 8:14 pm

    @Elizabelle: Repost Jill LePore – Birthright (from 2011):

    Nixon was reëlected in November of 1972. Eight days after the Supreme Court issued its ruling on Roe, in January of 1973, a right-to-life amendment was introduced to Congress. “This poses real strategy problems,” a former president of Planned Parenthood said in an interview, “because to the degree that any of us fight to keep that out of the Constitution, it brands Planned Parenthood as pro-abortion.” Gerald Ford’s wife and his Vice-President, Nelson Rockefeller, supported abortion rights. In 1976, the year Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, Ann Richards ran for office for the first time, and Cecile Richards was a student at Brown. She got her birth control at Planned Parenthood in Providence.

    In the late nineteen-seventies, the Republican strategists Richard Viguerie and Paul Weyrich, both of whom were Catholic, recruited Jerry Falwell into a coalition designed to bring together economic and social conservatives around a “pro-family” agenda, one that targeted gay rights, sexual freedom, women’s liberation, the E.R.A., child care, and sex education. Weyrich said that abortion ought to be “the keystone of their organizing strategy, since this was the issue that could divide the Democratic Party.” Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979; Paul Brown, the founder of the American Life League, scoffed in 1982, “Jerry Falwell couldn’t spell ‘abortion’ five years ago.”

    It was always about dividing Democrats and gaining more power. It was never about “morality” or “family” any other of that hogwash they were spewing.

    HTH!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  66. 66.

    Ruckus

    June 27, 2021 at 8:14 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    What if you understand Latin?

    I’m more of the line they should just shut the fuck up. But then we do allow free speech. Which is sometimes worth what you pay for it.

  67. 67.

    brantl

    June 27, 2021 at 8:20 pm

    The Catholic church is doing its damndest to drive out anybody who thinks for themselves.

  68. 68.

    Kelly

    June 27, 2021 at 8:21 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: By 8:30 Eugene will be down to a refreshing 101~102.

  69. 69.

    Emma from Miami

    June 27, 2021 at 8:22 pm

    @Elizabelle: And the funniest part is that until 1869 the Catholic  belief was that the fetus became a human being at ensoulement, also know as the quickening (no jokes please)​, which was the first time the mother felt the fetus move, which was between 16 and 22 weeks of pregnancy.

  70. 70.

    ET

    June 27, 2021 at 8:24 pm

    Guess the thought of withholding the sacraments from those politicians that support the death penalty didn’t enter their discussion….

  71. 71.

    M31

    June 27, 2021 at 8:24 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    he said very confidently, “It isn’t going to happen.” I wonder how he knew.

    Biden’s not infallible, but he has the phone # of someone who is

  72. 72.

    Ruckus

    June 27, 2021 at 8:27 pm

    @brantl:

    That’s not a new policy, they were doing that 60 yrs ago when I was involved.

  73. 73.

    Kelly

    June 27, 2021 at 8:28 pm

    Swam in the Little N Santiam river at 10 am. Air temp was 76, water 72. Our water temp has rarely gotten up to 72 in June even that would be late afternoon. Also the water volume is 110 cu ft per second so there is still a little current. Usually when the water is this warm the volume under 50 cfs.

  74. 74.

    Eric S.

    June 27, 2021 at 8:29 pm

    @raven:  At first I thought you were moving while to whole (and maybe you were) then I realized it was in extended playoffs.

  75. 75.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 8:37 pm

    @Eric S.: It was fun!

  76. 76.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    June 27, 2021 at 8:41 pm

    I was raised Catholic. If I’m anything right now, I suppose I’d say I was a lapsed Unitarian. So mostly I figure if people want to subject themselves to the bishops, that’s their choice. The really nasty part of this is how political it is. This isn’t Biden’s pastor counseling him. This is the whole Republican-conservative Christian alliance shoring one another up.

  77. 77.

