Former Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput took the reins in sex-scandal-plagued Philadelphia last week. A sampling of YouTubes posted last week offers a snapshot of his trying first days there, a new Church leader in a place grown deeply distrustful of Church leaders.

A video posted Thursday captured angry Catholics protesting outside the mass held to install Chaput in his new position.

“We’re here to welcome Archbishop Chaput with an appropriate welcome, I think,” said one protester, “and that’s to ask him, Number One, to tell the truth; Number Two, to make survivors and their healing a priority; and, Number Three, to not to take any of the arrogance of the hierarchy and bring it to Philadelphia. ”

“I think [Chaput] should support the kind of legislation that protects children,” said another protester. “That would be a good start. Pennsylvania needs a law. There should be window legislation allowing these people to have a day in court.”

Chaput is not likely to support any kind of “window legislation”– laws that would extend statutes of limitations in civil cases brought against clergy accused of sexual abuse– which is surely partly why Pope Benedict appointed Chaput to the position.

Chaput has established a strong record over the last decade of successfully guarding the Church against the fallout of sexual-abuse charges. He has shown personal compassion for victims and has moved swiftly to remove accused priests from public ministry. But he has also pushed back hard against legal efforts to hold the Church responsible for abuse, mainly by battling to prevent the kind of high-dollar payouts to victims made by the Church in recent years and that culminated, perhaps, in the hundreds-of-million-dollar payouts that came in the late-2000s in California.

Indeed, Chaput’s scrappy efforts in opposing window legislation have become a model to Church leaders in the U.S. He is a modern prelate who gets dirty playing hardcore politics.

In opposing a Colorado same-sex civil unions bill last year, Chaput pressed his case against the bill from the pulpit and in essays that fudged the facts, a tactic Joelle Casteix, Western Regional Director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said he also used in opposing window law bills here.

In a blog post on the news of his appointment to Philadelphia, she sounded an alarm:

In 2006, when Colorado legislators tried to expand archaic statutes of limitations for victims of child sexual abuse, including a civil window for older victims, Chaput spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and used the pulpit to kill the legislation… While fighting a [2008 version of the legislation], Chaput played a game well known in politics: “I’m bad, but so are they.” To do this, his lawyers did a simple search of Colorado public school teachers who had been arrested for sexual abuse. Then they put the names in a list, publicized it, and claimed that Chaput had unearthed a scandal of molestation in the public education system.  The PR stunt was a slap in the face of clergy sex abuse survivors.  Why? Because the teachers on Chaput’s list were already exposed and  arrested, unlike the vast majority of the predator clerics in the Catholic Church.  The teachers on Chaput’s list were not carefully hidden by their superiors, shuttled from parish to parish, covered-up by Church officials, and allowed to molest more kids.

In fact, according to Bishop-Accountability.org, the leading database of documents chronicling the sex abuse crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church, Chaput has been less than forthcoming in naming accused clergy.  In 2004, when the first national John Jay study on abusive priests was released, Chaput fudged the math. He only reported diocesan priests and didn’t submit any information on religious order priests who – like himself – make up more than half of the priests in the diocese. (Chaput is a religious order priest, a Capuchin OFM).  Then, he only submitted the names of priests that the diocese had “confirmed” had abused kids, not the number of total accusations.

Chaput’s installment is the latest chapter in one of the most high-profile contemporary Church upheavals in the country. The Philadelphia archdiocese has been doing major damage control since February, when a grand jury skewered Cardinal Justin Rigali, his bishops and staff for retaining dozens of problem priests. It charged three priests and a Catholic school teacher with rape and a priest-administrator or monsignor with endangering children by only shuffling accused priests to different posts. The panel said the Church allowed nearly 40 suspected abusers to continue working.

The strain on internal relations at the archdiocese is a matter of public record. The head of the archdiocese panel on priest sex abuse last month responded angrily to criticism heaped on the panel by the grand jury. Ana Maria Catanzaro wrote at the Catholic magazine Commonweal that Rigali and his bishops “failed miserably at being open and transparent” with the panel and so panel members couldn’t perform genuine oversight and shouldn’t be made to carry blame.

“What will it take for bishops to accept that their attitude of superiority and privilege only harms their image and the Church’s image?” she wrote.

In a video that introduces Chaput to Pennsylvanians, the archbishop sought to make the focus of the story of his installation wider than merely the sex-abuse controversy.

