Maureen Dowd in today’s New York Times and E.J. Dionne and Chris Matthews on Thursday’s Hardball laid blame for the attacks on Georgetown University’s invitation to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to speak at commencement on the rightwing Catholic fringe. Although they finally get around to mentioning that Washington’s Cardinal Donald Wuerl also denounced the invitation, none acknowledge that these radicals are the bishops’ own attack dogs in their war against the 99%.
Lawrence O’Donnell on The Last Word stated emphatically that Bill Donahue’s Catholic League is not part of the Catholic Church. Hello? The Cardinal Newman Society (named by Dowd) and the Catholic League are both listed in the Official Catholic Directory, a position attained (along with a 501(c)(3) tax exemption as a charitable organization) only with the sponsorship of a bishop.
Far too many progressive Catholics are loath to admit how extremist their hierarchy has become. Dionne regularly refers to only “a few” of his bishops having taken vile positions.
Even if these attack organizations didn’t have official status within the Catholic Church, not one single bishop has condemned Bill Donohue or these other groups too numerous to mention. And not one single bishop has condemned the invitation extended by one of their favored Young Republican schools, the Franciscan University of Steubenville, to retired Air Force General Michael Hayden to give the commencement address and receive an honorary degree. “Hayden, of course, as Director of the National Security Agency and also of the CIA not only authorized the use of torture, he had openly defended such use again and again.”