    Another Scott

    June 27, 2021 at 8:42 pm

    Breaking: @PentagonPresSec says “At President Biden's direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region” pic.twitter.com/jbn3uXgWr0

    — Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) June 27, 2021

    Might be part of the reason why Biden looked tired earlier in the week…

    The Orwellian “defensive precision airstrikes” is, well, Orwellian. But such is the world we live in.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  78. 78.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    June 27, 2021 at 8:42 pm

    @trollhattan: It’s going to be 114 in Portland Oregon tomorrow? That’s, like, insane. It’s not just like insane, it is insane.

  79. 79.

    James E Powell

    June 27, 2021 at 8:46 pm

    @RSA:

    The Catholic hierarchy is much more conservative than everyday Catholics in the U.S.

    See also the right-wing Catholics on the supreme court, especially the creepy cult member Barrett.

  80. 80.

    Kelly

    June 27, 2021 at 8:49 pm

    @What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: Our overnight low is forecast at 75. A low of 60 is a hot is a hot night in Oregon. I’ve lived here my entire 65 years. Crazy hot.

  81. 81.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 8:50 pm

    And the Hawks are on fire early!

  82. 82.

    Splitting Image

    June 27, 2021 at 8:50 pm

    @Yutsano:

    Mike Gravel has finally gone to the other side.

    Oh, you mean that other side. I thought you meant the other other side. He’s been there for awhile frankly.

    Well, rest in peace, Mike.

  83. 83.

    HumboldtBlue

    June 27, 2021 at 8:50 pm

    This is hands down the best Denzel Washington impersonation I have ever seen.

  84. 84.

    Uncle Cosmo

    June 27, 2021 at 8:52 pm

    “I was raised ‘in the Church’, although I walked out of mine after parochial high-school graduation and never looked back.” See ya & raze ya: I left the One Holy Catholic & Apostolic Church 6 weeks after my Goyishe Bar Mitzvah Confirmation when I informed my mother one Sunday morning, I’m not going to church because I don’t believe in a word of it. And like you, never looked back – what was there to look at but a bunch of old farts in skirts and a gaggle of Sisters Sadistica?

    “[L]ast I looked, the American Catholic Church was providing an outsized portion of global Church support… ” Bangalore! The USAn arm of OHC&AC LLC has historically skipped on all sorts of doctrinal apostasy due to this fact. As I strenuously insist to my never-Catholic friends, to understand the OHC&AC only requires three modest words: Follow. The. MONEY! There’s a reason that the Church didn’t start to admit (let alone address) the massive betrayal of priestly child abuse until the frackin’ lawsuits started to be filed. My Dad was spot-on when he said that all they cared about was what was in the collection envelope every Sunday.

    Good luck to Pope Frankie, who IMO is a decent guy who means well – he’s wrestling with a hierarchy shot full of kneejerk anti-Communists (courtesy of Wojtyla) and not-so-crypto-fascisti (courtesy of Ratso Ratzinger).​

  85. 85.

    Baud

    June 27, 2021 at 8:52 pm

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Heh.

  86. 86.

    Caphilldcne

    June 27, 2021 at 8:55 pm

    I knew I was an atheist and did not believe the catechism by age 12. I stopped going to church as soon as possible at 18. I appreciate that Catholicism gave me the concept of good works and of social justice although that needed a lot of refinement. I don’t appreciate the guilt. Nor my homophobic self-loathing that took until I was 29 to come out as gay. I have come to truly despise the bishops and the church. All in all the church could do the most good by dissolving itself and giving every bit of its money to the poor.

  87. 87.

    Mallard Filmore

    June 27, 2021 at 8:56 pm

    @E.:

     

    I hate the church about as much as anyone but can I just say that it is 108F outside and I live in a very old house without cooling. It’s freaking hot in here.

    I reccomend getting your shirt and pants (long if possible) very damp or wet, then sitting in front of a fan. Evaporation sucks away a LOT of heat.