“Everybody’s talking about the problems Philadelphia has,” he said, “but that’s not who Philadelphia is… It’s very important for us to see [ourselves] as more than the problems we have.”

Another video, also posted last week, asks Chaput whether he believes “priests should be held to a higher standard.”

It’s an intimate piece, in which Chaput looks weary, his quiet and measured response conjuring the weight of the long slog ahead of him.

“Priests are human and they will sin,” he said. “But we also know god desires to use them as symbols of his presence among the church. So priests, when they accept the sacrament of ordination, they’re accepting responsibility to try very hard to be faithful to every teaching in the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Reverend James Conley, auxiliary archbishop of Denver, was appointed apostolic administrator of the Denver archdiocese by Pope Benedict until he appoints a new archbishop. A spokesperson for the diocese told the Colorado Independent that that process could take roughly six months to a year to complete.

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Prominent Christian pastors in the United States who have dedicated themselves to serving the poor and most vulnerable citizens don’t believe in trickle-down economics and they don’t believe the problem of poverty should be left for churches to address. More than 4,000 of those pastors signed an open letter to that effect addressed to President Obama and the members of Congress, urging them as they hammer out a federal budget not to make poor and hungry Americans bear the burden of reducing the nation’s deficit. More than 95 pastors and clergy members in Colorado signed the letter, which appeared in Politico Wednesday.

“How narrow and limited and disappointing the budget debate has become in this town,” said Jim Wallis, president of Washington D.C.-based Sojourners, a national Christian nonprofit dedicated to social justice, in a conference call with reporters. “It’s about who’s up and who’s down, what the latest polling says about how a decision this way or that way might affect electoral fortunes in the next election. But there’s nothing about people, real people. Who is going to really suffer and pay the price for bad decisions made in this capital city?

Aghast at the debate, Wallis was moved to ask pastors around the country to weigh in on the budget and raise their own related priorities absent in the news.

“We thought, let’s go to pastors, particularly because some in this town believe churches should do all this, that government has no role and that pastors could just take care of the problem [of poverty]. Anyone who knows about poverty or knows or lives alongside poor people, knows that’s not an answer.

“Jesus once said ‘come and see.’ Well, I’d like members of Congress to come and see and meet the people who are going to be impacted by their decisions. But they don’t do that. They don’t come and see. They don’t go and look. They don’t find out.”

How would Jesus attack the deficit?

So far the budget wrangling in Washington now tied to raising the national debt ceiling has been massively tilted toward cutting entitlement spending rather than on raising revenue, which means it has been tilted toward shrinking programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Headstart and the WIC food program for impoverished women and children.

That approach to the budget spearheaded by Wisconsin Catholic Republican Paul Ryan has irked some Christian groups, which have launched a campaign against the Ryan budget plan and confronted its author in public as fellow Christians. Ryan has defended the plan as a long-term fiscal and cultural solution. He says reducing government spending is necessary medicine that, in effect, will reform what he sees as a failed approach to public policy. He says austerity is the only way to “save” essential programs like Medicare by ensuring future prosperity.

Unlike the pastors who signed Wallis’s open letter yesterday, Catholic Church leaders endorsed delivered a mixed message on the Ryan approach. In May, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent the congressman a letter commending his “continued attention” to Catholic social justice “in the current delicate budget considerations in Congress” but he fell short of an endorsement, pointing to concerns about the poor, as some Catholic writers were quick to point out (here and here). The bishops also joined the Circle of Protection, where members pledge to work to safeguard programs that serve Americans in need, many of which Ryan has placed in his cross-hairs.

Congressional Republicans, urged on by the anti-government Tea Party, so far remain intransigent. They stress entitlement programs as the only viable target and have said repeatedly that they will accept no tax raises during the recession, even though Obama has said no proposed increases would go into effect before 2013, including eliminating the Bush tax breaks for the highest earning Americans.

“I would want more revenues, and fewer cuts to programs for middle class families,” Obama said in a press conference Monday, giving a rough outline of the budget discussions. “But that’s the point. I’m willing to move in [the Republican] direction to get something done. And that’s what compromise entails.”

