Douthat, Poverty & Partisanship | National Catholic Reporter

Douthat, Poverty & Partisanship | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.MGB: MSW stole my thunder about the USCCB as the source of Obama's reaction.  And not just Obama.  Of course, it is hard for the Church to stay cutting edge on poverty and education when it embraces a management structure and style unchanged since the middle ages.  It is true that the bishops are in the middle of fundraising for poverty. What is also true is that the checking account the funds go into are legally the property of the bishop. Would it kill the church to go from feudalism to modern profits with independent boards?  Its not like they are going to be dominated by the local chapter of Planned Parenthood.



The bishops distrust the people as much - not about abortion but things they care about more - ordaining women (even though the laity can't ordain anyone, but can cut off the bishop's budget if he won't - of course, it the people wanted to make that point, it can do so now with its checkbook).  Sadly, the Gospel of Life is never more clear than when preached with a female voice.  Nuns are powerful by a female bishop would be even more so.



The Church lose the perception of being obsessed with overturning Roe and trying to stop marriage equality by dropping its support for the National Right to Life Committee and the Organization for Marriage.  Both approaches are lost causes.  We can increase family incomes for each child to stop abortion - and we would though the conservatives and libertarians would argue for individual responsibility (irony anyone?) and civil marriage equality cannot be stopped.  Indeed, since civil marriage is discouraged for heterosexuals but honored for employees of the Church, the same rule needs to be applied for gay civil marriages or bigotry is the only conclusion we can draw. As for religious marriages, a largely gay priesthood will be privately giving blessings soon. The bishops should let them as their penance for Proposition 8 and how it mandated gay long time companions be treated in Catholic hospitals (which has been revered but not atoned for).



We do a lot as a Church for the poor. but our voices could do a lot more.  We could also open private prisons for drug offenders and treat them like secure hospitals - with such energy that CCA goes bankrupt.  We could fight for  a huge child tax credit for working and poor families and could open votech high schools and our own remedial high schools, paying the students in both cases (the government does) and giving them the same health plan as their employees get.