  88. 88.

    Geminid

    June 27, 2021 at 8:59 pm

    @Another Scott: The Moral Majority is now defunct. But Christian Dominionists based Liberty University still have a discrete, informal network that influences central Virginia Republican politics. They ran a Texas trsnsplant for the 6th District congressional nomination in 2018, trying to succeed Bob Goodlatte. The effort failed, but several weeks later, the 5th District Congressman abruptly announced his retirement, and they ran her for that nomination. She lost the District Committee vote 19-18.

    The Liberty crowd got their revenge last year when the loathsome Bob Good went from Liberty U. administrator to 5th District nominee by beating the incumbent in a convention. Good won the general election by 5 points, and Democrats here will go all out to make him a one termer..

  89. 89.

    Starfish

    June 27, 2021 at 9:00 pm

    @Baud: I wanted a lot of Catholics to refuse communion in solidarity with Biden. The way the forced-birth that tradCaths want is contributing to poor maternal outcomes is very bad.

  90. 90.

    marklar

    June 27, 2021 at 9:02 pm

    Pope Skywalker is slowly bringing balance back to the Force (after Pope Sidious embraced the Dark Side).

  91. 91.

    Starfish

    June 27, 2021 at 9:03 pm

    @Brachiator:

    I am not Catholic or religious at all and could not give a shit about Catholic doctrine or the attempts of adherents to establish rule of theocracy.

    How many Catholics are on the Supreme Court right now?

  92. 92.

    Geminid

    June 27, 2021 at 9:08 pm

    @Geminid: The twice unsuccessful 2018 candidate was Cynthia Dunbar. Before she came to Virginia to work at Liberty, Dunbar had made a name among politica evangelicals as a Texas state school board member. It was obvious from her two 2018 races that Liberty had an organization backing her that they keep on the down-low.

  93. 93.

    NotMax

    June 27, 2021 at 9:09 pm

    @Starfish

    More than it takes to screw in a light bulb.

    (obligatory rejoinder) “I didn’t know Catholics could fit in a light bulb.”

    :)

  94. 94.

    WaterGirl

    June 27, 2021 at 9:10 pm

    @Another Scott: I figured Biden looked tired because of his whirlwind overseas trip. ?‍♀️

  95. 95.

    2liberal

    June 27, 2021 at 9:11 pm

    @raven:

     

    why are we having all these soccer threads but no NBA threads? I live in the PHX-burbs and the Suns are up 3-1 to get into the NBA finals!

  96. 96.

    WaterGirl

    June 27, 2021 at 9:11 pm

    @Starfish: I know, I know, pick me!

    Too many.

  97. 97.

    WaterGirl

    June 27, 2021 at 9:12 pm

    @2liberal: We can have an NBA thread if there’s interest.

  98. 98.

    Starfish

    June 27, 2021 at 9:12 pm

    @E.: Are you in the pacific northwest?

  99. 99.

    WaterGirl

    June 27, 2021 at 9:13 pm

    You guys are having crazy heat waves, and there in Champaign, IL we are starting to contemplate the idea of building an ark.

    Nope, nothing weird about the weather this year.  This is all perfectly normal. //

    edit: The grass is very green, and the bunnies are just hanging out in the middle of the grass.  They have been out every day that it’s been rainy, which is to say every day for the past (seems like) week.

  100. 100.

    dww44

    June 27, 2021 at 9:14 pm

    @E.: Stay  safe. So hope the hot weather breaks soon.  It’s scary when the weather is that extreme.

  101. 101.

    Suzanne

    June 27, 2021 at 9:17 pm

    But such a ‘purification’ would be just fine with the tradcaths, who are sure that this shell would give the Ross Douthats and Liz Bruenigs and every little local parish pest more power and status, as God intended. (If this reminds anyone of the current ‘purification’ battle within the Republican Party, well, yeah.)

