The Patriarchy Strikes Back!
Although they have become known, with some justification, for defending Catholicism with the vigor with which the State Department defends the United States, some of America’s bishops are actually starting to defend Catholic principles with a vigor not seen in decades. “As a New Jersey governor and national Republican figure, Christie Whitman won votes and political acclaim by supporting abortion rights,” Kevin Shea reported in the Times of Trenton on October 7. “But the stance got Whitman bounced from a speaking gig at Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic school of 550 girls in Princeton Township.”
“Whitman, who served as New Jersey’s first and only female governor from 1994 to 2001, was booked to speak at a ‘Women in Leadership Forum,’ which had been scheduled for last night before the school canceled the event at the request of Diocese of Trenton Bishop John M. Smith.”
The bishop, Shea reports, said that Whitman’s abortion advocacy was “totally contrary” to Catholic tradition. Indeed it is, but the school’s headmistress doesn’t quite seem to get it. “We are sincerely disappointed that we will not be able to hear Governor Whitman speak about leadership to our students,” headmistress Sister Frances de la Chapelle wrote in a Sept. 30 e-mail announcing the cancellation. “However, as a Sacred Heart School, we respect and honor the views of the Roman Catholic Church.”
Providing “a rigorous education that incorporates all forms of critical thinking and inspires a lifelong love of learning,” is one of the school’s goals, she wrote. “We are saddened that our students, and the wider community, will not be enriched by the lively discussion and critical thinking that surely would have resulted from Governor Whitman’s lecture on leadership, values, and the environment,” Sister de la Chapelle lamented.
“We constantly strive to educate our girls to be critical, independent thinkers. Stuart’s entire program is designed to raise confident girls whose faith and sense of God lead them to change the world for the better,” she wrote. “I ask that we pray for our Church, Governor Whitman, and ourselves at this time.”
And we will say one for you too, Sister.
Meanwhile, the “patriarchy” of the Church is increasingly going back to that old-time religion in non-partisan fashion. “Sen. Barack Obama’s weekend announcement of his new running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden, was not even 24 hours old when Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver told an AP reporter the senator should not be presenting himself at the Communion table,” Washington Times reporter Julia Duin wrote on the newspaper’s blogroll on August 25. “In case any of you have not read a newspaper in the past month, the Democratic convention is in Denver as we speak, which makes the archbishop’s comments kind of in your face, don’t you think?”
“And if the Democrats don’t get that message, they’re welcome to join the prelate tonight when he and Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, demonstrate in front of a Planned Parenthood clinic not far from the convention center. Must say the archbishop is no shy guy when it comes to making a point.” No he isn’t.
Although perhaps more subdued, the Archbishop of Kansas City also made the point that receiving the Eucharist is a privilege, not a right. “And in May, Kansas City Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann publicly directed Gov. Kathleen Sebelius—who was being mentioned as possible Democratic vice presidential material—to refrain from Communion for her persistent support for abortion,” Valerie Schmalz reported in the Catholic publication Our Sunday Visitor on September 28. “The archbishop said he had given her a number of private admonitions.”
She never has been known to listen to reason.
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.
Malcolm A. Kline
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.
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