The Vatican meltdown: toward a Catholic Church of America
I see a trend whereby American Roman Catholics, their American institutions, universities, and many businesses, are moving toward a Catholic Church of America. One could study the Church of England’s history. Yet, just as there are Roman Catholics in England still, no break will be a simple clean one. Americans stand upon their own two feet and have choices.
When our Roman Catholic Vice-President shared his support for gay marriage while appearing on the May 6, 2012 program of Meet the Press, people took note I think. Our President announced his supporting view that week. Things happen slowly, so slowly that we rarely have the time or interest to pay attention in this very accelerated time of information access. We tend to establish a day-to-day view of news. We focus upon headlines, front pages, front-ends because we just don’t have the time to follow issues as they develop and connect.
The Vatican (a country as well as the Pope’s residence) cleaned house yesterday. The Board of the Vatican Bank (or Institute for Religious Works - Istituto per le Opere di Religione – IOR) relieved its President, Gotti Tedeschi. An American, Carl Anderson (13th and current Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus), sits on the board of now four members. The story details will emerge over the coming days. Did Tedeschi leak documents along with the Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, who also lost his job yesterday?
The Vatican is a sovereign nation and they will settle their sovereign issue. A book released this past week by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi entitled “His Holiness” contains some of the leaked information - unavailable in an English translation today.
And who will bailout the Vatican? And why is the Vatican Bank on a US State Department list of international banks “capable” of fraudulent practices? The Vatican’s Secretary of State and the 85 year old Pope’s second in authority, Cardinal (and possible next Pope) Tarcisio Pietro Evasio Bertone, seems to be handling all this turmoil quite well. Lack of what we call transparency allows for that flexibility and dexterity - a sovereign nation that is both church and state, a very real world power.
In American journalism, we rarely see connections. We read about individual issues. Do readers care or have the time to care? Should American Catholics be concerned, or do they know for that matter, that their Holy See and his nation-state flounder precariously along with the other EuroZone financially unstable nations of Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland? In America, when Catholics hit the front page of attention, the story is about ideas, not politics or economics. Here in America, most journalists view the world with an American lens complete with a Church/State, albeit blurry, dividing depth of field.
There may be conspiracies afoot to some, but not to me. I see this nation-state, the Vatican in a state of damage control for very good reasons. Yes, my Pope resides there. I sense economic struggle. I read about the struggle of ideas in America. I hear my Vice-President make a pronouncement counter to the Pope’s instructions and counsel. I see how my President stacks his Court with liberal minded judges. I understand why my Pope has stacked his College of Cardinals with what some call “conservative” Cardinals. I understand why American Catholic writers hesitate to write about this complexity in the mainstream media.
The relationships between religion, sovereign national authority, and financial power are close and united in the Vatican. One reads about the worries of Sharia and yet this struggle within the Vatican and the American Catholic Church worries me more. It seems more complex and powerful to me.
And amid the complexity, I see a trend whereby there will be a movement among the majority of American Catholics to eventually divest their ties from the authority of the Pope and his nation-state, the Vatican. It will take time, but I felt it was manifested with Vice-President Joe Biden’s announcement, with the Vatican Bank making the State Department list of “questionables” and when JP Morgan Chase asked the Vatican Bank to “remove their portfolio”…and of course JP Morgan Chase is in a bit of an awkward investigation now with the Federal Government.
I see a Vatican economic meltdown in progress and a trend toward the establishment of a Catholic Church of America.
Brian Berry
11 months, 4 weeks agoYou won’t see a Catholic Church of America mainly because, the church owns all the properties. The parishoners don’t own the churches stuff.
The church of England was created by a ticked off King Henry the 8th. He seazed catholic properties by force and put himself in charge. If our government tried that, it would violate the consitution. And, Obama would make a lousey high priest. If catholics don’t like the Vatican, just leave the church. In America, you aren’t bound to the church. So if you don’t like it, leave! The Catholic Church, or any religion for that matter, teaches how you should live not, a social club.
