Posted on 08/14/2006 9:21:08 AM PDT by kentuckycatholiceye
Institute on Religion and Democracy leads serious breach of ecumenical good will "There is a kind of Henry V quality about all this. 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.' I mean, that really is true. [We are] people who have been together in a great moral cause..."-- George Weigel, describing Neoconservatives When President George W. Bush met with religious journalists in May of 2004, the religious authority he cited most often was not a fellow United Methodist or even another Protestant. It was a man the president affectionately calls "Father Richard." He is Catholic priest Richard John Neuhaus, who, the President explained, "helps me articulate these [religious] things" (Time, 2005). A senior administration official confirmed to Time magazine that Neuhaus "‘does have a fair amount of under-the-radar influence' on such policies as abortion, stem-cell research, cloning and the defense-of-marriage amendment" (Time, 2005).
(Excerpt) Read more at mediatransparency.com ...
Very interesting article - but were you aware it's from a liberal watchdog group, combatting Christian conservatives?
Oh boy! Secret conspiracy stuff. Cool!
Six of the 17 current members of IRD's board of directors, a full 35 percent, are prominent conservative Catholics (Institute on Religion and Democracy, 2006).
Well, let's string 'em up, Pilgrim. They're conservatives!
These prominent Catholics confer their prestige and considerable power to encourage right-wing donors to finance IRD. They are key links to the patrons of IRD which include Richard Mellon Scaife, Howard Ahmanson and the Bradley, Coors, Smith-Richardson, Randolph, and Olin foundations with whom these Neoconservative Catholics have had a long working relationship (Media Transparency, 2006a).
Follow the money! Scaife, he's the worst, right?
All of these benefactors have a common political aim (National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, 1997), which is to neutralize and overturn the social justice tradition of mainline Protestant churches because they are in tension with unfettered capitalism (Swecker, 2005; Clarkson, 2006).
That's, like, uh, well, what the heck is that today? Oh yeah, divestment from Israel.
While Father Neuhaus and his Catholic cohorts have built and sustained an organization that has consistently labored to generate suspicion and hostility about mainstream Protestant leaders, not a penny has been spent nor staff member assigned to attempt to change anything about the Catholic Church.
Okay, wait a minute. They're an advocacy group, dude. They don't think they are wrong.
Imagine the outcry from Catholic leaders, a fully justified response, if a highly influential group of Protestants obtained a million dollars a year from left-wing sources to generate a propaganda campaign against the leadership of the Catholic Church over the issues of the ordination of women and divorce. Moreover, this Protestant-directed group constantly sought to undermine Catholic leaders and missions through twisted and demeaning distortions of what they said, while seeking no reforms in their own communions. This is exactly the situation we have at IRD.
Yeah, that would be bad. Glad we don't have to worry about that.
We believe that the sustained attempt by one segment of the leadership of the Catholic Church to undermine the leadership of mainstream Protestantism is a unique breach of ecumenical relations.
Yeah, we never bad mouthed each other until those neo-Cons came along. It's unique.
Protestants have the right to expect that those Roman Catholic leaders who wish to maintain ecumenical relations with Protestants will publicly disown and reject the activities of the IRD.
I'm sure there will be more than one bishop willing to stand should to shoulder with these folks:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Rev. Jim Wallis of the Sojourners community; Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun; America Baptist Dr. Tony Campolo; Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams; Bishop Mark Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Rev. Gardner C. Taylor, past president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention; Rabbi David Gelfand at The Jewish Center of the Hamptons; the Most Rev. Frank Griswold, presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church ; and Rev. Welton Gaddy of The Interfaith Alliance. This is an incomplete list of those attacked.
When you keep in mind that this hit piece was written by atheistic socialists, it's hard for me to figure out exactly what a Christian believer would find unsettling about the neoconservative Catholic movement. You evidently consider yourself a Christian believer. What is it you find so unsettling?
Fr. McCloskey doesn't know what he's talking about - either that, or he's intentionally misusing the term, ignoring it's historic usage and connotations, redefining it towards some unspoken end.
Case in point: many (if not all) Baptists do not consider themselves Protestants, nor do Restorationists, nor Mormons. Yet Fr. McCloskey is erroneously teaching Catholics that all these groups are Protestants.
The article says: "While Father Neuhaus and his Catholic cohorts have built and sustained an organization that has consistently labored to generate suspicion and hostility about mainstream Protestant leaders, not a penny has been spent nor staff member assigned to attempt to change anything about the Catholic Church. This conduct constitutes the single greatest breach in ecumenical good will between Roman Catholics and Protestants since Vatican II."
I'm sorry, but the author of this article is clearly an idiot. Catholics in this country do not waste their time "to generate suspicion and hostility about mainstream Protestant leaders". That's just moronic, paranoid, conspiratorial nuttiness.
Also, why does a single penny or a single staff member need to be used to change the Catholic Church? Its teachings need NO changing whatsoever. And no amount of spending or staff member usage will ever change a single Catholic teaching.
I happen to be very familiar with several of the Catholics mentioned in this article and with their writings. They are very ecumenical and have deep repect for their Protestant brethren. The magazine First Things edited by Fr. Neuhaus is an ecumenical journal whose readership is about half Protestant and half Catholic. The editorial board has about equal numbers of Catholics and Protestants also. Fr. Neuhaus is a leader in the project called Evangelicals and Catholics together. As far as donations from rich conservatives are concerned, what is wrong with that? Every non-profit organization, left, right, or center, Catholic, Protestant, or non-religious, relies upon donations from foundations, wealthy individuals, and ordinary people who sympathize with its ideas. How else is a non-profit organization going to pay its bills? Mr. "AlaskaErik" has (by his own admission) habitually used such expressions as "Catholic scum". One would never find that kind of epithet applied to other groups coming out of the mouth of Fr. Neuhaus, Robert George, George Weigel, Michael Novak, Mary Ann Glendon, or any of the others mentioned in that article. When they criticize it is always with respect for the human dignity of those they criticize. If they criticize the leftist drift of the mainline churches it is much more gently than many of the people in those churches.
Mainstream Protestantism is generally following the same road as the ECUSA. now called "The Episcopal Church." It no longer teaches orthodox Christian Christian doctrines. It rejects both tradition and scripture. Religion to the likes of its presiding bishop is hardly more than social work with a traditonal religious color.
This is silly. Neuhaus has been a big critic of certain Catholic bishops, and the Catholic bishops' conference in general.
This conduct constitutes the single greatest breach in ecumenical good will between Roman Catholics and Protestants since Vatican II.
One would think the rise of downright atheist theology and gay-rights libertinism would be a greater breach.
Of the First Things crowd, I dislike most Novak's obsequious pandering to corporate capitalism and their clique's general neocon insanity on foreign policy. Otherwise they're a pretty good crowd.
Tell us how you really feel.
Gee. I'd gleefully attack seven out of those ten myself. Taylor, Gelfand, and Gaddy get a pass from me because I never hard of them until today. :D
hard s/b heard...(blush)
Let's just double check on who Fr. McCloskey has in the crosshairs:
"A liberal Catholic is oxymoronic," he says. "The definition of a person who disagrees with what the Catholic Church is teaching is called a Protestant."
http://www.adherents.com/people/pm/John_McCloskey.html
Chester Tulga article
Baptist Pillar article
Vernon Lyons article
Fred Zaspel article
Former Catholic here. I am not a Catholic simply because of honest disagreement, but I feel I can still embrace my Catholic brethren. I still benefit from 12 years of Catholic school education. Do you think it was your experience in a particular diocese that soured you, or is it broader than that?
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