As DC law changes to require equality for same sex couples seeking to adopt, the Catholic Church (which has been in the adoption business for generations) opts to close up shop rather than to abide by the law and treat gay and lesbian families equally.
Major religious leaders support immigration reform while a think tank argues that “loving thy neighbor” is relative. When we remember that real people’s lives are at stake, the moral landscape becomes clear.
As a defensive Vatican attempts to reclassify the pedophiles it has never ceased protecting, the centrist former editor of America magazine makes a flawed Polanski analogy.
In the official “Year for Priests,” dedicated by Pope Benedict, a priest in Florida has upped the ante on clerical malfeasance, allegedly fathering a child with a stripper, and threatening the woman with violence. What will it take for the Catholic Church to begin to take responsibility for priests gone wild?
While the family of a 9-year-old incest victim’s abortion is excommunicated, the perpetrator never even made it to the ecclesial radar screen. Let this case signal the end of any credible claim to authority of bishops and the dawn of a new era when local communities determine their own members. I daresay the world will be a safer, kinder place.
Marie Bouclin was excommunicated, or rather “self-excommunicated,” as the Catholic church puts it, for becoming a priest. But banishment from the church has not stopped her from living her vocation.
