When Bishops embrace politics over pastoring

In January 2019, the diocese of Covington Kentucky, under direction of Archbishop Roger Joseph Foys, issued a condemnation one day after a viral video appeared to show high school boys harassing an older man at the March for Life in Washington. The archdiocese called the students' behavior "opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person" and issued an apology to the actual aggressor. The media had already politicized the issue, emphasizing race, and showing only a specious snippet of video that belied the story. The light-speed reaction of the archdiocese has left them embarrassed as subsequent footage of the incident revealed the older man to have been the aggressor. Even though the archdiocese openly condemned the students absent of further investigation, their most recent statement said it is "important for us to gather the facts that will allow us to determine what corrective actions, if any, are appropriate." Lexington Bishop Stowe originally called the students a, "contradiction of the very reverence for human life that the march is supposed to manifest." Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz tweeted a condemnation of what he claimed were "the shameful actions of the Covington Catholic High School students." Other bishops made similar premature condemnations. They wittingly or not worked in concert with an unethical media, hostile to the Church and the pro-life movement. And, once again, they showed themselves perfectly capable of crying out in unison when politically popular, but painfully mute when needing to champion unpopular, but true, teachings of the faith.

In February 2018, Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich responded in a week to publicly condemn and sanction a priest who burned a flag promoting homosexuality that once hung in his parish. Meanwhile, after two priests in Cupich's archdiocese were arrested for committing a public sexual act with each other, Cupich said he would wait for an investigation. Neither originally, nor over four months later, has any public condemnation come from Cupich. Cupich is also the Archbishop who responded within 48 hours to the first Viganó letter about clergy abuse by say saying the Pope should focus on "other things" and that addressing the letter was to go down a "rabbit hole." Vexingly, the Pope still appointed Cupich to the organizing committee of the February abuse synod.

In June 2018, news media drew attention to the temporary separation of family members crossing the southern U.S. border while screening occurred. Although these detainments were temporary and complicated by such matters as child sex traffickers often posing as a child's parents, multiple bishops, in a unified, simultaneous voice, condemned the policy in the harshest language. Tucson Bishop Edward Weisenburger referred to the practice "In light of the canonical penalties that are there for life issues" and suggested the hierarchy consider "canonical penalties for Catholics who are involved in this". San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller said, "To steal children from their parents is a grave sin, immoral (and) evil."  Brownsville Archbishop Daniel Flores said, "separating immigrant parents and children as a supposed deterrent to immigration is a cruel and reprehensible policy." Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron said, "The forced separation of children from their parents, which is underway now at our southern border, is an unconscionable violation of human dignity." Chicago Archbishop Cupich also spoke out immediately (He did not wait for further investigation as with his priests in Feb. 2018), stating the policy was "nothing remotely Christian, American, or (sic) morally defensible..." These are just a small sample. But whatever one thinks of these detainment policies (the policy was since deauthorized), if the bishops were truly concerned about damage to families, where is their massive condemnation about ongoing issues that are destroying legions of families, in numbers no border detainments will ever approach? Where are the bishops' unified and sobering statements about family destroyers such as divorce, cohabitation, pre-marital sex, or contraception? These things have created a hemorrhage of destruction in the institution of the family. Obviously, the bishops have shown they have the ability to issue strong condemnations in a unified voice. Why not conduct a communication blitz on these other matters instead of something politically charged that does not even constitute objective immorality?

Jesus Chasing the Merchants from the Temple by Quentin Matsys, 16th cent.
Public domain image acquired from Wikimedia Commons.

These incidents are some among many examples. Meanwhile, scandals among the hierarchy themselves persist. The faithful are left vexed. Stories of infiltration abound. Neither Pope Francis nor any other named bishops have been able to rebut the content of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó's letters detailing cover-up of sexual deviance within the Church. Pope Francis has neither replied to the 2016 dubia issued by four cardinals on the matter of Communion. Stories of priests teaching heterodoxy from the pulpit persist. Bishops consistently react fast when making popular political condemnations, but react glacially slow or altogether silently when upholding Church teaching or when condemning ills coming from their own ranks. The current state of bishops is unacceptable.

What are the faithful to do? Foremost, there is prayer. Another consideration some Catholics have suggested is withholding Sunday giving in favor of other faithful Catholic and non-profit organizations. In this scenario, dioceses are withheld funds until the true doctrines of the faith are promoted and opponents from within the Church are silenced or expelled. However, there is opposition to that view, such as from Catholic radio host Al Kresta from November 2018. Phillip Lawler, who has been instrumental in journaling scandal within the Church, also has suggestions in his recent book, The Smoke of Satan: How Corrupt and Cowardly Bishops Betrayed Christ, His Church, and the Faithful...and What Can Be Done About It.

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Further resources:
Divorce Hurts Children, Even Grown Ones, Psychology Today (2011)
Unprotected movie, Don Johnson Evangelistic Ministries (2018)
Children falling short in school? Blame parental break-ups, Nicole M. King and Bryce J. Christensen (2018)
Kresta in the Afternoon, Jan. 25, 2019, hour 1, interview with Phil Lawler (on Covington Catholic incident)
The Patrick Madrid Show, Jan. 21, 2019, hour 1 (on Covington Catholic incident)

5 modern lies sold as truth

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,

who put darkness for light and light for darkness,

who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)

Detail of Prophet Isaiah in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Ceiling.
Acquired from Wikimedia Commons.

