The Conclave

As Roman Catholic cardinals gather in the magnificent Sistine Chapel to select a new pope, their conclave, steeped in centuries of tradition, is at a critical crossroads.  Will the cardinals vote for a pope who can re-energize the faithful, and restore the trust that has been missing for millions of lapsed Catholics?

The conclave is both fascinating and intriguing.  The College of Cardinals will sit at tables amid great works of art, including Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam", a fresco on the ceiling, and "The Last Judgment", which covers the entire wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel.  The 115 cardinals eligible to vote will deliberate in absolute secrecy, and will vote until someone receives two-thirds of the ballots, or 77 votes. 

Politics will play a major role in the selection.  Rumors swirl around the Vatican of factions, those who favor some reform versus those who wish to preserve the traditions.  There is an air of great urgency as well as anticipation surrounding this conclave.

The Catholic Church has been roiled in controversies and crises that have it on the defensive.  The sex abuse scandal has cast a dark shadow over the religion, and the Church's handling, cloaked in secrecy, has been disastrous.  The impact has been felt in Ireland, Germany, South America, and in the United States.  Thousands of young men and women were victimized, and millions of dollars have been paid in settlements. This great tragedy is far from over.

The resignation of Pope Benedict the XVI shook the foundations of the Church.  The 85-year-old pope stepped down last month citing a "lack of strength of mind and body" to carry on as leader.  In additional to the sex abuse scandal, Pope Benedict had been recently tested by internal fighting, allegations of corruption, leaks and wiretaps. 

The Church itself is being tested by sharply declining church attendance, especially in Europe, and the United States.  It is being challenged in South America by growing evangelical movements.  While it is still expanding in Africa and parts of Asia, overall the Church is losing its relevance for many Catholics. 

The Church's firm stand on birth control, homosexuality, women priests and allowing its clergy to marry does not reflect the feelings of many Catholics, especially in America. Yet, there seems to be little prospect that the new pope will alter the Church's stand on any of these issues.

Will the new pope be an American?  For instance, will it be the charismatic Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, or the humble Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley of Boston?  The conventional wisdom is that the conclave will not select a pope from a super power.  Instead, the frontrunner may be Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan, who is widely respected and has steered clear of many controversies. Also getting attention are Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer of Brazil, Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Canada and Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana.


When the conclave elects a new pope, white smoke will billow from a chimney atop the Sistine Chapel.  That will be the first sign that a new pope has been selected to lead the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.  He will be regarded by the faithful as the successor to St. Peter, the Apostle.  But, will he be a man who can breath new life into the Church?   

            

Limbaugh's Disgrace

Rush Limbaugh is a national disgrace. He is a blowhard and a bully who earns an enormous amount of money by fanning the flames of hatred and divisiveness in this country.

The tragedy is that several million people listen to his program and actually believe he is an intelligent, responsible and caring person. Even more outrageous is the fact that he has most Republicans so cowed that they are unwilling to speak out against him when he says something disgusting and maliciously hateful.

On Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh decided to take on a college student, someone's daughter, for supporting a requirement that health insurance cover contraception. He called Sandra Fluke, a 23 year-old Georgetown law student, a "slut" on his radio broadcast. On Thursday Limbaugh continued his attack.  "A Georgetown coed told (Congresswoman) Nancy Pelosi's hearing that the women in her law school program are having so much sex they're going broke.  So you and I should have to pay for their birth control. So what would you call that?  I called it what it is," he harrumphed.  "So I am offering as compromise today: I will buy all of the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as they want." 

The "aspirin between their knees" was obviously Limbaugh's tribute to Santorum supporter Foster Friess who left MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell stunned when he outrageously made the suggestion as an alternative to contraception on her program last week. But Limbaugh was not done with his tirade.  "So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here's the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch."

 Later on Thursday 75 members of Congress sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner expressing their anger at Limbaugh's remarks and calling for Republican leaders to speak out.  But the Republican Party appears to have a tin ear when it comes to women's health issues, especially contraception. 

Leading Republican candidates are against having the federal government require employers to provide access to certain health care coverage including contraception.  An attempt by Republicans to pass such an amendment in the Senate on Thursday was defeated.  The Republicans are trying to spin this an issue of the federal government trying to interfere with religious freedom and the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church has forbidden the use of contraceptives for 50 years.  However, most Democrats say the underlying issue is giving women access to the health care they need.

Now this debate has become central in the Republican presidential primary.  Candidates Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney (after a brief flip-flop) supported the Republican amendment that went down to defeat.  And Santorum, a Catholic, has been very clear about his view on contraception.  "One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country," he has said.  "Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that's okay, contraception is okay. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." 

  

But it appears that Santorum has staked out a position on contraception at odds with most women.    99% of all American women, and 98% of all Catholic women in the United States, have used contraception at some point in their lives according to published statistics.  For most of them it is a health issue. 

However, don't try telling that to Rush Limbaugh.  He is having too much fun harshly attacking a young lady for speaking her heartfelt opinion about an issue of concern to all women.   But how can his advertisers support his debasing rants? This world would be so much better off if Limbaugh put two aspirin between his lips and he kept them there!

Contraception Compromise?

The Obama administration's decision to require religious institutions to provide health insurance that covers birth control and other contraceptive services has resulted in a firestorm of protest from the Catholic Church and Republican presidential candidates. Given the importance of the issue to many Catholics the administration will have to compromise.

