One of my favorite parables is of the Pharisee and the tax collector:
Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer[a]: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! 12 I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’
I've always had a bit of a contrarian streak and have never really been popular. When I served on university faculty committees, I wasn't afraid of being the only one to vote no on a motion. Nobody in my family or circle of friends shares my political views. I don't have a problem with trolling certain progressives on Twitter and contradicting them. I don't do it for the sake of jerking their chains. It often is driven by context; e.g., progressives in particular get into their own echo chamber.
My Dad used to smoke when I was really young (I'm the oldest of 7). I believe his preferred brand was Pall Mall. I think he picked up the nasty habit as a young airman in Korea. I don't recall when or why he quit--probably he did it for his health and his growing family. Ir was an expensive habit and my Dad's low NCO salary didn't go very far. To give a minor example, I never got my driver license until I was 22 and in the Navy. My Dad had been training me (a 16-year-old senior) in empty car lots on base, until somehow his car insurance got wind of me, and Dad got quoted a huge premium for carrying me on his policy. The practice driving immediately stopped.
The Pall Mall point is related to my sixth-grade experience at Notre Dame school in east Fall River. (We were waiting for Dad to get family housing at a SC USAF base.) My class had a social justice project involving a black family in DC. So we had a number of family wish lists (food, clothing, toys and the like) to fulfill, but what I particularly remember was one item on the dad's wish list: cigarettes, and his favorite brand was Pall Mall. And although I was very young at the time, I knew smoking wasn't healthy, and I felt the project was bordering on moral hazard.
I was brought up a conservative Catholic: focused on prayer, catechism, mass, and the sacraments. I served as an altar boy during the transition of the Latin mass to the vernacular. I was okay with guitar masses but not a fan of what I considered pandering to the sexually liberal culture, I didn't like homilies which rarely invoked salvation, Jesus or the Bible but seemed to be more socially-conscious with little explicitly religious context. Even the sisters at OLL didn't wear habits but fairly secular clothing, maybe wearing a cross, quite a few didn't live in the convent but in the surrounding barrio. I think for me the final nail in deciding whether to become a priest as I originally intended was when I attended a mass at UT Austin, and the priest delivered a homily on Olivia Newton John's hit "Have You Never Been Mellow?". I'm a huge Olivia Newton John fan, but it's a stretch to discern religious significance in a pop hit song.
I know there has been a history of anti-Catholicism in America, which I touched on in an earlier essay. Catholic nominees for POTUS have been few: Smith in 1928, JFK in 1960, Kerry in 2004, and Biden. It's less of an issue today. For example, 6 Justices are Catholic (Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Barrett and Sotomayor), and I don't think I've seen a Dobbs report comment on religious affiliation, despite the fact that Catholicism probably most famously opposes abortion. In fact, of about 158 Catholics in the House and Senate, about 91 are Democrats, and I'm aware of only 1 pro-life Democrat (Cuellar)
The typical pro-abort Catholic spin is something like "I'm personally opposed to abortion, but I won't impose my religious values on others." This is disingenuous rubbish and a cop-out. I've pointed out in numerous tweets and posts this is like saying, "I oppose murder, theft, adultery, and lying, but I won't impose my Judaic-Christian values on other people." There's a difference between religious dogma and moral teachings. As I noted in my Dobbs post, I was opposed to abortion before I ever knew about the Church's position: mine stemmed from the biological fact that human life begins at conception. Imposing my religion on others would be something more like making holy days of obligation national holiday or imposing dietary restrictions during Lent at restaurants and supermarkets, etc.
Catholic bishops have sometimes threatened canon law sanctions like denial of communion, even excommunication, to high-profile Catholics, especially politicians, who publicly contradict doctrine and confuse the faithful. This has sometimes backfired on the Church as the politician attracts sympathy and political support as the underdog acting on a matter of conscience.
Make no mistake: the American Church badly mishandled the sexual misconduct scandal. The Church was slow to address the scandal, particularly to minister to the minor victims; it seemed more interested in terms of providing due process to alleged perpetrators and more importantly to recycle the perpetrators to unsuspecting parishes believing dubious assertions of cured behaviors, with little oversight to minister to vulnerable groups. It has undermined the moral authority of the Church, in and outside of the Church, and had adverse effects on attendance and offerings.
So self-identified Catholics, say on Twitter, have to be prepared to deal the abortion issue and the scandals. And a large percentage of Catholics have embraced a morally self-superior tone on a mostly secular progressive agenda. There is this elitist, self-righteous assertion that this humanist Statist agenda is more authentically Catholic. In fact, Pope Francis has gone out of his way to promote an anti-capitalism, pro-environmental agenda, a social welfare agenda, etc. He famously responded to a gay agenda reference with the morally ambiguous, "Who am I to judge?" He also appears cool to bishops' sanctioning of high-profile pro-abort Americans like Pelosi and Biden.
I have had more than my fill of progressive Catholics over the years. Let's take ideological feminists. Two incidents of note from my Catholic Newman days as a UH graduate student. . I once discovered that they had scratched out a politically incorrect term in the ancient Nicene creed from all the missals in church: "...for us men and for our salvation.." A second incident is I often served as a lector at Mass. Typically we had a pair of male and female readers. So one Sunday, the assigned female lector no-showed and a coordinator frantically recruited me as a last-minute replacement. After Mass probably a dozen coeds went batshit crazy over there being 2 male lectors at Mass. I was seriously pissed over this petty crap; I didn't know know who or the gender of who I was replacing. I didn't seek to be the substitute; I was trying to do a favor. These ladies had no clue that this petty temper tantrum contradicting the very faith they claimed to profess.
There are "Catholic" pro-abort groups which will hype noncompliance statistics of American Catholics to Catholic doctrines on sex and abortion and argue that the celibate male hierarchy is out of touch and/or moral teachings are in dispute (e.g., resurrecting the ensoulment debate).
So I just knew that post-Roe there would be pro-abort Catholics on social media that would confirm abortion is a religious issue, that unlike other "hypocritical" Catholics who ignore Christ's social teachings after birth, while they personally oppose abortion, they won't impose their religious values on a pluralistic society. All of this is, of course, rubbish. Abortion isn't referenced in the New Testament but is referenced in one of the oldest Church writings, the Didache, as the faith spread across the Roman Empire, which, unlike Israel, promoted the practice of abortion.I also don't think the morally hazardous Statist social welfare monopoly is a reflection of Christ's teachings. Christ taught personal, not political commitment. Arthur Brooks published research showing social conservatives (strongly pro-life) give more heavily to charity. I believe the unfettered free market raises the standard of living for everyone and provides the most opportunities to come out of poverty.
So I know I responded to at least one of those sanctimonious pro-abort Catholic trolls who came across as a modern day Pharisee as I quoted to start the essay. My struggle against leftist Catholics continues.
