At the beginning of April, a group of conservative Catholics began circulating an online petition called, “We Are an Easter People” demanding all U.S. bishops to “do everything you can to make possible some form of public Mass, especially the Easter liturgy, and then encourage pastors to conduct it” and to “demand that civil authorities recognize religious services as essential services.”
The author of the petition is Dr. Janet Smith, former professor of moral theology at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. Asked whether her use of the term “Easter People” meant she would like to see Mass on Easter Sunday, Dr. Smith said, “That is a beginning. Get the altars constructed in the parking lots or fields. Get the technology up and running that will broadcast the Mass. Is there any reason not to continue to offer Mass?” 
Smith didn’t want to put anyone at risk, but she observed that if we expect people to work in supermarkets, we can expect a priest to celebrate a Mass. “We can stay in our cars,” she said, “and he stays at the altar.” “We know many of our priests are eager to attend to those with Covid-19 and are willing to put their lives at risk. We admire their willingness to suffer and possibly to experience martyrdom.”
Dr. Smith notes that there are times when the state can impose restrictions, and one of those times is when there is danger in personal interaction. “But,” she added: “…we need to start with the right principle. Religion is an essential service – It is not just like a sporting event or concert that entertains us, that we can take or leave. The purpose of life is to be in a right relationship with the Lord. The sacraments are essentials means of sustaining that relationship. Unfortunately, whereas the founders of this country believed religious practice to be essential to the well-being of a nation and thus deserving of protection, too many in our culture think religion to be a pathetic superstition that does more harm than good. Such people are thrilled at any opportunity to wean religious believers from their practices.”
Ah, there it is, the crux of the matter. The image of the State telling Catholic conservatives what they can and cannot do, however it may affect other people. The Eucharist is central to their practice of Catholicism, both as a prize for the pure and a sanction against other believers who don’t share all their moral priorities. Is the essence of Catholicism only the assembly for the Eucharist, or Christ’s two commandments: to love God with your whole heart and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself?
On April 5, 2020 The Wall Street Journal published “As Coronavirus Halts Masses, Conservative Catholics Push Back.” The comments by the Catholic subscribers were insightful and sometimes unintentionally hilarious:
“As seems to be often the case, conservative Catholics are espousing the “me first” doctrine spread by the U.S. president. One would expect Christians who love their neighbors as themselves would be doing everything they can to limit the spread of the virus. At present, in the absence of effective therapy or vaccine, it would seem right to steer clear of any gathering where one could pick up the infection and then carry it out to others.” – Jeffrey N.
“I attended just such an outside service a week ago. It was extremely well managed, with people spaced 6 feet minimum outside, hand sanitizer before approaching a gloved priest who used a tong to drop the host in the outstretched hand. Very dignified, and much safer than my earlier trip to the grocery store (in mask and gloves). No one came within six feet of each other. Very quiet, reverent and prayerful atmosphere. If you have no direct experience of this, I suggest you keep your opinion to yourself.” – Lisa A
“As the son of a devout, 93-year-old Catholic woman, I’m curious why some of these “conservative” Catholic voices are trying to rush my mom’s meeting with Jesus.” – Mike B.
“Public Mass pose a very significant risk of spreading the virus, so I agree with the shutdown here in Mpls/St. Paul. Even with seating everyone far apart during the service, in distributing Communion the Eucharistic Minister touches every person’s hand when he/she hands out the Host. The Host you receive has essentially been touched by everyone’s hand in front of you. Maybe there are creative ways around this to make it safer; I would be open to it. But if not done safely, this could be a disaster. – Monica M.
“What nonsense!” Have you ever attended mass before, the ministers just drop the host in the hands there is no physical contact, unless you choose to drink from the cup or shake hands. By your logic, you should not be touching anything at the grocery store or even the pharmacy as God knows who touched it before you. Also, you should not be touching the credit card machine with your credit card because God kows who swiped or inserted their card and germs there right before you! Bottom line, is that those who never let a crisis go to waste have put material needs like Costo and CVS before God. They and you will be answerable to the Almighty Judge for such poor judgement.” – Jacque D
“When I go to the grocery store and swipe my credit card I don’t immediately put my credit card or my hand in my mouth. I wash my hands first. That is the difference. And there is no “dropping” the communion in one’s hand. If so, there would be many more communions that fall all over the floor during Mass.” – Monica M.
“I thought the Roman Catholic church was pro-life?” – Jim M.
When I want material on gay sex in the Catholic Church I know where to go–conservative Catholic media sites. Church Militant, LifeSiteNews, Catholic Culture, National Catholic Register and EWTN always have a fresh sex story or scandal. Ultra conservative blogs pick up the story and add salacious details. It snowballs.
In contrast, I rarely find a good sex story on liberal/moderate Catholic media like Commonweal, America or the National Catholic Reporter. Why?
It appears “authentic” Catholics relish good sex stories than other groups, particularly if they involve bishops, priests or seminarians. 2018 was a banner year between Cardinal McCarrick’s beach house and gay seminarians hustling each other for sex. Disapproving transgender stories and editorials increased, too. 
Sex Sells! Adultery, clandestine hook-ups, secret homosexuals, orgies! Just think of the publications in the checkout line in the supermarket. Popular easy-reading (non-intellectual) magazines feature bombshell sexual content to attract readers.
Gay Sex is Titillating. People are always curious about the taboo and forbidden. They may fantasize about having a sexual encounter with a member of their own sex, or really desire it, and reading about it is a safe vicarious experience.
