Posted: Wednesday, 04 March 2009 11:30AM
One Out of Four Ain't Bad
Steve Corbett Reporting
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it’s been 30 years since my last confession.
Back then I was a practicing Roman Catholic. At least I was trying to be a practicing Roman Catholic. But I was falling away from the flock, thinking for myself and taking care of my own moral transgressions the best way I knew how.
I didn’t like taking orders from Rome that filtered through the hierarchy and into my local parish. And I didn’t like having some pope, cardinal, bishop, monsignor or priest telling me what to believe in when I honestly didn’t believe.
It took many years to quit but quit I did.
I even once wrote a newspaper column and dared former Scranton Bishop James Timlin to excommunicate me. Timlin issued a press release and said he probably should do just that but that he needed to offer me another chance.
I turned him down and excommunicated myself.
Most Catholics won’t leave the church. Many reasons exist to keep them in the pews even if they have long ago forsaken the tenets of their formal faith.
That’s why the Diocese of Scranton now finds itself in such a terrible quandary.
Back when I was a child of the 50s, the church bosses even told me what movies I could see at my neighborhood theater on a Saturday afternoon. The Legion of Decency printed the names of banned films in the church newspaper and most parents abided by the orders.
Those days of blind faith are long gone.
During last year’s presidential campaign “Catholics for Obama” signs appeared in the windows of parishioners in the most Catholic Scranton neighborhoods. Support for abortion rights advocate Barack Obama would have been unheard of when I was a kid and had an aunt who was a Mother Superior of the Mercy Order of nuns.
Nowadays many Catholics will vote for candidates for public office who support abortion rights, contraception and even the death penalty – all policies opposed vehemently by the bosses of the church.
Scranton celebrity and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey is in trouble with current Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino because Casey worked as hard as anybody in America to help Obama win the presidency and place Scranton native Joe Biden in the vice president’s office.
Biden also supports a woman’s right to choose.
Casey says he opposes abortion but supports contraception. Casey supports the death penalty, too.
Martino wrote Casey a couple of letters on the reproductive rights issues. But Martino has not made an issue about supporting the death penalty.
Although I support abortion rights and even gay marriage and the ordination of women as priests, like the Bishop, I, too, oppose the death penalty. When it comes my agreeing with Catholic doctrine in the 21st Century, one out of four ain’t bad.
But, frankly, it’s not my problem.
The dilemma of dogma is Casey’s problem and Martino’s problem and Biden’s problem.
Obama likely could not care less because he’s not Catholic. And since Catholic voters already support him, he doesn’t have to pander to their whims.
Casey, however, stands tall as a self-proclaimed son of the faith and practicing Catholic.
And the bishop’s on his case.
Casey and Biden should consider quitting the church. Much of the public policy they endorse is not even close to the policy set by their moral leaders.
So what’s the point of staying? Like so many politicians they want to have it both ways.
Martino has declared moral war against them and any other politician who taunts the church by supporting contrary public policy. Maybe Scranton will be Casey and Biden’s Waterloo, the battleground where defeat finally comes their way when Martino bans them from the Diocesan communion rail.
The death penalty poses a real problem for Martino, though. Although most Northeastern Pennsylvania politicians oppose abortion and maybe even contraception, most of them support the death penalty.
Martino should declare a “Confession for Politicians Day” and give them one last chance to repent and get back on board the Catholic express. Then if they don’t see it his way and fall into line, he should tell them to hit the road.
When it comes to the Diocese of Scranton, the highway to hell might be far more than a legendary rock song by a band of heretics called AC/DC.
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Corbett
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