There are more than 65 million Catholics in the United States, the country's largest religious denomination. President Obama carried 54% of the Catholic vote in 2008 according to exit polls. The Catholic Church, which is totally opposed to any form of contraception, oversees more than 600 hospitals nationwide and cares for one in six patients each year. Even so, most employees are not Catholic.

President Obama and Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York discussed the subject in a meeting at the White House last fall. "The president seemed very earnest, he said he considered the protection of conscience sacred, that he didn't want anything his administration would do to impede the work of the church that he claimed he held in high regard," Dolan said in late January. "I have to say, there's a sense of personal disappointment."

Yet, according to a report from the Guttmacher Institute, more than two-thirds of all Catholic women use sterilization, the birth control pill, or an IUD. The Institute says that, "making contraceptives more affordable and easier to use reflects the needs and desires of the vast majority of U.S. women and their partners, regardless of their religious beliefs."

Pointing out that 28 states require contraception to be covered by insurance, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius defended the policy Monday in a USA Today op-ed. "Today, virtually all American women use contraception at some point in their lives," Sebelius wrote. "And we have a large body of medical evidence showing it has significant benefits for their health, as well as the health of their children." She noted that the cost of birth control might be too expensive for some women who are not covered by insurance.

Former House Speaker and current Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has accused the Obama administration of waging a "war against religion" because of the requirement that Catholic hospitals and universities must cover contraception as part of their employee health plans.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner, called the administration's decision on contraception a "violation of conscience." "We must have a president who is willing to protect America's first right, a right to worship God, according to the dictates of our own conscience," Romney said Monday.

But last week The Boston Globe reported, "Romney required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims, even though some Catholics view the morning-after pill as a form of abortion." "President Obama's plan certainly constitutes an assault on the constitutional rights of Catholics," C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, said in an interview with the Boston Globe, "but I'm not sure Governor Romney is in a position to assert that, given his own very mixed record on this."

In her op-ed Secretary Sebelius said, "We specifically carved out from the policy religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith. This exemption includes churches and other houses of worship, and could also include other church-affiliated organizations." And she noted that doctors are not required to prescribe contraceptives and no one is required to buy them.

Nonetheless, no matter how the administration explains the decision, most Catholics see the proposal as forcing institutions run by the Catholic Church to violate the churches' own moral teachings. And, while well intentioned, this does not make sense and it is not smart politics.

The Church

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week in the Catholic Church. Yet this week the dark cloud of scandal once again hangs over the church as millions of Catholics gathered for services throughout the world.

Pope Benedict XVI did not address the growing scandal surrounding pedophile priests in his Palm Sunday mass at St. Peter's Cathedral, other than an indirect reference. The pope prayed in Portuguese, "For the young and for those charged with educating them and protecting them." Yet in his homily the pope said that Jesus Christ guides his faithful, "toward the courage that doesn't let us be intimidated by the chatting of dominant opinions, towards patience that supports others."

No doubt many of the parishioners who crowded into St. Peter's were disappointed that the Pope didn't address the issue head on. But this has often been the failing of the church since this crisis first broke eight years ago. Then it was an "American problem" that church officials at first tried to minimize. The result has been damaging to the church and undermines the institution's "moral credibility," in the words of one Vatican official. Perhaps it is Christ's words, from St. Luke's "Passion," that ring true for many Catholics: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."

It has been reported about 4% of American Catholic priests were accused of abuse between 1950 and 2000. In 2003, a group of lay people reported to the U.S. Conference of Bishops a number of possible reasons for the scandal. These included improper screening of candidates for the priesthood, poor training and a pervasive attitude among some bishops that the needs of the Church come ahead of the needs of individuals.

Yet while some measures were put in place to address the underlying problems in the American church, recently more incidents of priestly pedophilia have become public, including in Europe. A priest in Wisconsin abused 200 deaf students and the church hierarchy quashed efforts to give him a trial. Now the Vatican finds itself defending the pope's handling of sex abuse cases both when he was archbishop of Munich, Germany, and when he headed the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The Catholic faithful are being truly tested this week, but so too is the church leadership. New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan spoke about the accusations on Palm Sunday, "Sunday mass is hardly the place to document the inaccuracy, bias and hyperbole of such aspersions." Archbishop Dolan noted that Pope Benedict had done more than most to address the problem, "Palm Sunday Mass is surely a fitting place for us to express our love for and solidarity for our earthly shepherd now suffering from the same unjust accusation and shouts of the mob as Jesus did."

In many local parishes priests addressed the scandal. One courageous priest, speaking in a voice filled with sadness and frustration, warned that there are no "short cuts to resurrection." He observed that the scandals were "poorly handled by church management," and called for truthfulness and a "searing admission of past wrongs." Innocent lives have been damaged, and in some cases destroyed, by the appalling sex abuse scandals involving Catholic priests. While such repulsive behavior has been reported in other religions and cultures, it must not be minimized by this church.

The church's scandals are a difficult and complicated challenge for the world's most populous religion, but there is no more urgent issue facing Catholicism. Perhaps its leaders should reflect in deep prayer on Christ's journey; from his conviction, to his crucifixion, burial and then his resurrection.