Today's culture, in plain sight, successfully sells lies that are often 180 degrees opposite the truth.

Contraception
Birth control is "medicine," claimed Hillary Clinton in 2017. Planned Parenthood has called it "basic health care." Yet contraceptives used to prevent birth are the opposite of medicine—for their end goal is to cause a normally functioning body to malfunction. Birth control more closely resembles the medical definition of Poison: a substance that "may cause structural or functional disturbance."

Read more in earlier TCV blog post: "Birth control" is not medicine.

Abortion
"It's my body!" shouts the 21st century feminist of enwombed offspring. Yet, in reality, the fertilized egg—the zygote—has its own unique DNA, distinct from the mother. A mother thus advances the culture's lie when she refers as "her body" to that which is not her body.

Additional resources: Science is clear: Each new human life begins at fertilization (Sarah Terzo, 2013); 41 Quotes From Medical Textbooks Prove Human Life Begins at Conception (Terzo, 2015); The Science About When Life Begins Makes Pro-Choicers Look Terrible (Dr. Donna Harrison, 2018)

Marriage
During the years leading up to the 2015 gay "marriage" ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, there were three common slogans used to advance the idea of gay "marriage": "love is love," "same love," and "marriage equality."

Dialogue on this issue was minimal and even discouraged. Then-First Lady Michelle Obama declared: "In a country where we teach our children that everyone is equal under the law, discriminating against same-sex couples just isn’t right. So, it’s as simple as that."

Although the state declared marriage redefined by stroke of a pen, marriage was not the only thing their verdict "redefined." The censoring of discussion disguised this. Notice how each of the three slogans advanced the idea that men and women are interchangeable with no difference. One ingredient is equal to another. This was among the undiscussed, dangerous side effects of the formulations: "same," "equal," "A is equal to B." These were the Orwellian newspeak that tickled many ears.

The idea that Man+Man = Man+Woman is absurd on its face. The sale of this idea that men and women are interchangeable variables is also contrary to science, which shows the unique qualities brought to parenthood by mothers and fathers, as well as the obvious family structure innate in the male and female union. Any children raised in such arrangements are deprived of one or more of their mother and father. The idea also paved the way for society's next chapter, discussed below (Sex/Gender), in denying the significant qualities between males and females.

Additional Resources: Reengineering the Family (Heather Mac Donald, 2010); How Re-Defining Marriage Harms Society (Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, 2012); Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom (Dr. Ryan T. Anderson, 2015); and additional social science resources in the endnotes at Same-Sex “Marriage”: The Victims. The Children (2015).

Sex/Gender
Modern transgenderism: It is the idea that a man can "become" a woman (or vice versa) either based on his own feelings and/or after a surgery alters some of his body parts. A significant portion of society is at the point where it cannot tell the difference between a boy and girl and even believes there are a multitude of sexes beyond male and female. This is the hypnotic effect that abusing truth has created.

The idea of switching "genders" is again contrary to science:

In human embryos, the SRY gene encodes a unique transcription factor that activates a testis-forming pathway at about week seven of development. Before this time, the embryonic gonad is "indifferent"... (Genetic Mechanisms of Sex Determination, Nature Education 1(1):25, 2008)

Instead of simply admitting a boy with xyz feelings is still a boy who has these feelings, society fosters the lie that he's not a boy at all, or that somehow a new "gender" can even be created as a result of sexual proclivities.

But calling a boy a girl and a girl a boy is a dangerous inversion of reality that has led to regretful surgeries, harmful use of puberty blockers in children, and other personal and public damage, not to mention the instability caused to any other truth. In "redefining" marriage and what is a boy and girl, society has paved the way to other redefinitions, such as the recent effort to rebrand pedophilia under the moniker "minor attracted person (MAP)." The trajectory will result in future "redefinitions" of parenthood and more as previously discussed in 5 difficult issues human cloning will cause.

Additional resources: Transgenderism: Semantic contagion or biological fact? (Dr. Anne Hendershott, 2018); The Genetics of Sex Differences in Brain and Behavior (NCBI, 2010); The myth of gender-neutral parenting (Dr. Deborah Soh, 2017)

Morality
As previously detailed at length, modern atheists such as Sam Harris, Gad Saad, or Patricia Churchland have attempted to explain morality strictly as a function of biology and evolution. Harris goes so far as to say morality exists even though he believes free will does not.

But these efforts are as misguided as they are ironic. By assigning the label "morality" to biological instincts or automatic actions devoid of free will, morality's necessary feature of obligation is stripped from the equation. By reducing man to an automaton or animal obeying euphoric bodily chemicals, these atheists actually make the argument that morality doesn't exist.

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Conclusions
The significance of these lies is not something to take lightly. They are prone to cause damage, whether to public policy, the innocent baby, the fatherless child, the sexually confused, or the very foundation of moral truth. We end with a relevant quote from a saint:

[Y]ou did well in urging me not to betray the truth, but to refute the slanderers, lest, by a success of falsehood against truth, many might be injured. (Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Trinity, ca 375 A.D.)