Progressive Democrats and economists on the left have been horrified by the president’s proposed compromise and the lopsided nature of the debate. They say a jobless recession is no time to attack debt and exactly the time to spend to generate jobs and government revenue. They point out that revenue has been withering for nearly a decade as government leaders from both parties have OK’d slashed taxes and rudderless wars on two continents—and until last year did so while watching the deficit soar like a colorful holiday balloon. Obama, wrestling with the recession since before he took office, has set taxes for Americans even lower than they were under Republican George W. Bush. And Wall Street, bailed out of the financial catastrophe, has returned to reveling in record profits. It’s not so much time for austerity and telling the poor to just “suck it up and cope,” they say, it’s time for everyone to contribute.

Yet, as Wallis pointed out on the call, lobbyists for the private jet industry have reportedly mobilized in the wake of Obama’s targeting for repeal tax breaks for billionaire plane owners.

“There is absolutely no desire on the part of any House Republicans I know to raise tax rates and tax revenues,” Colorado 5th District Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn wrote in a letter to supporters Wednesday. “I do not believe the president’s repeated references to relatively minor issues like corporate jet owners and hedge fund managers are helpful. This may appeal to class envy among some, but the dollar amounts involved will make almost no difference. Entitlements need to be looked at and should be part of the negotiations. That’s where the dollars are,” he said.

Just weeks ago, Lamborn unreservedly celebrated his vote for this year’s nearly $700 billion military budget.

‘If god does judge the nation’

Denver Reverend Nadia Bolz-Weber, pastor at House for All Sinners and Saints, signed the open letter to Obama and Congress. She added in a press release that she had been a recipient years ago of the WIC food program threatened by the budget negotiations.

“As a member of the clergy and a mother of two children with strong minds and bodies– minds and bodies which benefited for three years from WIC– I stand with all Christians in America who believe the cries of the poor and the cries of the children are not only the very voice of Christ, but are indeed the sound of our future waiting for response.”

She told reporters that the poor can’t afford lobbyists but that programs like WIC, which for example sees to basic nutritional needs of pregnant women and new mothers and their infants, should be seen as making an essential “investment in the minds and bodies of our children.”

“People who say they are pro-life,” she added, “should know WIC has saved more than 200,000 babies from dying at birth.

“If god does judge the nation,” she said, referencing the rhetoric surrounding Texas Governor Rick Perry’s Christian-right prayer fest scheduled for next month, “then it’s not on how we protect the wealth of the top percent [of earners].”

Rich Nathan, Senior Pastor of the Vineyard Church of Columbus in Ohio, conceded to reporters that there was an argument raging among Christians in America over government fiscal policy.

“There is an argument but to be quite honest I’m aware of no local pastor in central Ohio who says ‘I am opposed to government spending for the poor’ or ‘I am supportive of government cuts to programs for the poor because I am a follower of Jesus.’ I’ve never heard that statement in central Ohio, ever…

“On the other hand, I’m aware of many many pastors who would say ‘Out of my followship of Jesus, I cannot in good conscience support program cuts for the poor.’”

Wallis added that the stark choice between either attacking the deficit or attacking poverty is a false choice that has only recently gained widespread traction.

“There’s been bipartisan agreement in the past to [protect] the most vulnerable… We have [in the past] reduced the deficit and poverty simultaneously. Everything should be on the table,” he said.

Wallis said he initially sought to draw 1000 pastor and clergy signatures but that the letter drew escalating interest.

At least 350 Catholic clergy members signed on to the letter, although that number includes only one from Colorado: Fort Collins resident Bill McClellan, a deacon at Colorado State University church John XXIII.

That the letter drew a signature of support from a deacon who openly professes dedication to social justice but not from a single priest in the state is perhaps unsurprising, given that the archdioceses here is run by outspoken political conservative bishop Charles Chaput.

–
Note: Thanks to Kristin Ford for clarification on the position taken by U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

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Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput has weighed in on the recent Supreme Court decision (pdf) that struck down a law banning the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. His arguments in favor of restricting the availability of video games echo his views on gay marriage and civil unions. Government should step in, he says, and bar gay marriage and restrict violent video game availability based on the “common sense” threats they pose. In opening an essay on the topic, Chaput references the 1999 Columbine school shootings.

“I spent the day after the massacre… trying to make sense of the violence to the wider community…. Common sense tells us that the violence of our music, our video games, our films, and our television has to go somewhere, and it goes straight into the hearts of our children to bear fruit in ways we can’t imagine— until something like [Columbine] happens.”

