S.F. archbishop defends role in Prop. 8 passage

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Catholic Archbishop George Niederauer, in his first extensive explanation about his role in the passage of Proposition 8, today defended the church's actions in the successful ballot initiative.

"Religious leaders in America have the constitutional right to speak out on issues of public policy," Niederauer wrote in a statement posted on the archdiocese's Web site. "Catholic bishops, specifically, also have a responsibility to teach the faith, and our beliefs about marriage and family are part of this faith."

... During the campaign, Niederauer issued statements, sent flyers and gave a videotaped interview posted at www.marriagematterstokids.org. But Niederauer's most prominent action was drawing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members responded with intensive grassroots organizing and an estimated $20 million in campaign contributions from individuals that accounted for half of the Yes on 8 campaign's total.

... Kevin Sullivan, a gay parishioner at St. Dominic's in the Fillmore district, found Niederauer's letter to be "very condescending" and said the archdiocese deserves the moniker of being bigoted.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/03/BAE814GUON.DTL&type=politics&tsp=1

[EFerrari]

1. Here's your architect, folks. The Chronicle has been really good

about exposing this guy.

[superconnected]

2. The sad thing is he acts like he speaks for everyone, and he absolutely does not.

[ksimons]

3. he's a big poopie hole

yes, I said it

poopie hole

[EFerrari]

4. Earliet Chron article on Catholic "shift":

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/09/MNU1140AQQ.DTL

[davidthegnome]

5. What a jerk

There are times when I regret abandoning the Catholic church - this is definitely not one of them. No, he certainly doesn't speak for everyone, I imagine most Catholics (and former Catholics) would agree that the man is a jerk.

They have a responsibility to teach their faith - but that is not what they are doing, rather, as in so many issues, they are forcing their faith upon people who want nothing to do with it. More than that, they are pushing personal, conservative philosophies (and those of the Vatican, which, contrary to popular opinion, most Catholics don't care about) that are not shared by most Catholics.

I sympathize with anyone who is presently a member of the Catholic church, it's a shame you can't get rid of these assholes.

[CatholicEdHead]

18. That is how you get ahead nowadays

Expect to see a transfer to Rome sooner than later for this. :puke: If you are over the top with Abortion and Gay Marriage you shoot to the top, otherwise you get stuck in one spot.

[IndianaGreen]

6. Why should the Catholic Church impose its sick morality on Jews? That's anti-Semitism!

As a Reform rabbi, my decision to support gay marriage is as much a civil rights issue as it is a Jewish one. I am deeply influenced by the roots of my tradition, which invite me to boldly interpret Jewish law to allow for the ongoing development of the Jewish people. My religion has always understood the need to adapt and change with a changing world. Judaism calls us to see all people as created "B'tzelem Elohim / In the Image of God." There must be no law that denies "kedushah / holiness" to two loving, consenting, committed, life partners. In the Torah, if a law was unfair, Moses would argue with God. And the law would change. Which state will be next? New York? New Jersey? Washington? Iowa? Florida? Barring gays and lesbians from marriage discriminates against a class of people because of who they are, not because of what they do. The justices of the California Supreme Court got it right. One day, as a nation, we will look back upon our blithe acceptance of discrimination against LGBT people, and we will marvel at our blindness. The late President of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Alexander Schindler, whom I revered and adored, presented me with my first Rabbi's Manual in 1978. Speaking to our World Congress of GLBT Jews at its 2000 New Jersey international conference, Rabbi Schindler proclaimed: "In our denial, in our failure to see one another as one family, we forget Jewish history, we opt for amnesia. We who were Marranos in Madrid, who clung to the closet of assimilation and conversion in order to live without molestation, we cannot deny the demand for gay and lesbian visibility."

Rabbi Harold F. Caminker

http://www.etz-chaim.com/rabbi%20harold%20caminker.htm

[Politicalboi]

7. Assholes

Marriage matters to kids. Don't they think that kids are gay too? I knew I was at 8 or 9. How comforting it would have been for me growing up knowing I can really marry the person I love. And how many alter boys have the catholic church hurt. The catholic church should be abolished.

[davidthegnome]

8. The catholic church, as a whole...

Is more made by the people than the clergy. Without daily worshippers and followers, they would not exist. Most Catholics, including most of my immediate family, fully support your right to marry who ever you wish to - as do I.

