Young Australian Skeptics

When you need negative examples of religion at work, you can usually rely on the Catholic Church to do the work for you. They haven’t let us down this time either. On Sunday 8^th November, TIME published an article titled Priests Spar Over What It Means to Be Catholic, detailing the recent split in some American Catholics due to their stance on abortion. Specifically, in late September Archbishop Raymond Burke (coming to us out of Rome, Italy) told the world that Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley was under the influence of “the father of lies” (Satan, for those of you playing along at home). What prompted this extraordinary outburst at one of his own? O’Malley had the incredible nerve to take part in the memorial service of Senator Ted Kennedy. The nerve of the man! Anyone who would take part in a politicians funeral is clearly in the pocket of Beelzebub! The problem Burke has with O’Malley’s taking part in the service is that Kennedy was for abortion rights for women and Burke takes the usual Catholic ‘pro-​​life’ line. It isn’t surprising really, that Burke has this position. He has previously led campaigns (unsuccessfully) to deny ‘pro-​​choice’ politicians holy communion and also used his position and power to warn Missouri Catholics that if they voted for a politician (in the 2004 presidential election) who supported abortion rights, they needn’t bother to come to holy communion (gotta love that religious compassion!). 

Burke got an unexpected transfer to Pope Central (Vatican City) in 2008, presumably to keep him away from the upcoming election. It didn’t work. He blamed American bishops for Obama’s victory because they supported a document that suggested using something other than abortion stance to decide who to vote for (actually listening to policies? That’s crazy!). It goes beyond the archbishop however, with many right-​​wing catholics lobbying the Vatican to refuse a church funeral for the senator. The church itself has also been disturbingly quiet, seeming to hope that the whole thing blows over without any need for them to actually define where they sit. What really bothers me however, more than Burke’s stance on abortion or the churches silence on the issue, is the incredible ability the Catholic church has to separate what it preaches and what it practices. The whole show is supposed to be based on Jesus and Co: love, compassion and all that. Do they not see the hypocrisy in calling for people to be refused funeral rights (people who are in fact catholics themselves) and not to be recognised as Catholics anymore (not to mention blackmailing parishioners with excommunication)? It is this kind of thing that is what really turns me off from religion, apart from all the obvious, physical evidence that tells us that the universe came about by purely natural means, all on its own.

Sections of church doctrine teach followers  to be compassionate and understanding, to reach out to those in need and provide support and consolation for people during their darkest hour. What do they do? They cast whole groups of people aside because their religious view differs in one way from their own. But, in retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised. The rest of the bible teaches fear, distrust, homophobia, sexual suppression and repression of women. May as well add abortion to the list of things that  they haven’t caught up with the rest of the world on.  And these are the people who hold a large sway over moral policy and actions in one of the most powerful countries in the modern world. Sad.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under James Bayard, Religion. Tagged as: Cardinal Sean O'Malley, Catholic Church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.