Catholic Bishop slams Catholic HHS secretary Becerra for pro-gay stance
The Catholic church has sacrificed its pastoral mission
Joe Biden is not the only liberal Catholic politician who has drawn the ire of the American Catholic Church authorities. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Xavier Becerra, is now getting grief from a Catholic Bishop. Why? Because Becerra has placed the civil rights of gays above the religious right of the church to discriminate. As Fox News reported,
Last week, HHS announced that it would revoke waivers for faith-based entities, such as foster care organizations that refused to serve same-sex couples. Becerra said at the time that "we treat any violation of civil rights or religious freedoms seriously." That statement echoed others he made during his confirmation hearing but didn't resemble his actions, critics have said.
This caused a Texas bishop to suggest Becerra study Catholicism‘s instruction manual. As Fox News further reported,
“Health and Human Services (HHS) Sec. Xavier Becerra, a self-described Catholic, might need to revisit his faith’s catechism, Bishop Joseph Strickland suggested on Wednesday.
First, could he get more smug — self-described? I am sure the Catholic faith has rules on who can count themselves as a Catholic and that Becerra has checked all the boxes. And if the Church were to bar membership to every sinner, there would be no Catholics or Catholic priests.
Second, who is Strickland and why does he have a beef with Becerra? Again I’ll let Fox news report Strickland’s words,
“The Catechism reads: "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,'" referencing a document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. "They are contrary to the natural law,"
I’m not impressed. Religious texts have been used to justify slavery, the Inquisition, and genocide. So as a source of moral guidance they can safely be discarded. And what is this “natural law” that these people keep bleating about?
If we are going to use the term then what could be more natural than homosexuality? Most people who have a gay child or sibling know that there’s no choice involved. Gayness is inherent. And unlike other inherent - or even learned traits - like greed or violence, it doesn’t lead to crime - if you define crime as something that hurts someone else.
What is unnatural, and is most definitely a choice, is a bunch of men deciding not to have sex. Or more accurately, declaring that they’re not going to have sex. Look where that got the Church. It’s like Catholic Priests are OG ‘incels’ except it was their choice to be celibate, so I guess they should be described as ‘volcels’. Regardless, the outcome is not positive.
Church apologists argue that the rate of pedophilia among priests is similar to the rate of pedophilia among men in general. So what? Even if that is true, the Church’s true sin was the institutional cover-up of systemic child-rape. People, who themselves may not have been pedophiles, knew others that were and declared they did not merit punishment - or at worst, their depravity was worth no more than a slap on the wrist.
I wonder what would happen if the Labor Department sued the Catholic Church for employment discrimination. I realize that is a political nonstarter. But if the Catholic Church is allowed to discriminate against women in the priesthood, what would stop another religion barring minority priests? In effect, the law would allow white nationalist churches.
Religious freedom is not the bedrock principle it presents itself as. The Mormon church allowed plural marriage until 1892. And barred Blacks from the priesthood until 1978. What had been a biblical imperative proved unsupportable in the face of social pressure.
Religious freedom also varies from religion to religion. Americans balk at allowing fundamentalist Islam the religious freedom to bring its misogynistic practices to America. And yet in the US, ultra-orthodox Jewish women are equally discriminated against. Religious freedom is also flexible in raising children. Few parents have been prosecuted for not sparing the rod while physically assaulting their child in the name of discipline. However, it is against the law to use religion to deny your child life-saving medical treatment. For years many religions didn’t recognize spousal rape as a crime. But since 1992, when North Carolina banned it, it is now a crime in every state. It is hard to imagine anyone today seriously arguing that men have the religious freedom to rape their wives.
The fact of the matter is, that there are no absolute religious freedoms. And what religions are free to do changes as the times change. The Catholic Church can still discriminate against women and gays. But at some point, Bishop Strickland‘s religious homophobia will be considered as antiquated as burning people at the stake.