Chaput, who often raises alarm bells about the negative influence of the media, advances concerns that video games don’t just “simulate” violence but “stimulate” violence as well.

Scientific research is far from clear on that point, however, with the strongest studies suggesting that depression, alienation and the influence of friends are much stronger predictors of violent behavior.

That debate will go on as more research results come in but until then, as most constitutional attorneys might add, “common sense” is no sufficient support for a court ruling limiting speech.

Chaput surely knows that but he likes the “common sense” argument. It’s the same rough argument he advanced against a Colorado same-sex civil unions bill last spring.

“The nature of marriage is a matter of common sense and long tradition… it is not simply a ‘religious’ issue.  Marriage has long been recognized as a lifelong relationship between one man and one woman that exists for the benefit of children and the protection of women.”

At the time, supporters of the civil union bill argued that Chaput’s common sense was not everyone’s common sense and was no valid legal justification, in any case, for the state to deny equal individual rights.

Church-state watchers will note that, in his discussion of the video game ruling and the civil unions bill, Chaput, who is often talked about as a candidate for higher church office and who has long encouraged Catholics to involve themselves in civic life as an obligation of the faith, has highlighted his basic position on the role of government.

When it comes to gay marriage, he wants the state to act to guard his version of Christian traditional marriage. In considering the video game violence, Chaput wishes the government would act to help parents guard their children against video game violence he considers dangerous.

It is perhaps unsurprising that a Catholic Archbishop would view government and invest in it as a hierarchical source of authority from which protection and morality might flow.

“All law serves—or should serve—the dual purpose of protecting the dignity of the human person and advancing the common good. A law which respects mothers and fathers trying to make good choices for their family does just that,” he writes.

Americans, however, disagree almost as much on what constitutes the common good as they do on what role government should play in the lives of the people.

Legal writer Emily Bazelon posted a constitutional view of the video game case as it approached the court last year. Bazelon is no “First Amendment absolutist,” as she put it, but she’s not sure the government would be properly fulfilling its role in U.S. life by helping parents choose what games are appropriate for their children to play.

To justify a limit on speech…. courts have to find that the state has a compelling interest and has used the least restrictive means to achieve it. Let’s stipulate for a second that the research on the link between playing games and acting more aggressive is good enough, despite the reasons for skepticism. What about the least restrictive means part? Does it really make sense to bar older teenagers from buying violent games? By 15 or 16, do they really need the state acting as their protector?

In this context, the answer is probably no. The idea that a 17-year-old can go to an R-rated movie alone and then be turned away at the video store seems kind of silly. Which means California’s ban is broader than it should be. And if the state lowered the age, say to 14, how many kids would it really affect? Isn’t the problem, if there is one, that parents are buying these games for their younger kids, rather than that kids are showing up at the store with $60 and toting the games home themselves? Video games are already labeled to alert parents to the violence inside the box…. some consoles come with controls so parents can block games they don’t want their kids to play. Banning the sale of these games to teenagers is an ineffectual gesture that mostly misses the point. It’s not up to the government to get kids to stop playing these games, whether they’re harmful or immoral or just a waste of time. It’s up to us.

If the readers who chose to comment at First Things, the religious website where Chaput published his essay, are any measure, the Christian flock might be as apt to accept Bazelon’s “common sense” as they are to accept Chaput’s “common sense” on the topic.

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This past spring, debate in Colorado over a same-sex civil unions bill raised questions about citizen equality, child and family protections, religious freedom and anti-gay bigotry. News coming out of Illinois, where a civil unions bill that passed in the fall is now taking effect, resurfaces those same issues. Catholic Charities of Rockford, a city just northwest of Chicago, announced it would no longer provide its state-funded foster care and adoption services. Organization representatives said they would not place children with unmarried couples and that the law now exposed them to litigation for that stand.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the decision could displace roughly 350 foster children and throw nearly 60 employees out of work.

“While we understand leaving this work will be very painful for our client families, employees, volunteers, donors and prayerful supporters, we can no longer contract with the state of Illinois whose laws would force us to participate in activity offensive to the moral teachings of the church — teachings which compel us to do this work in the first place,” Frank Vonch, director of social services for the Rockford diocese, told the Tribune.

Opinions differ about whether the present law protects Catholic Charities and other organizations that hold similar views from state and federal discrimination statutes.

