The Rise of the Catholic Right: How right-wing billionaires are attempting a hostile takeover of the U.S. Catholic Church

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I’m still curious as to what in the following is factually inaccurate:
Well before the pastoral letter was published, Michael Novak, a leading conservative Catholic scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, another nonprofit that has become an influential voice in the religion conversation, and William E. Simon, treasury secretary under Richard Nixon, began attacking the document and its support for government policies that aid the poor. Novak and Simon presented an 80-page rebuttal arguing that church teaching supported free enterprise. The paper appeared before the first draft of the pastoral was even released.

The USCCB’s diminished role is due in part, said Schneck, to a “tremendous turnover of staff in recent decades” that “undercut the organization’s ability to do staff-level work. And frankly, for all sorts of reasons, some of the bishops themselves are less supportive of the USCCB’s public and policy applications … the role the USCCB might play in American public life and politics has been dramatically pulled in for all sorts of reasons.”
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I will address what I found.

The Napa Institute - It seems to be more of a rich Catholics’ club that a right Catholics’ club, though I do not doubt the overlap would be great. I went to their website and found nothing related to them being a Catholic apostolate, so that always sets off alarms for me.

I was less impressed with the Acton Institute. It left the same question as to whether or not it was associated with the Catholic Church or not. In any case, it is an odd blend of religion an politics.

The third group mentioned was the Knights of Columbus. This is a Catholic group, and not just for the rich or right. I do not doubt they are more to the right than left, being opposed to abortion and homosexuality, which brings me to the third group;

The National Catholic Bioethics Center which is distasteful to the author for its stance on homosexuality.

The worst group, in my opinion, is the Sojourners, who seem to me to have an agenda with runs contrary to the Catholic faith, more than them simply being non-Catholic. Here are quotes I found relevant to my opinion
Money, and the power of U.S. nonprofits, has given extreme-right Catholics new means of communicating to the wider world what they think the Catholic narrative should be. That generally, but not always, is confined to sexual issues—abortion, gay rights, the rights of divorced and remarried people within the church.
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“They weren’t really trying to involve themselves in religion as much as trying to push the church in the direction of being more accommodating to capitalism and free market solutions.”
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If the bishops allow the extreme-right groups to continue unchallenged, Schneck said, their influence will only increase, and they’ll be able to “claim legitimacy and their own authority in making their pronouncements.
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From these, I see an attempt at using the accusation of excessive capitalistic goals to attack the moral issues. I also see fear-mongering in the absurd idea that they can gains authority through these organizations.
 
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Just because these fellows argued against governmental aid programs as alleged in the article, does not make them wrong, does not make them ogres. Perhaps, they thought private business could do this better. They may not be wrong. Some government aid programs are not very efficient and spend lots of money. It’s easy to think of the government helping people in a general way is good.

From the article:

The ascendancy of the Catholic Right, Schneck said, is rooted in the bishops’ letter on economics. Countering the pastoral letter, he said, marked “the beginning of the conservative efforts to create their own magisterium [teaching authority] on the side.”

Well before the pastoral letter was published, Michael Novak, a leading conservative Catholic scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, another nonprofit that has become an influential voice in the religion conversation, and William E. Simon, treasury secretary under Richard Nixon, began attacking the document and its support for government policies that aid the poor. Novak and Simon presented an 80-page rebuttal arguing that church teaching supported free enterprise. The paper appeared before the first draft of the pastoral was even released.

And what if they are wrong? Or what if they did do this? Do they not have a right to speak and push an agenda?
 
pnewton said:
Money, and the power of U.S. nonprofits, has given extreme-right Catholics new means of communicating to the wider world what they think the Catholic narrative should be. That generally, but not always, is confined to sexual issues—abortion, gay rights, the rights of divorced and remarried people within the church.
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I think the problem here isn’t that these issues are being addressed: it’s that they’re the nearly sole focus. Given the depth and breadth of Catholic teachings, that seems shortsighted. It also seems worrisome that the bishops are weak to the point of never challenging these groups publicly.

Personally, I’d say the Catholic League is one group that’s doing significant damage to American Catholicism and its reputation.
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(And then, of course, there’s the issue of Vigano. It’s…weird to me that he disclosed his expose to a few American conservative Catholic sources first. I could be alone there.)
 
gracepoole said:
It also seems worrisome that the bishops are weak to the point of never challenging these groups publicly.
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I don’t think the bishops are weak. I think they do not step in unless there is an issue contrary to Catholic teaching being taught under the Catholic name. These people do not seem so much as heretical as partisan. Personally, I am leery of such groups not approved in their diocese.

I don’t think Americans understand the way that progressives and conservatives work together in growing the Church, even when “together” is a stretch. Without progressives (liberals), we would stagnate. Without conservatives(traditionalists) indiscriminate change would lead us without direction.
 
Stating that your willingness to attend mass depends on the politics of the priest.
 
You misunderstand. I don’t want to attend a Mass celebrated by this priest. I am free to attend Mass elsewhere.
 
After researching, Sojourners is in the payroll of George Soros!
 
Who isn’t? I’m just waiting on my tax info from Soros to file this year.
 
Thank you, I very much value everyone’s (name removed by moderator)ut on this Christian forum. We all need to practice goodwill to each other.
 
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The article deals with the welfare issue, honestly, it sounds like this was addressed in the early 1970s from the article. Maybe some people did not think government welfare was a great idea. I hardly find this a reason to go after some of the organizations mentioned.
 
Victoria33 said:
The article deals with the welfare issue, honestly, it sounds like this was addressed in the early 1970s from the article. Maybe some people did not think government welfare was a great idea. I hardly find this a reason to go after some of the organizations mentioned.
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It’s true that this article addresses that issue and it’s also true that Catholics may reasonably disagree on it. That’s not the only issue addressed in the article, of course.
 
Does anyone really believe that the Knights of Columbus are planning a hostile takeover of the Church? Sorry, this article has no credibility with me.
 
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