Earlier today, I wrote,
This tribal, defensive, parochialism [of the leaders of the Catholic church in the U.S., including its pastoral leaders and its intellectual leaders in the Catholic academy and journalistic sector] is beyond tragic in a culture in which huge numbers of church members, young ones, in particular, are exiting the churches at this moment in history precisely because they do not see the Christian churches giving proper place — priority — to the kind of love in action that Jesus clearly tells us is central to Christian discipleship. It's beyond tragic in a culture in which a certain configuration of white Christians acting in concert have brought us the dangerous candidacy of Donald Trump, as a direct result of the choice of the U.S. Catholic bishops in the reactionary-parochial period of Catholic life under John Paul II and Benedict to align the U.S. Catholic church with white evangelical churches that share the doctrinal rigidity of these bishops around issues of gender and sexuality, when what is clearly most important within the Christian tradition is the command to do all the good possible in all ways possible everywhere possible for as long as possible.
And now I want to share an insight from Michael Coren, Epiphany: A Christian's Change of Mind and Heart Over Same-Sex Marriage (Toronto: Signal, 2016), p. 111. If you click the text at the head of the posting, it will enlarge and be more legible.