American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois attorney Benjamin Wolf said that the need for child services in Rockford is great and so the decision on the part of the Catholic Charities agency there was disturbing. He said he thought the organization could have chosen a less-needy area of the state to make a statement of opposition to the new law.

“Rockford would not be the place I would’ve chosen… I am very sorry that they would give a greater priority to their commitment to continue discriminating than the health and welfare of Illinois children.”

The Rockford Register Star editorial board wrote that Catholic Charities of course had a right to its views but said the organization had to follow state laws if it was going to continue to accept tax money for its child care and placement programs.

“[C]hurch officials asked the legislature for special dispensation to discriminate… Catholic Church officials say the law doesn’t respect their right to define their own teachings. They still have that right. But when their teachings don’t respect state law, they shouldn’t expect Illinois to look the other way and award a contract anyway.”

The news from Illinois dovetails with developments in Washington. Christian groups are this week decrying the “Every Child Deserves a Family Act” introduced by Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., which they say would force organizations that receive federal aid to place children with families without regard to the sexual orientation or marital status of the prospective parents.

Peter Sprigg of the Christian right Family Research Council said the act would “either ban Christian adoption agencies or forbid them from acting on their faith convictions and their moral convictions in terms of what is in the best interest of a child.”

In Colorado this spring, Catholic Denver Archdiocese representatives led opposition to the civil unions bill, appearing at the capitol repeatedly to testify against it.

In a letter posted after the bill was narrowly defeated, Denver Archbishop Chaput argued that the aim of the bill was to “secure legitimacy for personal behaviors that most societies and religious traditions have found problematic.” He said a “great many people [see homosexuality] as morally troubling, not because they are ‘haters’ or ‘frightened’ or ‘bigots’ or ‘uneducated’— that kind of language is the real bigotry in this debate— but because they’ve carefully thought through the implications for society at large.”

Opposition to the bill was overwhelmingly justified on religious grounds, even among most lawmakers who opposed the bill.

Many religious leaders, however, supported the bill for the way it bolstered families by encouraging commitment.

Lawmakers on the right and left supported the bill in part for the protections it would have provided the children of same-sex couples, who are presently left in relative legal limbo in cases where guardian-couples break up. There is no law on the books to ensure child visitation or financial support in such cases.

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In his weekly column at the Denver Archdiocese website, Archbishop Charles Chaput celebrated the death of state Senator Pat Steadman’s same-sex civil unions bill. He said the bill was not about civil rights but about “securing legitimacy for personal behaviors that most societies and religious traditions have found problematic.” He listed the names and addresses of the six Judiciary Committee Republicans who voted to kill the bill and asked Catholics to contact the lawmakers and thank them.

Opponents of the bill were not bigots or haters, he wrote, they had just “carefully thought through the implications for society at large.”

[T]he civil unions debate is not about ensuring the basic rights of homosexual persons. Those rights are already guaranteed under law. Nor is it finally about love or personal equality. Civil unions ensure neither of these any better than marriage does. 

The civil unions debate is finally about securing legitimacy for social arrangements and personal behaviors that most societies and religious traditions have found problematic from long experience—and that a great many people see as morally troubling, not because they are “haters” or “frightened” or “bigots” or “uneducated”—that kind of language is the real bigotry in this debate—but because they’ve carefully thought through the implications for society at large.

Senate Bill 172, quite shrewdly, did not limit its definition of “civil unions” to same-sex couples. But same-sex couples would inevitably be the main beneficiaries—as was obvious even at the committee hearings. It’s also worth noting that in every state where civil unions have become law, the political pressure for “gay marriage” has not declined; it has increased. Same-sex unions, whatever legal form they take, cannot create new life. They cannot duplicate the love of a man and woman. But they do copy marriage and family, and in the process, they compete with and diminish the uniquely important status of both.

Unfortunately, we’ve been down this road before. In 2006, Coloradans statewide voted strongly in favor of traditional marriage and against domestic partnerships. The people of Colorado spoke quite clearly. But it wasn’t what certain interests wanted to hear.  This is why the civil unions issue will likely be back, whether Coloradans like it or not. One of the lessons we need to learn from California’s continuing Proposition 8 battle is that when it comes to the cultural struggle over marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships, the “will of the people” is rarely sovereign. On the contrary: The mass media, the courts and aggressive special interests treat an annoying popular vote as not much more than modeling clay that needs to be reworked.