    One aspect of this that the crazy conservatives are not considering is that, if they continue to push on this issue, they can guarantee that I won’t vote for a practicing Catholic for public office in the future. If they want to influence public policy, they’re violating the agreement. I really do not want the President taking direction from Rome.

    But of course, they’re not thinking about that.

  102. 102.

    Suzanne

    June 27, 2021 at 9:19 pm

    @2liberal: I am SOOOOO EXCITED about the SUNNIES!!! It was brutal being a Suns fan for the last 20 years and now they’re killin’ it!

    I need a hat.

  103. 103.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    June 27, 2021 at 9:20 pm

    @Suzanne: It’s possible they think it won’t matter who  you vote for. If they have the Supreme Court, for instance, they can negate what you want

  104. 104.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 9:25 pm

    @2liberal: Because this blog is full of commies.

  105. 105.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 9:26 pm

    @WaterGirl: I don’t think there is enough.

    eta and I dvr games and watch the 2nd half at dawn when I wake up so I wouldn’t be here with my pithy comments.

  106. 106.

    gwangung

    June 27, 2021 at 9:27 pm

    @Suzanne: Wasn’t the last time they made it to the finals the time they had to face Jordan in his prime? Talk about futility….

  107. 107.

    WaterGirl

    June 27, 2021 at 9:28 pm

    @raven: Thanks for letting me know.

  108. 108.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 27, 2021 at 9:28 pm

    @raven: Trae Young is a weird looking dude.  Just sayin.

  109. 109.

    Another Scott

    June 27, 2021 at 9:28 pm

    @raven: [ assume this is a reply about the Catholics on the SCOTUS ]

    Fight for 15!!11

    [ check the antecedent ]

    Whoops.

    Though maybe it works for BBall too??

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  110. 110.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 9:29 pm

    @gwangung: yes, 92. Ainge, Big Mouth Boy George and co.

  111. 111.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 9:31 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’ll be honest, I don’t really follow the NBA much anymore so I really didn’t know much about him but he’s a stone baller.

     

    Did you get interested in soccer when you were stationed in Europe?

  112. 112.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 9:33 pm

    Good, don’t let him bang him way out there.

  113. 113.

    Suzanne

    June 27, 2021 at 9:33 pm

    @gwangung: Yes! The Bulls three-peated. It was brutal. But they had Barkley in his prime and they made it a very close contest.

  114. 114.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 9:34 pm

    @Suzanne: Remember when they had Eddie Johnson from Illinois??

  115. 115.

    Suzanne

    June 27, 2021 at 9:34 pm

    @raven: 1993.

  116. 116.

    raven

    June 27, 2021 at 9:35 pm

    @Suzanne: 92-93

  117. 117.

    quakerinabasement

    June 27, 2021 at 9:35 pm

    I recall that when JFK ran, he and the church took pains to assure voters he would not put the dictates of the Vatican ahead of U.S. law. Seems like the bishops don’t care about that perception any longer.

  118. 118.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    June 27, 2021 at 9:35 pm

    Basketball adjacent (since it happened at the arena where the Raptors (and Maple Leafs) play in Toronto) and a record breaking level of vaccine doses at one location in one day. The previous North American record was 17,003 doses set at the Texas Motor Speedway in April.

    25,000 doses administered: Scotiabank Arena clinic achieves record-breaking vaccine milestone

  119. 119.

    Suzanne

    June 27, 2021 at 9:41 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: One thing that just grates on the socons really badly is that they are a minority, and they know they have lost respect. I think being marginalized in electoral life and knowing that they are increasingly scorned by others would be a tough pill to swallow for much of the laity, who really have an image of themselves as superiors.

  120. 120.

    Another Scott

    June 27, 2021 at 9:42 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Masterful heat wave / climate change discussion from @WeatherProf. Read this if you want to understand why meteorologists and climate scientists are so unnerved by what's going on in the Pacific Northwest, and why this will be a more frequent occurrence. https://t.co/0EsGVf2fML

    — Andrew Freedman (@afreedma) June 27, 2021

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  121. 121.

