Wolf or sheep?
As Michael Gordon and Tim Funk report recently for the Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, North Carolina, Catholic bishop Peter Jugis says that gay employees of Catholic institutions should be fired when they "go public" about their disagreement with "fundamental moral tenets" of the Catholic magisterium.
Odd. Paul Ryan "goes public" about his disagreement with "fundamental moral tenets" of the Catholic magisterium every time he opens his mouth, and the bishops write him love letters. Newt Gingrich and his former mistress and currrent wife Callista, with whom he had an affair while married to his second wife, could not have more egregiously violated "fundamental moral tenets" of the Catholic magisterium in a very public way. But Callista is nominated U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, and nary a sqawk from the bishops.
It appears to be only certain kinds of "public disagreement" with the "fundamental moral tenets" of the Catholic church that get you into hot water with Catholic institutions. Those kinds of public disagreement evidently don't include cheating on multiple spouses and then marrying your mistress (see: Newt Gingrich). They don't include trashing Catholic social teaching (see: Paul Ryan, Rick Santorum, Erik Prince, and every Catholic connected with the Trump administration). They don't include using birth control (see: 95% of heterosexually married Catholics).
It's just the gay thing that will get you thrown out on your ear, while the Catholic church professes to be all about love and inclusion and preaching good news to everyone.
Wolf or sheep?
It's time we become a bit more honest about what many queer Catholics actually experience from many members of the Catholic hierarchy — concretely, in our real lives, with our jobs and healthcare coverage and our reputations and employability, when we are fired without cause or recourse by Catholic institutions because of who we are and whom we love.
It's time that we face honestly the fact that many queer Catholics are treated very specifically as sheep to be slaughtered by wolves in their dealings with some members of the Catholic hierarchy and some Catholic clergy, who appeal to "Catholic teaching" to justify their lupine behavior to these members of the flock — whom they select for an abuse not accorded to other members of the flock who happen to have a heterosexual sexual orientation.
Love and justice are grounded in truth or they are grounded in nothing at all.
I find the graphic at numerous sites online, with no clear indication of its source. One site points to a Volkswagen.com link as the source of the graphic, but when I click that link, it turns out to be a broken link.