As the media has reported in depth, the civil unions bill would have granted a slew of rights not presently available to gay people, especially rights that seek to protect families. The bill would have established, for example, alimony and child support and visitation rights in cases where relationships between same-sex adult parents and partners dissolved. It would have protected gay couples from being forced to testify against each other in court. It also would have made it illegal to deny partners to a civil union health insurance and survivor benefits.

What’s more, benefits enjoyed by straight couples and presently accessible to gay couples, like the power to make medical decisions and inherit property, come with a high price tag in attorney fees for gay couples and can be confusing to authorities at hospitals, for example, who can be forgiven for not understanding power of attorney arrangements.

As many have argued, ballot box votes that strip U.S. citizens of equal rights, the right to marry as much as the right to buy property or vote or bear arms, for example, are unconstitutional. Indeed, the U.S. Constitution explicitly establishes equal rights among citizens as a top priority of the U.S. government. The Constitution says nothing explicit about the government’s obligation to safeguard marriage as the union between one man and one woman. Courts in states across the country have been slowly dismantling voter-passed laws barring gay people from marrying. The Obama Administration recently announced it would no longer defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act against legal challenges.

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In advance of a committee hearing scheduled for Monday on state Senator Pat Steadman’s civil unions bill, Colorado faith leaders held a press conference at the capitol Thursday expressing support for the bill. Their presence at the capitol was frank acknowledgment of the way opposition to the legal recognition of rights for gay domestic partners has long been made on the basis of religion. In fact, religion stands on both sides of this issue, they said, and the issue, especially as addressed in Steadman’s bill, is about constitutional rights.

“This bill is not about morality. It’s not about religion. It’s not about faith. It’s about basic civil rights,” said Rabbi Joseph Black from Temple Emanuel in Denver. He explained that the reason he was speaking out in favor of the bill as a faith leader was, in effect, to set the record straight.

“For too long the loudest voice from the religious community in regard to GLBT community has been that of condemnation and denunciation and that needs to change,” he said. “You’re going to be hearing opposition to this bill from faith communities and we just wanted you to know that that’s not the only voice that’s out there.”

Reading the Bible

With a personal anecdote, Highlands Church Pastor Mark Tidd underlined what he viewed as the absurdity of hinging legal rights on rigid notions of gender and sexuality.

He said he had wondered years ago what he would say and do if and when a transgender child he had watched growing up as a member of his congregation wanted to get married in the church. He described the somersaulting line of thought that flashed through his mind. He might be able to consent if the child had undergone an operation, or if the child chose a boy to marry, or no, maybe a girl, and so on.

“I suddenly thought, What, am I going to ask them to drop their pants? Why am I thinking marriage is about genitalia? It became clear to me that there was nothing wrong with [the child]; there was something wrong with the way I was reading the Bible.”

The religious leaders described Steadman’s SB 172 as a hard-core civil rights bill, explaining that it extends rights presently denied to gay citizens of the state and it also strengthens the right to religious freedom.

The bill solidifies domestic partnership rights for gay Coloradans and knocks down existing bureaucratic and financial hurdles gay and transgender Coloradans often have to jump over to secure those rights. The bill would extend tax breaks as well as adoption, estate-planning, medical decision-making and prison-visitation rights, for example– rights married couples take for granted.

Just as important for many faith leaders around Colorado, the bill bolsters the right to religious freedom by granting legal recognition to presently unrecognized domestic unions entered into out of religious motivation and blessed by faith leaders. It also protects the right of religious leaders to refuse to recognize or solemnize unions that fall outside of or challenge their beliefs.

Foggy opposition

The search for non-religious reasons to oppose Steadman’s civil unions bill can end in shadows and fog. Arguments referring to “common sense” and “long tradition” or even the “diminishment of the identity of marriage” offered almost exclusively by religious leaders and spokespeople serve mostly to beg questions. Attorneys, judges and citizens around the country have been led by such arguments to ask why “tradition” or “common sense” or something as vague as “diminishment of the identity of marriage” should ever be enough to deny adult tax-paying Americans rights?

Indeed, the gorilla in the capitol press room Thursday was the absence of major denominational leaders. Where were representatives or members of the large Colorado evangelical churches and organizations known to Americans across the nation? Where were Catholic leaders?

Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family is campaigning against Steadman’s bill, as is the Catholic Church here.

