Catholics in the Pews Underwrote the Overturning of Roe. Time to Picket Churches?

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Catholics, in the pews, not just right-wingers, were extremely instrumental in funding the forced-birth movement.

Today, I am choosing optimism. I have not read the whole case of Dobbs v. Jackson yet, but as I read, I keep thinking that the “religious freedom” arguments that sufficed to overturn Roe v. Wade will not, cannot hold. And I am holding in my prayers, the hope that challenges made by religious groups other than my (Catholic) own will force a shift. I am electing tonight to trust that this particular pendulum will swing back.

Most Christians (including more than 50% of Catholics) believe abortion should be legal. Most Jews agree. I know little about Muslim theology on the matter but my brief effort to learn more led me to infer that Islam is various on the topic, and that the permissibility of abortion often depends somewhat on the politics of the region in which a pregnant person Muslim considering abortion resides. I noticed that protection of the pregnant person’s mental health is often paramount in the analysis, as is the case, for example in Reformed Judaism.

It is really just conservative Evangelical Christians & Roman Catholics, however, who brought us to this brink; who pretend to see abortion as murder. Catholics, in the pews — not just right-wingers — have been funding the forced-birth movement for years. Too few have raised their voices. Too few Catholics fought back as their religious leaders moved to impose neofascist brand of integralism.

My focus in this post will fall on Catholicism and the way Catholics in the pews — traditional Catholics, Orthodox Catholics, conservative Catholics, liberal Catholics; even progressive Catholics and feminist Catholics — have supported the so-called “pro-life” effort. I am Catholic. I include myself in this number. I do not contribute financially to the Roman Catholic Church, but up until 2018, I fronted for the institution with my presence. I am culpable.

One hears over and over again in the discussion of Catholics and abortion that more than half of Catholics support the legal right to abortion. That is true, but, today, it is not the point. United States Catholics who put money in the basket on Sunday, no matter where they live, help to bankroll the forced-birth lobby.

Catholics in the pews, even those who are ambivalent about their complicity, like to note that that decline to contribute to their bishop’s diocesan appeal. They just give their “great” pastor money “to keep the lights on.” No. That’s not how it works. That “great” parish does not even own those lights. Nor does it own the buildings in which the light’s circuitry is housed. The diocese, not the parish itself, owns the real property your parish uses and the plot on which it sits. Parish money also belongs to the diocese. Even parishioners who stiff the bishop kick back to the diocese, because money is fungible and parishes kick back to their dioceses. Some pastors claim that donations can be earmarked. That is not true. Money is fungible.

Bishops in charge of dioceses can/do use parishioners donations in any way they like, and unless a bishop is using it to charter jets and lease sex workers, no one is likely to notice. Cardinal Wilton Gregory got busted after buying a palatial home in Atlanta, but that was because it was a big ass house that everyone could see! No one sees it when the bishop of a diocese sends a big check to Ron DeSantis. The Canon Code grants bishops medieval era-levels of autonomy. Bishops have one superior, and he is a quite old and most busy (the pope).

Bishops can and likely do give parishioners’ money to Knights of Columbus, so-called “Right to Life” groups led by people like confidence men like Frank Pavone who ought to have been defrocked a long time ago. Do we imagine Frank refrained from he sending a few “right to life” ducats to the Trump campaign — for “the babies”?) Catholics who refuse to believe their bishop would never send their offertory treasure this tax-code violating confidence man are perfect “pro-life” marks!

Bishops can support Catholic media outlets (many of which are infiltrated/run by Opus Dei.) They can send your money to Catholic University of America (Koch Bros.), any number of GOP political campaigns, the NRA, ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council). Do Catholic offertory dollars wind up as GOP war chest dark money? No way to know. My hunch is hell yeah. How much and how often? No way to know. Bishops in charge of dioceses (“ordinaries”) operate without oversight.

While many Catholics refuse to take part in financing right-wing causes, whether by departing the Catholic Church entirely or by remaining and refusing to contribute donations as I have done, most seem not to mind funding neofascism. The United States Catholic hierarchy has its hands around the neck of the “law of the land” and Catholics in positions of power within the Catholic Church are too busy at the trough to do anything about it. Some of the same people who find the magisterium’s transphobic and homophobic teaching reprehensible actually funded Timothy Dolan’s 2013 attack on Marriage Equality (DOMA). Lots of feminist Catholic women contributed to the demolition of Roe. The truth is that Catholics in the pews cannot be depended upon to address the menace constituted by our/their avaricious, racist, misogynist, transphobic, homophobic episcopacy. There are many reasons for this. (I write about them all here on Indie Theology. Subscribe!)

Catholics will groan when their donation dollars are used, next, to dash Marriage Equality to smithereens. Bishops will allow it because they know the illusion of tolerating a bit of dissent is good for business.

Next, they’ll come for contraception.

As someone who had a strong Roman Catholic practice for years, I am dismayed by the gutlessness of Catholics who are driving Vatican II into a ditch. Catholics in the pews have the power to demand that the institution evolve, but seem to lack the courage, are too afraid to lose their Catholic careers, have been beaten into submission, don’t care enough, or are too are drunk on the Bells of St. Mary entitlement juice to act on their own behalf.

But Catholics in the pews are not the only ones who have the power to tune up the Roman Catholic Church.

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PROTEST ! But do NOT vandalize Catholic Church property. Do NOT vandalize Catholic Church property.Do NOT vandalize Catholic Church property.

I chose a Catholic hospital in which to bear the youngest of my 3 kids. I would not do that again. When my older daughter was looking at colleges, I exhorted her not to rule out Catholic universities; today I would discourage her from doing this if we were having the conversation today…

Read “Catholics in the Pews Underwrote the Overturning of Roe. Time to Picket Churches?” in its entirety on Indie Theology.