JR Beillenhouser
11 months, 4 weeks agoBrian hits it on the head. The real issue is that Tom is a cafeteria catholic. Just like many catholics who grew up in the 70s and 80s, they attended catholic institutions but never really understood or were taugh catholicism. The catholic bishops understand that and are making changes to address those issues.
Is Joe Biden catholic? No, he is a politician. This administration has been the most anti-catholic in recent history. How in right mind can any catholic support the democratic party in it’s current state and beliefs. Voting for them is a vote against catholicism. The only mistake the church has made is that is should should stand up more to supposed catholics like Biden, or Sebelius. It should also ensure that it’s teachings are not watered down at jesuit universities.
In reality, there already is a catholic church of america. It consists of the 33% of catholics in name only who attend church only on Easter and Christmas.
Mark Hastert
11 months, 4 weeks ago“The real issue is that Tom is a cafeteria catholic.”
Read more here: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/the-vatican-meltdown-toward-a-catholic-church-of-america/#storylink=cpy
I don’t know what religion the writer practices but I’ll bet him a cup of coffee that he’s a cafeteria (fill in the blank). If every person claiming that the Bible is the absolute truth and the word of God they’d all be living as orthodox Jews.
We pick and choose the scripture they like, interpret it as we like in whatever self serving manor we like. We enjoy our tasty bacon cheeseburgers, wear our cotton polyester clothes, perform servile work on the Sabbath, and generally do anything we please because there is always a preacher somewhere that will find you a scripture passage to make it ok. So until you are a real Christian (or whatever) spare us the sanctimony.
JR Beillenhouser
11 months, 4 weeks agoWell them Mark, you’d be wrong. I don’t drink coffee, but I’ll let you owe me a coke. I am a Catholic and I don’t pick and choose. I know Tom Ryan is, based on other threads and comments that have been made in the past.
You may pick and choose and interpret as you like, mainly because you are a progressive, but alot of us don’t.
Nice try. And if you are not Catholic, butt out, you don’t know what you are talking about. Talk about sanctimony.
Tom Ryan
Crossroads, Kansas City
11 months, 4 weeks agoThanks for your comments and insights. :-)
Mark Hastert
11 months, 4 weeks ago“And if you are not Catholic, butt out,”
Read more here: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/the-vatican-meltdown-toward-a-catholic-church-of-america/#storylink=cpy
You’d best get into your Leviticus JR and see just how cafeteria you are. If Holy Mother Church teaches us that the bible is the word of God then we’re ignoring a lot of what we were told to do. We’ve edited out the parts we don’t like.
God gave us ten commandments, just the ten, no amendments, no footnotes. Early in his ministry when asked Jesus focused on only the two greatest. That ought to enough to keep us. All the rest is “inspired by” like Tom Clancy novels written by other authors who use his name to sell their books.
I don’t remember anything about building palaces for the princes of the church. Women played a significant role in the ministry of the early church.
The Catholic church is like today’s Republican Party, a bunch of old white guys protecting their turf. Sooner or later the laity, as they always do, will lead the church into modernity with Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops dragging their heels, kicking and whining all the way. And they will follow the laity because the laity is the church.
JR Beillenhouser
11 months, 4 weeks agoMark embarrasses himself with what he claims to know about Catholicism. God gave us 10 commandments in the old testament. The new testament supersedes the old, in which Christ gave us only 2 commandments (which summarized the 10, it did not remove any of the original intent of the 10).
Likewise, Leviticus is an old testament book. Perhaps you confuse Catholics with fundamentalists.
Additionally, Catholics do not believe in creationism. Catholics believe that the bible is the “inspired word of God”, but it does not end there.
Catholics have over 2000 years of teachings that have been consistent. Many other church’s change with the wind, based more on popularity than what is right. You can call that old fashioned, we Catholics believe that wrong doesn’t turn to right just because society now thinks it is ok.
Catholicism has survived different societies and persecutions and will surely survive this one as well. This one, if you hadn’t noticed, is falling apart.