Focus political arm CitizenLink sent out an email to supporters conceding that fair-minded people will support civil unions. The group nevertheless urges those fair-minded people to resist supporting Steadman’s bill because civil unions may lead to legal gay marriage, which Focus believes would negatively affect heterosexual marriage.

In a letter to Colorado Catholics, Archbishop Charles Chaput, the high-profile head of the Denver Archdiocese, also argued against civil unions. He wrote that gay people here already enjoy “nearly every benefit” the bill would bestow.

Yet there are literally hundreds of legal rights and responsibilities littered throughout the state statutes that accrue to married Coloradans that aren’t presently available to gay couples, or if they are, come with a price tag. Gay and transgender Coloradans already enjoy basic nondiscrimination, second-parent adoption and designated beneficiary rights. Those rights come free to married couples but sometimes come with prohibitive legal fees for gay people. Gay coupes looking to adopt, for example, pay thousands of dollars for the privilege that straight couples don’t pay.

Chaput also makes the case that the law will “inevitably” erode the “privileged place” of marriage and family.

“The key flaw with SB 172 is that in its language and practical effect it creates an alternative, parallel structure to marriage using explicitly spousal language.  This inevitably undermines the privileged place of marriage and the family.  Marriage and the family are cornerstones of any culture—Christian or not.  They ensure the future through the creation of new human life.  Any diminishment of the identity of marriage and the family undermines society itself.” 

“It’s not simply religious,” he wrote, “it’s a matter of common sense and long tradition.”

Most concrete, perhaps, Chaput mentions potential impacts the law would visit on “the benefits the Church affords to her employees.” He believes civil unions legislation might force the Church to provide benefits to gay employees’ partners. It’s a “very real concern,” he wrote.

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Nine months after Hingham Catholic school in Boston rescinded the application of a child of lesbian parents, the Archdiocese there has adopted a new admissions policy that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. The new policy comes at the direction of Cardinal Sean O’Malley and stands in sharp contrast to the position taken by Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput, who supported Sacred Heart Elementary School in Boulder last year in rejecting the applications of two students because their parents are gay.

The new admissions policy in Boston says archdiocese schools may not “discriminate against or exclude any categories of students.” O’Malley said that “Catholic schools exist for the good of the children and admission standards must reflect that.”

“I believe all would agree that the good of the child must always be our primary concern,” he wrote at his blog soon after news broke around the Hingham school.

The Boston and Denver stories came days apart from one another last May. All three of the students involved are children of lesbian moms. The student whose application was rescinded in Boston was 8 years old. The students whose applications were rescinded in Boulder were pre-school age.

Chaput defended his decision in support of Sacred Heart by asserting that Catholic schools were obliged to provide an environment where the faith is “fully taught and practiced.” He said concerns about offending students or engendering alienation between parents and children at home would hobble those efforts.

“The Church teaches that sexual intimacy by anyone outside marriage is wrong; that marriage is a sacramental covenant; and that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman,” Chaput said. “The Church does not claim that people with a homosexual orientation are ‘bad,’ or that their children are less loved by God.”

The Boston Pilot quoted Vicar General Richard Erikson, who had a different take than Chaput. “Catholic education is a treasure of the Church and we want to share that as broadly as we can,” he said.

The controversy and the conflicting Catholic policies in Massachusetts and Colorado will surely reignite discussion about the tensions between religious teachings on the sinfulness of homosexuality, on one side, and the U.S. Constitutional emphasis on equality and its safeguards against discrimination, on the other. In recent years, the Catholic Church has joined with other denominations in battling against hate-crimes statutes for fear that preachers and teachers might be subject to legal action for practicing discrimination against gays or for spreading anti-gay messages that encourage bias or bullying or worse.

O’Neill pointed out that his new admissions policy ensures that Catholic schools in Boston, at least, are in line with federal non-discrimination standards. Catholic schools across the nation are granted non-profit tax status, which requires administrators to sign non-discrimination agreements.

[Image: Left: O'Malley; right: Chaput ]

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Polls and voting trends here suggest this is a winning topic for Bennet, who is dominating Buck in gaining support among women, moderate and independent voters.

Even as Buck has retreated from his support for the so-called personhood amendment, which would grant fertilized human eggs full citizenship rights, and from his intent to introduce a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v Wade, and even as he emphasizes that he means to go to Washington chiefly to work on jobs and the economy, his stance against abortion in all cases is unwavering and will continue to garner attention.