I despise the Vatican, but generally, I like Catholics, most of the Catholics I have known have been decent people. Very few assholes like this archbishop, if anything should be abolished (or remade) it is the Vatican. The second Vatican counsel accomplished some good things... I would love it if a third came during my lifetime. It is time for change and these assholes are not only holding people back, they're trying to dictate morality and control Nations as they did throughout history.

Sadly Catholics get their share of assholes, but they also have some really great people like Andrew Greeley. The man is (in my opinion) a living saint.

[JerseygirlCT]

9. I have to agree

But another council in the mold of Vatican II won't happen until Ratzinger is long gone. And probably long after that. JPII seeded the college of Cardinals with similarly minded conservatives. TBTB in the RCC are all more of a mind with Ratzinger than not, I'm afraid.

Which is a sore shame, and may in the end be the end of the RCC in the US at least. Many of us have left, many others haven't done so officially, but have in all but fact. Priests will continue to be more and more rare as the few idealogues left to enter seminary become even fewer.

I suppose it will be interesting, historically, to look back 1000 years from now and see what had happened.

[EFerrari]

14. In Venezuela, some priests recruited Anglican and Lutheran ministers

and created a "reformed" Catholic Church. Celibacy is up to the individual, gay folk are welcomed. I don't know how they're doing, though.

When I was a girl and dinosaurs roamed the earth, the Mass was still sung in Latin. Saddening to see something so beautiful behave as vindictively as the Church is behaving toward gays and women right now.

[JerseygirlCT]

15. I'd guess I'm just slightly younger than you are?

I have very, very vague memories of a latin mass... Definite ones of communion at an altar rail (not with my receiving, I don't think?). Let's just say I mostly came of age in a Vatican II church.

And with a rather more liberal-minded pastor. He fought to keep girls on the altar even when the bishop decided they didn't belong there. He would have been happy to welcome women to the priesthood. I doubt he had any problem with gay folk in the least. He took a while to get comfortable around kids, so at first he seemed sort of scary, but he was a good man.

It was sad to leave that place and see what was the church elsewhere. Oh dear. I couldn't raise my children in that. I couldn't leave church on a Sunday that pissed off. Eventually I found the Episcopal church - much the same liturgy, whole different attitude, democratic organization. Much easier fit for me.

But it continues to sadden me to see so many people held in thrall to the crooked demands of a group of frightened and bigoted old men. I pray for their enlightenment, I really do.

[EFerrari]

16. The church in our Irish Catholic neighborhood was the hub.

Where we went to school, where the young people went to dance, families went to carnivals. Our lives revolved around it entirely. My children were not brought up in the Church and while that was the right thing to do, I regret they didn't have the kind of community that I grew up in.

[JerseygirlCT]

22. Oh same for me - though it wasn't strictly Irish -

we were quite diverse - Italian Catholic, Polish Catholic, German Catholic as well, lol...

What was funny growing up was that my neighborhood was largely Catholic or Jewish. I remember asking was a Protestant was as a child - had no clue!

But yes, that sense of community, both in school and church, was wonderful. Sometimes a little bit of a tight squeeze, but always a home. My small church has given my kids that kind of home on a smaller level, but it's not quite the same.

[hedgehog]

21. This Irish Catholic is starting to look at the Episcopal Church.

I want the Eucharist, the Mass and my saints, but I'm starting to wonder how to get the RC Church back on track. It seems to be in a downward spiral of crabbed old men and women who want to pretend that they are in a cloister somewhere. (I respect the active sisters and the real cloistered sisters, but the super holy women who want to talk about Eucharistic adoration and sending their prepubescent sons to foreign seminar ires make my hackles rise!)

[JerseygirlCT]

23. Hey, we've even got nuns -

I didn't know that until I met some last year!

Though there are certainly some Episcopal parishes that are very strict, conservative and anything but inclusive, many are wonderful, open, intellectually curious places. Visit and see how you feel. I'll warn you though - you may be overwhelmed with welcome committee people. And you'll most likely be offered coffee and things to eat. I've found Episcopalians need to eat sweet things either before or after church, lol.

Seriously, the liturgy will leave you feeling quite at home - very similar. But there is a great deal of room for the "primacy of conscience" that seems to be honored more as a theory these days in the RCC. You do not need to leave your brain at the door, in fact, you might be asked to use it. And there's room for lots of difference on all sorts of matters theological. We come together for common worship - we don't have to agree on every aspect of theology.

