Will Cardinal Mahoney Please Call the Vatican?

In the U.S. at least, the fathers of the Roman Catholic Church have historically been politically clueless for at least the past 50 years, and perhaps longer. (Full disclosure: Wonk is a Catholic in relatively good standing who was tainted some years ago by a conservative Jesuit education of which he is justly proud.) In the late 1960s, they crusaded in favor of the Vietnam War. Throughout the 1970s to the present time, they seemed to change gears and wholeheartedly support any politician (usually Democrat) who supported leftist causes and "liberation theology." Very PC. But all the while, dating back to the 1950s and no doubt before, a significant number of local priests brazenly violated their religious vows by committing pedophilia on a massive, unprecedented scale, which their local bishops and their successors covered up for decades, no doubt after doing a rosary or two for penance and pronouncing themselves forgiven.
God forgive me, but as Dean Wormer once said of John Belushi and crew, "I hate those guys." In point of fact, it has become very difficult for Catholic laypeople to support the American hierarchy at all, let alone listen to them, or regard them as moral authorities, on any issue. These increasingly corrupt princes of the Church stridently demand "social justice" even as they minimize the seriousness of the most flagrant violations of elemental human decency that occurred continuously on their collective watch.

Which gets us to the subject. Check out this nifty little bit of pew politics from a reader of Amy Wellborn's blog:

I would be interested to hear what you and your blog readers think about what happened in parishes in our diocese yesterday. In the middle of mass, after the homily and before the Creed, Fr. C. stood up and said that Cardinal Mahony asked all priests in the diocese to pass out post cards to the parishioners regarding immigration reform, addressed to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. The ushers passed them out with pencils, then picked up the completed forms. It took about 20 minutes. Here is the text of the post card:

Dear Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist: I urge you to enact realistic and humane comprehensive immigration reform this year that: (1) includes a path to citizenship for hard working immigrants and their families. (2) provides an effective visa program for future immigrants that protects their rights and includes a path to citizenship. (3) keeps families together, (4) protects our civil rights and civil liberties, and (5) does not criminalize immigrants or their allies. Our immigration laws and our leaders should recognize that immigrants strengthen our economy and contribute to the fabric of our country. Signed: City & Zip:

(Italics from the blog.) After commenting astutely that what might seem like a "social justice" issue automatically becomes a political one in this context, the correspondent then writes the following (bold text appears as it did on the blog):

What really angered me about this, is that a couple of months ago, a group of us asked Fr. C. if we could collect signatures after Mass on the patio to get the parental notification act back on the ballot. We were told that Cardinal Mahony said we could not collect signatures on church property for a political issue, so we stood on the sidewalk to collect signatures. We were totally fine with that, and did so with no complaint whatsoever. I would not have minded if there was an "immigration reform table" on the patio after mass and if there was an announcement about it at the end of mass, but to interrupt the holy sacrifice of the mass for a political agenda is completely inappropriate.

Well, dear astute but slightly naive correspondent, let me explain. Like "immigration rights," parental notification (for parents of minors who have decided to get an abortion) is indeed a political issue. But it is a CONSERVATIVE and REPUBLICAN political issue, and thus not appropriate for pitching from the pulpit on Cardinal Mahoney's diocesan turf which favors Democrats even if they love abortion. But "immigration rights" (which, in point of fact, legal immigrants actually have while illegal ones do not) is a left-wing, liberation theology, Democrat-favoring issue that Cardinal Mahoney wants to support to earn liberal points for himself and the LA faithful, whether the flock wants the points or not. Further, he's blatantly pandering to legal and illegal Latinos alike in order to keep them from jumping ship to Pentecostal Christian churches. In other words, this is yet another obvious manifestation of the increasingly hard-left hypocrisy of the American Bishops, many of whom quietly tolerated Pederast-Gate for decades. These people have not only lost their collective moral compass. They have lost all moral authority, and I suspect many, many Catholics will wholeheartedly agree with me, at least off-the-record.

Most of my best friends are Roman Catholics. Dem and Republican alike, they are fine, upstanding people I'd entrust my life to. It's an unbelievable shame that those who constitute the hierarchy of the American Roman Catholic Church (certainly not the laity and many fine parish priests) do not, either morally or theologically, measure up in the least to these wonderful, intelligent people to whom they regularly condescend. We wonder if Pope Benedict XVI, an anti-liberation theologian if there ever was one, is thinking right now about Cardinal Mahoney's theological and political asininity. We certainly hope so. A little "discernment" is in order here, and a change at the top in LA is clearly recommended.

Meanwhile, our correspondent mentions that:

We had active, faithful parishioners stand up and walk out of mass yesterday. This is going to be very divisive.

I'd have walked out, too.