    Mary G

    June 27, 2021 at 9:44 pm

    @lollipopguild: This. If the whackjob minority had actually issued this hateful policy despite being all but explicitly told not to by the pope’s posse, Biden could have had communion at a different church every Sunday until the end of his second term.

  122. 122.

    Elizabelle

    June 27, 2021 at 9:47 pm

    @Another Scott:   Thank you.  I love Jill Lepore.  Will read this.

    @Emma from Miami:   That makes more sense.

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Good luck to Pope Frankie, who IMO is a decent guy who means well – he’s wrestling with a hierarchy shot full of kneejerk anti-Communists (courtesy of Wojtyla) and not-so-crypto-fascisti(courtesy of Ratso Ratzinger).​

    Have to agree with you there.  It was a breath of fresh air to get Pope Francis after Ratzinger.  May we find out why he retired, sooner rather than later.

  123. 123.

    Elizabelle

    June 27, 2021 at 9:47 pm

    @Mary G:

    Biden could have had communion at a different church every Sunday until the end of his second term.

    I like your thinking there.

  124. 124.

    Elizabelle

    June 27, 2021 at 9:53 pm

    As much as we despise the bishops’ rhetoric, the parish priests — and the rabbis — are doing the hardest work now, with the Surfside FL community.  The good ones can be comforters, or at least not make a terrible time worse.

  125. 125.

    Anne Laurie

    June 27, 2021 at 10:02 pm

    @Elizabelle: It was a breath of fresh air to get Pope Francis after Ratzinger. May we find out why he retired, sooner rather than later.

    Pretty sure his calculations involved just how much bad stuff was coming to light — not just the ‘a few bad apples’ sexual abuse, but various money-laundering & tax-evasion schemes where the Vatican See was working with the Mafia & the (Protestant!) Swiss banking gnomes.

    Didn’t follow it closely, because there are only so many hours, and a lot of it never made it to English-language media.  But there were hundreds of millions of dollars involved, plus several suicides, some of which may have been murders.

    Not saying anyone told Ratzinger he could retire quietly or else become the public face of this scandal… Pope B was a life-long Vatican operative, and could certainly calculate the odds on his own.  Shiny new hippy-dippy New World pope took enough of the media’s eyes away from the dirty-money stories; trading the genuine exertions of serving as His Holiness for a new power-behind-the-throne / thorn-in-Pope-F’s side role wasn’t a bad risk.

    (Once again, an analogy:  If Trump was even one-tenth as smart as the MAGAts believe, that’s what he could’ve done last November… )

  126. 126.

    Brachiator

    June 27, 2021 at 10:13 pm

    @Starfish:

    How many Catholics are on the Supreme Court right now?

    Probably too many.

  127. 127.

    Gretchen

    June 27, 2021 at 10:19 pm

    Dry and 100 degrees is not unusual here in Kansas City this time of year.  They’re predicting rainy and high 70s this week, which is very weird.

  128. 128.

    Ruckus

    June 27, 2021 at 10:26 pm

    @quakerinabasement:

    That was 60 yrs ago. A lot has changed since then, in many areas, such as the parties are a lot farther apart than they seemed at that time.

  129. 129.

    laura

    June 27, 2021 at 10:35 pm

    @Suzanne: have you checked out Rex Chapman’s twitter feed- it is Sun-tastic.

  130. 130.

    James E Powell

    June 27, 2021 at 10:55 pm

    @Starfish:

    How many Catholics are on the Supreme Court right now?

    Six. Gorsuch was raised Catholic, but went Episcopal.

  131. 131.