Spice Up a Dull Sex Life. Married couples watch porn to get aroused. Women are the biggest consumers of gay male porn. (I was surprised!) “Lesbian” porn tops the list for both women and men, and “Threesomes” and “MILF” (Mothers/Mommas/Moms I’d Like to Fuck) is high in demand with both sexes. Sex acts associated with homosexuality like “pussy-licking” and “anal” are popular search terms on Pornhub.com. Pornhub is a pornographic video sharing website and one of the biggest pornography sites on the internet. Total visits to Pornhub in 2018 totaled 33.5 billion. The largest consumer country was the United States followed by the United Kingdom. 
According to Dr. Laurie Betito, Director of Pornhub’s Sexual Wellness Center, “Interest in ‘trans (aka transgender) porn saw significant gains in 2018, in particular with a 167% increase in searches by men and more than 200% with visitors over the age of 45 (becoming the fifth most searched term by those aged 45-64.” Men looking for women with a dick.
Given the huge number of women and men who love lesbian porn, why isn’t there more specific lesbian coverage in conservative Catholic media? That’s easy–in the Catholic Church there are no powerful women figures or celebrities, only men. Popes, cardinals, archbishops, Curia heads, bishops, and priests are male only. The handful of women who are occasionally quoted or trotted out are elderly religious, preferably in a habit.
We may see a small uptick in lesbian coverage later this year, when the Paul Verhoeven film, Benedetta, is released. The film “explores the simmering, searing tension of forbidden love.” Based on Judith C. Brown’s 1986 book Immodest Acts, Benedetta follows real-life events. It stars Virginie Efira as Benedetta Carlini, a 17th-century nun in Italy who enjoys visions and a passionate affair with another nun, Bartolomea Crivelli (played by Daphne Patakia). 
I can hardly wait to read the National Catholic Register review!
There were no chorus of “Huzzahs!” from American Catholic conservatives for Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”). The Vatican released the document on July 7, 2009 – just a day before the opening of the Group of Eight meeting in Italy and the week of president Obama’s visit with the pope.
In fact, there was very little coverage of it at all in conservative Catholic blogs and websites, except for a few who thought Pope Benedict had been hijacked by the Peace and Justice crowd, and that the liberal media gave short shrift on the pope’s passage on family protection and bioethics. In fact, in this document the pope linked economics to modern cultural issues. And ethics.
The pope used Caritas in Veritate primarily to criticize the current economic system, “where the pernicious effects of sin are evident” he growled. The pope urged financiers in particular to “rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity” and also called for “greater social responsibility” on the part of business. “Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.” 
“Today’s international economic scene, marked by grave deviations and failures, requires a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise,” Benedict stated. “In the search for solutions to the current crisis, development aid for poor countries must be considered a valid means of creating wealth for all.”
John Sniegocki, a professor of Christian ethics at Xavier University in Cincinnati, said one of the most controversial elements of the encyclical, at least for some Americans, would be the call for international institutions to play a role in regulating the economy.
“One of the things he’s saying is that the global economy is escaping the power of individual states to regulate it,” Mr. Sniegocki said. He also said the encyclical also contained elements “very critical” of how the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank “have required cuts in social spending in the third world.”
Caritas in Veritate has infuriated George Weigel, a conservative Catholic intellectual close to Pope John Paul II. Weigel ventured that this social encyclical is a hybrid, “blending the pope’s own insightful thinking on the social order with elements of the Justice and Peace approach to Catholic social doctrine…There is also rather more in the encyclical about the redistribution of wealth than about wealth-creation–a sure sign of Justice and Peace default positions at work.”
“Indeed,” he goes on, “those with advanced degrees in Vaticanology could easily go through the text of Caritas in Veritate, highlighting those passages that are obviously Benedictine with a gold marker and those that reflect current Justice and Peace default positions with a red marker.” (Get it…red marker…commie, pinko, socialist, bleeding heart liberal…sigh.)
Trying to come to terms with this awful document, Weigel opines: “Benedict XVI, a truly gentle soul, may have thought it necessary to include these multiple off-notes, in order to maintain peace within his curial household.”
However, that pat on the head for Pope Benedict doesn’t change anything. In fact, a clue to how he really feels about our unbridled, Bush-era American capitalistic system–and how that opinion is reflect in Caritas in Veritate, came several months before the release of the encyclical during a question-and-answer session with 400 priests ministering in Rome. This session was reported by Zenit, the official Vatican new agency.
A pastor from a poor neighborhood asked how church members could do more to push for a real reform of the global economic system. Pope Benedict said he did not want to give a simplistic answer to a complicated question about the reality of global finance and said that, in fact, the complexity of the current situation is what delayed the publication of his social encyclical, tentatively titled Caritas in Veritate.
On the level of global economic systems, the pope said almost every person in every country is feeling the consequences of “these fundamental errors that have been revealed in the failure of the large American banks; the error at the basis of it is human greed.”
“We must denounce this (system) with courage, but also with concreteness because moralizing will not help if it is not supported by an understanding of reality, which also will help us understand what can be done concretely to change the situation,” he said.
While the global financial system must be reformed, the pope said, individuals also must accept the fact that they will have to make some sacrifices in order to help the poor and move the world toward justice. “Justice cannot be created only with economic reforms, which are necessary, but it also requires the presence of just people,” Benedict said.
Zenit reported that Lesley-Anne Knight, the secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis, a Catholic agency “committed to combating dehumanizing poverty that robs people of their dignity and to promoting the rights of the poor,” said in a press release that the encyclical, which reflects on Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio (“The Development of Peoples”) “highlights how a blind pursuit of profits over ethics had become detrimental to people and the planet.”
Knight continued: “The crisis exposed systemic failures generated by careless speculation for the benefit of a handful of people and at the expense of millions of poor families. But the crisis offers a unique chance to refashion globalization to work for the majority.”
Read Caritas in Veritate here.