[PassingFair]

26. My mother attends an Episcopal church with a gay female minister.

Makes it hard for this atheist to argue with my Mom!!

[JerseygirlCT]

27. Yeah - both of my full-time rectors have been women

(as opposed to interims).

And I really liked that model for my kids. We're in a new search right now - might have a new rector in the next few months.

And since the silliness over Gene Robinson's ordination, with a couple of parishes nearby being among the "CT 6", we've added some terrific people to our parish. Some of them gay - some just tired of the nonsense and very welcoming people. All great news for us!

[CatholicEdHead]

17. That movement has been the most hijacked

The one that wants to move us totally back to the old Latin mass and get rid of the current, newer form. They tend to be really judgmental and above all (think Society of St Pius X). Any movement towards Latin nowadays means to give up anything but a cold, harsh, male run Church with little spirituality. That is not so in the past as my parents have said, all Latin often had a heart unlike today.

[EFerrari]

19. I wonder what those old guys think women spoke in Rome?

lol

Spanish is my first language so Latin always sounded familiar and sort of beautiful to me. Knuckleheads.

[JerseygirlCT]

24. My dad still insists you're not really educated if you don't speak

Latin.

Of course, he was raised in with the Latin mass, and had to learn Latin at a Catholic U...

But he still has a point.

[PassingFair]

25. Why don't you institute a 3 month abeyance on tithing...

to show your displeasure at how YOUR money
is being spent.

I think a national protest of this magnitude
might have them thinking twice about supporting
these kinds of measures.

[Zhade]

33. HEAR HEAR!

NT!

[EFerrari]

34. That's a really good idea. They undestand money if not humanity. n/t

[hunter]

10. Niederauer is a braying ass.

Over and over you see them dancing around their own great turds.

"...all people are God's children and are unconditionally loved by God..."

Ahhh, so that's why it's okay to deny some of them their ordinary and entirely secular civil rights?

It's a turd, Niederauer, and you know it. You are a dangerous, destructive, and shallow minded twit. And guess what? You just took the name of your the LORD your God in vain.

Heck of a job, Niederauer, heck of a job...

[EFerrari]

13. This guy is a skilled strategist and was totally underestimated

by the No on H8 leadership in town -- which seems to be exactly what he wanted.

[hunter]

20. Great. Let's add bearing false witness to his sins.

Being a good poker player for the wrong side doesn't win you any heavenly prizes in a game of morality and ethics.

Religious leaders shouldn't be playing games of deception, but the Catholic Church gets lots of practice shuffling rotten priests around.

A "skilled strategist" can still be a braying ass and a shallow minded twit.

[closeupready]

11. You work to take our rights away, maybe we should work to take your rights away, archbishop?

You should keep your crap limited to your church, if you want to continue with your tax breaks.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

12. He should be lobbying for his right to pay taxes, then.

Nobody said that he didn't have the right to "speak out". But if he chooses to do that, he should not get tax exemption for it.

[bemildred]

28. Anus alert.

All these theologians are not used to having to compete and justify their actions. It's a whole new world. He absolutely does have a constitutional right to speak out, and his parishoners have a constitutional right to stop supporting him and his church and go somewhere else, or nowhere.

[EFerrari]

29. I distrust his vapid sounding statement.

He managed most of this with Mormon money and with spinners offloading attention. He's not an idiot.

[bemildred]

30. We disagree.

I think he is an idiot. He will regret this. He is starting to regret it already. There was no actual necessity for him to get this involved in this. The initiative was not a mandatory thing. He could have had a quiet, peaceful, satisfying life. Instead he is going to have gay activists after him until he dies.

[EFerrari]

31. The thing is, he didn't "get involved". He instigated it.

He may be evil, overreaching and corrupt, but he's not stupid. That's my only point. And maybe something to keep in mind.

He fooled people here into thinking he wouldn't fight very hard. He went out of his way to give a service award to a gay person and took flak from the community. It was a head fake and meant to put people off their guard.

We can never make that mistake with this man again.

[bemildred]

32. Allright, he's a stupid weasel.

I'm not suggesting that he be ignored or underestimated. It sounds to me like you are a good example of why I think he was stupid to instigate this.