    RaflW

    June 27, 2021 at 11:00 pm

    The hardcore really, really can’t accept reality.
    This below was published just in March of this year. Benedict retired in 2013. Yes, it has been about 600 years since a Pope didn’t stay in the seat of power till death, but he made that choice. I do have my occasional wonderings why, but as a non-Catholic, it’s really just curiosity from the outside.

    Ex-pope Benedict chides “fanatical” Catholics who reject his resignation
    (Reuters) – Former pope Benedict has chided conservative Roman Catholics who have not accepted his decision to resign as “fanatical”, telling them that there is only one pope and it is Francis.
    Benedict, now 93, in 2013 became the first pope in about 600 years to resign instead of ruling for life, saying he no longer had the strength to govern the 1.3 billion-member Church.
    Some hardline conservatives unhappy with the more liberal Pope Francis have often voiced doubts about whether Benedict stepped down willingly, even though he has said several times in the past eight years that he did.
    “It was a difficult decision. But it was a fully conscious choice and I think I did well (to resign),” he told Italy’s Corriere della Sera in a interview published on Monday. …

  132. 132.

    Percysowner

    June 27, 2021 at 11:03 pm

    @Elizabelle: Or as Father Guido Sarducci said “You no playa the game, you no maka the rules”

  133. 133.

    CODave

    June 27, 2021 at 11:20 pm

    BTW, it’s Unitarian Universalists. Of course we disagree amongst ourselves whether we should be churches or congregations.

  134. 134.

    catclub

    June 28, 2021 at 12:24 am

    @FelonyGovt: I wonder if some of the US bishops are concerned about the possible loss of their tax exemption if they get too overtly political. They should be.

     

    I wish. Not  a chance. No matter how political they become.

  135. 135.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    June 28, 2021 at 1:12 am

    @Yutsano:  anthony kiedis thanks you.

  136. 136.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    June 28, 2021 at 1:19 am

    @Another Scott: i loved weyrich’s cover of metallica — “trapped under ice”.

  137. 137.

    artem1s

    June 28, 2021 at 1:43 am

    …addressing the economic concerns of parents could save two to ten times as many pre-born children as reversing Roe would

    egads what a stupid assumption. access to more affordable and reliable contraception of all types means less surgical abortions. no matter what happens with Roe it won’t ‘save’ any ‘pre-born children’. women who are economically stable generally get to choose to have less children, period. they just get to make that choice sooner and more privately outside the prying eyes of those who believe their only purpose is to be incubators.

  138. 138.

    Uncle Cosmo

    June 28, 2021 at 5:09 am

    @Percysowner: ​IIRC that was in fact publicly said by Nixon’s Ag Sec Earl Butz, in response to Pope Paul’s rejection of birth control in the encyclical Humanae Vitae.

  139. 139.

    leeleeFL

    June 28, 2021 at 11:21 am

    @Chetan Murthy: Personally, Ratzi the Nazi was excellent!

  140. 140.

    J R in WV

    June 28, 2021 at 11:50 am

    Nice report on the RC Bishops and their disconnect with the real world.

    One thing in there that may deserve a correction. Where you say

    …easily available community alternatives (the Episcopalians and Universal Unitarians, for instance)…

    I’m pretty sure that the UUs are actually Unitarian-Universalist Church members, as my folks were associated with the UU organization. Was about 50 years ago, so memory is hazy, but still. They are not Trinitarian, so no Father, Son and Holy Ghost, nor Virgin Mary… that’s why Unitarian, to explain the major difference between the UU beliefs and traditional Christianity.

    An interesting factoid, many signers of the Declaration of Independence were Unitarians.

  141. 141.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    June 28, 2021 at 1:12 pm

    I gotta admit I’m wondering if the reaction to this has given the US pedosbishops pause: https://globalnews.ca/news/7979413/mississauga-priest-public-backlash-comments-canada-residential-schools/

    He ended up stepping down because he realised that his parishioners were totally hanging him out to dry by ensuring that his comments got wide distribution, and that he was basically done there.

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