Fogbow

Targeting Biden, Catholic Bishops Advance Controversial Communion Plan
The decision was aimed at the nation’s second Catholic president and exposed bitter divisions in American Catholicism.

By Elizabeth Dias
June 18, 2021 Updated 2:06 p.m. ET

The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States, flouting a warning from the Vatican, have overwhelmingly voted to draft a statement on the sacrament of the Eucharist, advancing a political push by conservative bishops to deny President Biden communion because of his support of abortion rights.

The decision, made public on Friday afternoon, is aimed at the nation’s second Catholic president, the most religiously observant commander in chief since Jimmy Carter, and exposes bitter divisions in American Catholicism. It capped three days of contentious debate at a virtual June meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The measure was approved by a vote of 73 percent in favor and 24 percent opposed.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/18/us/t ... -plan.html

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 5:22 pm

Targeting Biden, Catholic Bishops Advance Controversial Communion Plan
The decision was aimed at the nation’s second Catholic president and exposed bitter divisions in American Catholicism.

By Elizabeth Dias
June 18, 2021 Updated 2:06 p.m. ET

The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States, flouting a warning from the Vatican, have overwhelmingly voted to draft a statement on the sacrament of the Eucharist, advancing a political push by conservative bishops to deny President Biden communion because of his support of abortion rights.

The decision, made public on Friday afternoon, is aimed at the nation’s second Catholic president, the most religiously observant commander in chief since Jimmy Carter, and exposes bitter divisions in American Catholicism. It capped three days of contentious debate at a virtual June meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The measure was approved by a vote of 73 percent in favor and 24 percent opposed.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/18/us/t ... -plan.html

fierceredpanda wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 5:38 pm This sums up all of my feelings about this bit of grandstanding, the USCCB, and the Catholic Church generally:

Estiveo wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 9:04 pm

I would extend this to all churches, but yes. And they need to return all the billons in covid relief money as well, fucking freeloading hypocrites.

John Paul II, continuing the constant teaching of the Church, has reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a «grave and clear obligation to oppose» any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them.[19] As John Paul II has taught in his Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae regarding the situation in which it is not possible to overturn or completely repeal a law allowing abortion which is already in force or coming up for a vote, «an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality

fierceredpanda wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 8:17 am People on Twitter are pointing out that the USCCB did not withdraw the Eucharist from Bill Barr when he restarted federal executions, despite his defiance of the Catholic Church's teachings about capital punishment. Same for every Catholic governor and attorney general in a state that has the death penalty.

LM K wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 1:42 am The Catholic church is dying in the US. Millennials and Gen Z is less religious. Millennials and Gen Z who do believe loathe this political theater cloked as religious doctrine.

Foggy wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 7:59 am 'Course, Biden could just fly to Rome every Saturday night, returning after Mass in the Vatican on Sunday morning.

I can't imagine anyone would object to that. It's not like he's flying to Florida for golfing.

neonzx wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 8:35 am My experiences with transubstantiation left me unimpressed. The "body of Christ" paper wafers need some seasoning. And the blood is too sweet... needs to be a Merlot.

neeneko wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 9:52 am

LM K wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 1:42 am The Catholic church is dying in the US. Millennials and Gen Z is less religious. Millennials and Gen Z who do believe loathe this political theater cloked as religious doctrine.

I disagree here. Attendance might be falling off, but as a political and economic entity the Roman Catholic Church is one of the most powerful groups in the US and only seem to be getting stronger. One does not get 7 (6.5?) SCOTUS justices by pure chance.

Religiously unaffiliated people have been growing as a share of all Americans for some time. Pew Research Center’s massive 2014 Religious Landscape Study makes clear just how quickly this is happening, and also shows that the trend is occurring within a variety of demographic groups – across genders, generations and racial and ethnic groups, to name a few.

Religious “nones” – a shorthand we use to refer to people who self-identify as atheists or agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” – now make up roughly 23% of the U.S. adult population. This is a stark increase from 2007, the last time a similar Pew Research study was conducted, when 16% of Americans were “nones.” (During this same time period, Christians have fallen from 78% to 71%.)

Overall, religiously unaffiliated people are more concentrated among young adults than other age groups – 35% of Millennials (those born 1981-1996) are “nones.” In addition, the unaffiliated as a whole are getting even younger. The median age of unaffiliated adults is now 36, down from 38 in 2007 and significantly younger than the overall median age of U.S. adults in 2014 (46).

At the same time, even older generations have grown somewhat more unaffiliated in recent years. For example, 14% of Baby Boomers were unaffiliated in 2007, and 17% now identify as “nones.”

”Nones” have made more gains through religious switching than any other group analyzed in the study.” Only about 9% of U.S. adults say they were raised without a religious affiliation, and among this group, roughly half say that they now identify with a religion (most often Christianity). But nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) have moved in the other direction, saying that they were raised as Christians or members of another faith but that they now have no religious affiliation. That means more than four people have become “nones” for every person who has left the ranks of the unaffiliated.

Religious “Nones” are more heavily concentrated among men than women. But the growth of the unaffiliated has not been limited to certain demographic categories; a rise in the share of unaffiliated has been seen across a variety of racial and ethnic groups, among people with different levels of education and income, among immigrants and the native born, and throughout all major regions of the country.

Not only are the “nones” growing, but how they describe themselves is changing. Self-declared atheists or agnostics still make up a minority of all religious “nones.” But both atheists and agnostics are growing as a share of all religiously unaffiliated people, and together they now make up 7% of all U.S. adults (up from 4% in 2007). Nearly two-thirds of atheists and agnostics are men, and the group also tends to be whiter and more highly educated than the general population.

In addition to atheists and agnostics, another 9% of Americans say their religion is “nothing in particular” and that religion is not important in their lives. At the same time, however, a significant minority of “nones” say that religion plays a role in their lives. Indeed, about 7% of U.S. adults say their religion is “nothing in particular” but also say that religion is “very” or “somewhat” important in their lives, despite their lack of a formal affiliation. This group is more racially and ethnically diverse than other “nones”; only 53% are non-Hispanic whites (compared with 66% of the general public).

LM K wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 4:29 pmOnly one Justice is Gen X. Religious beliefs changed drastically with Millennials.

bob wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 4:41 pm

LM K wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 4:29 pmOnly one Justice is Gen X. Religious beliefs changed drastically with Millennials.

True, but the last 2.5* justices appointed were Catholics.

So while Catholics, generally, are aging, finding enough younger ones for the bench does not seem to be a problem.


* The .5 being Gorsuch, depending on who is (not) claiming him.