The Furious Spinner

I told you I'd have more to say about this topic. I took my earlier post and expanded it into this essay.

In a letter to his parishioners, Colorado Springs Bishop Michael Sheridan recently wrote, “Any Catholic politicians who advocate for abortion, for illicit stem cell research or for any form of euthanasia ipso facto place themselves outside full communion with the Church and so jeopardize their salvation. Any Catholics who vote for candidates who stand for abortion, illicit stem cell research or euthanasia suffer the same fateful consequences.”

In other words: if you’re Catholic and you vote for John Kerry, you’re a sinner, and you’ll go to hell if you don’t repent.

When I heard about this, I was stunned. Furious. The Catholic Church, which is in the middle of a molestation scandal involving over 4,000 of its priests, is trying to influence the course of an American election? The Catholic Church which moved these predatory sexual abusers from parish to parish for years—abusers who gave and received communion—is now telling Catholics they would be committing a sin if they voted for a pro-choice candidate?

I was raised Catholic in a rural town in Michigan. St. Patrick’s Church. Father McCann married my parents in the small stone church which stood on the edge of town. My older sister attended the school across the street from the church. She was left-handed and the nuns used to whack her left-hand with a ruler and tell her she was on the side of the devil. Fortunately by the time I entered school, the county had built a public school near my house, and I was spared the Catholic school. I was left-handed, too.

They tore down the stone church and built a newer church. It was there I spent part of my Sunday every week until I was an adult. It was there I took my first communion and had my confirmation. I attended mass there for nearly every holiday, went there for weddings and funerals. I knew practically every nook and cranny of the building, and nearly everyone I knew was Catholic and a Democrat—although I never heard a priest talking politics.

In high school, the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar came out. I was enthralled. I put a poster of Jesus on the back of my door. My good Catholics parents worried I was becoming a Jesus freak. My father bought me a blue laughing Buddha along with some incense. Later, for good measure, he got me a Pennsylvania hex sign to hang over my door.

About the same time, I went to the town mall and was confronted with huge displays of photographs of aborted fetuses. (Abortion was still illegal.) These photographs were probably 12’ x 12’. When I tried to walk away from one, I ran into another. They were arranged like a maze, so if you went to the mall, you had to look at them. I remember thinking I didn’t like the photographs, but I was even more disturbed wondering what kind of people would take the photos, blow them up, and force others to look at them.

In college, I studied various religions. As far as I could tell, not one of the organized religions respected women or held them equal to men—including and especially Catholicism. I decided I did not want anything to do with any religion where women were not full participants, equal with men.

I was even more appalled when I learned about the Inquisition and those times when women (and some men and children) were hunted down and murdered by the Catholic Church. The church even had a manual to help them find these heretics and witches. It was called the Malleus Maleficarum. If anyone ever had any doubt about how the Catholic Church felt about women, they had only to read this thing. Not only do the writers talk about how to spot the witch, they describe in gruesome detail all the ways to torture her. You’ve heard of the getting the third degree? It was a method of torture used during the inquisitions. Some people could resist the first degree of torture; some could even resist the second degree of torture, but everyone confessed to being a witch once they were given the third degree.

The last time I went to a full mass was nearly twenty years ago when my parents were visiting. The priest’s sermon was about how women were the fault of everything wrong in the world. I wanted to get up and leave but stayed out of respect for my parents. I was so angry. He went on and on about the state of the world: it was because women weren’t better mothers, weren’t better wives, weren’t better Catholics.

When mass was over, I said, “Mom, how could you sit there and listen to this man who has never been married and probably never even had a relationship with a women tell you that you are the cause of all the evil in the world?” My mother said, “Is that what he said? I wasn’t paying attention.” That explained a lot. I realized people were able to tolerate the misogyny and other problems with their religion because they weren’t paying attention. That is not my way.

I wonder if people are paying attention now? It is one thing for an institution to recommend a candidate to its members; it is quite another to tell people they would be sinning if they voted for a particular candidate.

The Catholic Church is a non-profit organization. This designation gives them huge tax benefits. But they are not allowed to tell people who to vote for. In fact, this Colorado bishop says in the letter that he cannot tell them who to vote for: wink, wink. Isn’t that the same as saying, “We mustn’t tell you who to vote for, but if you vote for candidate x, you WILL burn in hell for eternity.”

I called my father after I heard about the Colorado bishop. He has been Catholic all his life and has attended church nearly every Sunday of his life. I told him what the bishop had said.

“Remember when Kennedy was running,” my father said, “and they were worried he was too Catholic. Now they’re worried that Kerry isn’t Catholic enough. Kennedy said, ‘I won’t be a Catholic president; I’ll be a president who is Catholic.’ Kerry tried to say that, but they’re not letting it go.”

My father went on to tell me that it makes no difference to him what the pope or any bishop says. It is none of their business how he votes.

I asked, “This bishop says if a Catholic votes for a pro-choice candidate or a candidate who is for gay marriages, that person is a sinner and must go to confession and repent. If you vote for Kerry, will you feel like you’ve sinned?”

My father paused, then said, “If I thought anything, I’d think it would be a greater sin to vote for Bush.”

Amen to that, Dad.
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