From Thursday’s New York Times story on Bennet’s pivot to abortion as a main topic in the Senate race:

The Buck campaign has said the attacks are simply an attempt to change the subject.

“The No. 1 issues are jobs and the economy, and Michael Bennet can’t run on that,” said Owen Loftus, a spokesman for the Buck campaign. “It’s a desperate effort by a desperate campaign.”

Mr. Loftus said Mr. Buck believed that life begins at conception and opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest, as the ads say, but that his focus as a senator would be the economy.

For many voters, on the right and left, however, the economy doesn’t eclipse abortion.

October, for example, is “Respect Life Month” for Catholics. Churches will host events and conferences and priests are sure to deliver sermons on abortion and related issues as the month progresses, their talks sure to grow increasingly fraught as November 2nd Election Day approaches.

Leading the charge in Colorado, Achbishop Charles Chaput wrote a column this week for the Denver Catholic Register that indirectly addresses Buck’s backing off from and playing down his positions on abortion.

“Even in a time of continuing economic failure and confusion, abortion is not merely one among many other urgent issues. It cannot be forgotten or covered over,” wrote Chaput.

Recent Bennet ads on the issue are drawing national attention:

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The case mirrors one that played out in April, when accusations emerged linking 70-something Centennial priest Mel Thompson to abuse alleged to have taken place in the 1970s.

In light of a revised stricter approach to such accusations stemming from cases that have rocked the Church in America over the past decade and amid an international sex abuse scandal that has focused attention directly on the pope, Chaput has moved fast in reaction to the accusations. Some parishoners, however, have protested that these priests should be considered innocent before proven guilty.

AP reports that this weekend Chaput said he received the ‘credible allegation’ on May 7 accusing De Lazzer of misconduct in the early 1970s, before De Lazzer served in Colorado.

Chaput recently submitted a report to the Vatican as one of its special investigators looking into the vast sexual abuse and financial corruption case centered on Legionaries of Christ founder Marcial Maciel Degollado. News of the investigation’s report suggest the findings were grave. Maciel, now dead, is suspected of having abused seminarians and to have fathered children, at least one of which he put up in a high-rent apartment with her mother in Spain. Maciel was a prodigious fundraiser and moved in elite social and church circles for decades. He enjoyed a close relationship with Pope John Paul II.

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Thompson has been a priest for nine years at the Centennial church. He previously served at Our Lady of Fatima, St. Vincent De Paul, Immaculate Heart of Mary, Good Shepherd (formerly St. John the Evangelist), St. Rose of Lima, and Christ the King. The archdiocese asked anyone with concerns about Thompson’s conduct to reach the Child and Youth Protection Office.

The Denver Channel:

“I was deeply shocked and surprised. Father Mel has always been very, very good to us all here at St. Thomas More,” said parishioner Roberta Marchese.

The removal comes after an April 7 complaint against Thompson for “past sexual misconduct with a minor that reportedly occurred in the early 1970s,” Chaput said.

A spokeswoman for the archdiocese, Jeanette DeMelo, said Sunday the abuse complaint came from a grown male.

The church would not be more specific about when the alleged misconduct occurred, and a timeline provided by the church does not say where Thompson served from 1970 to 1973. After that, Thompson was assigned to Good Shepherd Parish in Denver, formerly named St. John the Evangelist.

The church has reported the alleged abuse to local law enforcement, Chaput said. Denver police spokesman Matt Murray said the officer in charge of leading such investigations has not been notified about this particular case. However, Murray said that doesn’t mean the case could be in the department’s system waiting to be investigated on Monday….

The church has alerted parishes and other dioceses where Thompson served.

“It is important to note that Father Thompson maintains his innocence of the allegation, and to respect his privacy as this matter proceeds,” Chaput said in the statement.

Last year the Vatican appointed Chaput to the small group of Church investigators charged with examining evidence against high-profile abuse suspect Marcial Maciel, founder of the wealthy Legion of Christ order. Revered among the top ranks of the Church, Maciel fathered several children and diverted Legion funds to support some of them. He is accused of abusing seminarians for decades. The anticipated report on the Vatican investigation of Maciel is due out any time and will undoubtedly fuel the scandal already raging in Rome and around the world.

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