Given the fact that some aspects of the sex abuse situation in the church are related to homosexual subculture and the politics of the gay rights movement, the scandal story does relate to other issues active on the American political scene. While it is certainly likely that anti-Catholic bias of elements of the big media has played a role in the way the story has been spun by spin doctors, that is not the only reason why this has been a front-page item in major newspapers. The story raises issues of how we think about religion, sexuality, and institutional power. All three of these areas will continue to stimulate lively and spirited discussion in American society. Whatever damage may result, you can bet in the next national election candidates from both major parties will court Catholic voters in their efforts to proceed to high office. Whether anyone will attempt to exploit the current difficulties of the church for short-term political gain remains to be seen.
The links posted by various Catholics on FR threads have been informative and interesting. They have done some good in clarifying the dramatic distinction between conservative, orthodox Catholics and the misguided lunacy of some of our Church's nominal leaders in this country. In a free society, free discussion and debate, even on religious topics, remains one of the last bulwarks against tyranny. May it always be so.
God Bless.
I joined FR shortly after the March for Justice was televised on C-SPAN, because the media had become, with few exceptions, such as the American Spectator, Clinton sycophants. I pegged Clinton for a liar during the '92 campaign when he was characterizing a rather mild and short-lived recession as "the worst economy in 50 years" or "since the great depression". So my motivations for joining were political, and FR considered itself a "Conservative Political News Forum". Since my background is in physics and mathematics, I learned a great deal about politics and humanities from my exposure to this place. In those days, Lucianne Goldberg was a FReeper (in fact, she coined the term), and we had a number of impressive essayists, such as MadIvan, posting regularly.
I was also serious enough about my religious convictions to have spent a year as a novice monk in an abbey of the English Benedictine Congregation in Washington, DC. Naturally, religious ideas inform our morality, and the moral basis for law is an important component of political theory. So it is unavoidable that some aspect of religion enter into political discussion. In particular, the Clinton crisis was summarized by Henry Hyde (a conservative, pro-life Catholic) as centering around the meaning of oaths, and of course, the strength of oaths depends on whether or not we believe foreswearing them will have an effect on our eternal destiny. Alan Keyes, another conservative, pro-life Catholic, was making the point at that time - almost uniquely in the public forum - that the crisis America was facing was primarily a moral crisis. Using typically Catholic methods of reasoning, he looked to the Declaration of Independence as a way of injecting Judeo-Christian principles into our Constitutional republic. Anyone objecting to the Declaration would find himself in the position of questioning the basis for the American revolution as well.
In the course of these discussions, I became increasingly aware of the anti-Catholic current underlying much of American religious thought. I had not really experienced this as a young man, with the exception of a co-worker pressing upon me his copy of Robert Woodward's Babylon Mystery Religion. I found this book so incredibly poorly researched - what stands out in my memory is the author's attempt to make us into sun-worshipers based on his misrepresentation of the Holy Spirit window in St. Peter's Basilica as a "sunburst" - that I thought only the lunatic fringe could find it persuasive. Naturally, I never gave the experience a second thought. Until, that is, the fundies started their "flying-monkey" attacks on any FR thread that contained "Catholic", "Pope", or something similar in the title. Their posts were often quite hateful, and depended for their argumentation on gross misrepresentations of Catholic teaching. Their attitude was confrontational, and often quite venomous. I tried to understand this mentality, and I couldn't. I still can't, really. But the experience did teach me important lessons in the history of America, and its religous development. So I owe a debt to FR for opening my eyes in this way.
At first, we Catholics tried to ignore this bullying, in the hope that it would simply stop if we gave it no attention. The foundational assumptions of our interlocators ranged, after all, from the simply erroneous, to the paranoid, to the truly bizarre. There posts seemed unworthy of our attention, and forebearance seemed the best policy. But the attacks continued. Soon it was impossible to spend any time at FR without being insulted - often cruelly and deeply, and in some cases so badly that some of my friends lost sleep over the frustration they felt - so we began to defend ourselves. These defenses eventually developed into full-scale and often quite impressive apologetics. I generally demurred from taking part in them because I didn't think doctrinal discussions were really appropriate to a political news forum. The advent of the Religion forum removes that objection, and I will feel fewer qualms about such engagements. Unfortunately, my time for this will be quite constrained until summer.
The press constantly misrepresents Catholic teaching, so much so that I bought one of my Jewish friends a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church so that he could get the straight story. No doubt the press, and the fundies, will continue to do this. The existence of the Religion forum gives us a legitimate opportunity to counter this misinformation. The present dispute seems to be over the amount of exposure the Religion forum gets relative to the News forum. As I've stated, I think there are simple remedies for this. I also think that fundie disruption - and, yes, I do contend that these people are the single most disruptive members of FR - is less likely than in the News forum, or at least it can be better contained.
It is difficult, as a Catholic, especially one who finds the fundie arguments entirely meritless, to endure, for example, the recent blasphemies against the Holy Eucharist. But it must be remembered that the FR management may not appreciate just how serious this sort of attack is to us. Similarly, the management may not be able to distinguish between our own displeasure with our spineless leadership, and prejudicial attacks against our Church. The upshot is that I would prefer that a Religion forum exist so that these discussions may proceed, rather than have such discussions be considered off-limits at FR.
The development at FR, which was originally essentially unmoderated, into its present moderated state, shows the folly of unregulated free speech. Stupidity always wins, because it is easier to tear something down than to defend its existence. Barbarians know this instinctively, which is why the maintenance of civilization is a constant struggle. One simply cannot mount a reasoned defense against every unsubstantiated allegation, and still have time left for intellegent, informed discussion among those who actually have some knowledge of the issues at hand. The Internet also provides no ordinary social inhibitions against shooting one's mouth off, so to speak, so the signal-to-noise ratio tends to diminish without some degree of supervision.
It is unlikely that the FR management will solve this problem to everyone's satisfaction. But it's rather unseemly to complain about their failures when they need not provide anyone a forum for anything at all. And I have learned valuable lessons from this experience as to just how reliable our ostensible political allies will be when the chips are down. Though it's not a lesson I've enjoyed learning, I'm grateful to FR for providing it.