Mark Hastert
11 months, 3 weeks ago“inspired word of God” ….yeah well let’s just leave it there. I take it from there that you don’t believe in the old testament, very cafeteria of you. The Church is filled with doctrine that Christ never taught and is so far removed from what Christ taught in both word and deed it’s not recognizable. The Pope, Cardinals, and Bishops live like feudal kings and princes. Where is that in Christ’s teachings? It’s not the orthodox that has kept the Church alive for 2000 years, it’s the heretics. Christ’s work is being done in the parishes, on the streets and in the prisons but priests, nuns and laity. The Church hierarchy is nothing but a bunch of old white guys protecting their turf.
JR Beillenhouser
11 months, 3 weeks agoYou are so bright, you don’t even know what a cafeteria Catholic is. You don’t have a clue what the Catholic Church believes, but are sure to speak against it any chance you get. That is just plain ignorance. Do yourself a favor, at least do a little research so you can try to write with some intelligence. You are embarrassing yourself.
Johnathon Busby
11 months, 3 weeks agoThe Catholic church has been very careful of late about preventing their subsidiaries from repeating the protestant movement. They know they’ve lost all moral authority; their status as an organization which covers up the crimes of child molesters is now well known. Now, the desperately attempt to regain that moral authority by persecuting those within their own ranks who would dare to act without the Church’s say so, who dare to adhere to Jesus’ teachings of peace and love rather than hate and condemnation.
Here’s to the people coming to realize they never needed the church in the first place. An ever living God does not need a Pope to speak for Him.
Mark Hastert
11 months, 3 weeks ago“And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece”….Luke 9:3 Doesn’t sound like the Catholic hierarchy much does it?…nothing but a bunch of old white guys protecting their turf.
Johnathon Busby
11 months, 3 weeks agoOh, I was raised catholic here in the area. A little background about me if anyone cares with regards to my statement.
George Hunsucker
Northland
11 months, 3 weeks agomark continues to show his Christian love, NOT, for we old people…. HIs parents must be so proud……
Johnathon Busby
11 months, 3 weeks agoI think Mark is objecting to the vast wealth the church has managed to amass while preaching humility, temperance, and charity. I don’t see anything about the elderly, in any context…
JR Beillenhouser
11 months, 3 weeks agoThe Catholic Church through Catholic Charities gives more to the poor yearly than most of the governments of the world combined. The vast wealth of the church is mostly prevalent to works of art and to land owned by the Church. You guys don’t seem to have a problem when the government collects vast amount of money to perform their “work” but do with the Church.
“persecuting those within their own ranks who would dare to act without the Church’s say so, who dare to adhere to Jesus’ teachings of peace and love rather than hate and condemnation” What a bunch of BS. What persecution is occurring? If you don’t like Church teaching, leave. Good Riddance. No one is forcing you to stay. You that support abortionists or vote for items contrary to the Church, can’t call yourselves Catholic. You are not. And simply stating that fact is not persecution.
Additionally, please provide links where the Catholic Church is condemning people for their beliefs. You will find articles supported by the Church that state what the Church is for, what it is against, but you will not find the persecution, damnation, and condemnation that you claim.
JR Beillenhouser
11 months, 3 weeks agoOh and being raised a catholic and actually being one and\or understanding what Catholicism are two different things. From your past comments, it is apparent that you are just another misguided progressive.
Tom Ryan
Crossroads, Kansas City
11 months, 3 weeks agoJR…I see a trend and shared what I see. Do you see any trends on this subject of Catholicism? I also appreciate the adjective you gave to me and you’ve inspired me to write an essay about creeds and how we often view them as checklists. Thanks.
Phil Cardarella
11 months, 3 weeks agoMuch of the history of the last 2000 years has involved goodCatholics working around bad Popes. This really is no different.
Frankly, the popes who only showed the human frailties like having mistresses are no bother. It has always been those with lust for POWER who have caused the greatest problems. An insitution that only allows old, unmarried men in its decision making positions truly is instutionally incapable of even understanding how screwed up it is.
But, that has been true for a very long time. Fact is, most Catholics pay lip-service to Rome & ignore the dumbest stuff. And, when the hierarchy gets too troublesome? Peter’s Pence drops dramatically, and the Pope has to make due with fewer Prada slippers untilhe backs off.