Catholicism

Pop sensation and slave-4-her-father Britney Spears sent papists into a frenzy on Thursday night by mentioning her Catholic faith to her nearly 33 million Instagram followers in a photo caption. 'I just got back from mass...I’m Catholic now...let us pray,' the 39-year-old star wrote. 'huge draft get,' tweeted the Atlantic's Elizabeth Bruenig. Cockburn thinks the signs have been there all along. Not only did Britney grow up in Louisiana, where Catholicism is far more widespread than elsewhere in the South due to its former status as a French colony, she's been dropping subtle hints in her art. Take the music video for her breakout single '...Baby One More Time'. How different the schoolgirl chic she adopted looks in the light of her newly announced faith.

Here, in 50 words, is the reason President Biden may find himself denied Holy Communion following a vote this month at the US Catholic bishops' conference. The Church has always regarded abortion as uniquely evil. Biden plans to make infanticidal late-term abortions widely available. In the eyes of the Church, this means he's committing a grave mortal sin and can't receive Communion until he confesses it. He won't, so he could be barred from the sacrament. That's the essence of it. It's why 73 percent of the 290 US bishops voted to prepare a document that will clarify teaching that, in fact, was already set in stone. It will apply to all US Catholics, not just the President or public figures.

Statistics released by Pew Research illustrate the extent to which the religious faith of President Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic, is a source of profound division between Democrats and Republicans. To quote Pew: 'Nearly nine in 10 Democrats (88 percent) says that Joe Biden is at least "somewhat" religious; just 36 percent of Republicans agree.' On the face of it, the Democrats are right. This is a man who attends Mass every Sunday, and whose faith has helped him through the unthinkable tragedy of losing his young first wife and one-year-old daughter when their car was hit by a tractor in 1972. Biden's surviving son, Beau, was injured but survived; he died from a brain tumor, aged 46, in 2015.

When will Catholic LGBT activists wake up to the fact Pope Francis doesn't particularly like them? He thinks the Church should go a bit easier on them, and — as he made clear last year — that they should enjoy the legal protection of gay civil unions. But, as the Vatican yesterday reaffirmed, official Catholic teaching won't be changing. There will be no church blessings of homosexual unions, because they're not part of God's plan. Progressive media is wailing like a Sicilian widow at the news. In issuing its latest decree, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is 'dashing the hopes of gay Catholics who believed Pope Francis might have created a more open environment'. No it isn't.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, formerly the power base of serial abuser 'Uncle Ted' McCarrick, is the most discredited in the United States. And it intends to stay that way. As the new Catholic publication the Pillar revealed on Wednesday, it's planning to bung $2 million in the direction of ex-Cardinal McCarrick's successor and protégé, Cardinal Donald Wuerl. And this at a time when parishes and schools all over America are facing closure, and Washington is reportedly facing 'an unfunded liability of at least $35 million'. The decision to allocate a fat chunk of money to Wuerl is astonishing. Here's some background. Wuerl was forced to resign as archbishop of Washington in 2018 after a 'lapse of memory' about his old friend's McCarrick's sexual activities.

Virginia governor Ralph Northam: first a doctor and now apparently a theologian. Northam took a shot at churchgoers during a press conference announcing the state's latest coronavirus restrictions on Thursday, arrogantly explaining to Virginia residents how they are supposed to understand their relationship with God. While reminding churches to practice social distancing and require masks indoors during Thursday's presser, Gov. Northam smugly remarked that 'you do not need to sit in the church pews for God to hear your prayers.' Northam also asked people of faith what the most important thing is this time of year: 'Is it the worship or the building?' 'For me, God is wherever you are,' he added.

Last month, the Vatican and the Chinese Communist party announced the renewal of a two-year agreement on the appointment of bishops in China. Under the deal in 2018, the Catholic Church lifted the excommunication of bishops hand-picked by the atheist CCP and formally recognized them. Besides interfering in such appointments, Beijing subjects Chinese Catholic congregations to state regulation and the reeducation of what it considers insubordinate priests. These methods are evidence of the party’s efforts to cull Catholicism of the traditions, doctrines, and practices that have defined the faith for millennia.  Anyone who prizes religious freedom worldwide should be disturbed. Why is Beijing so hostile toward those looking to practice their faith according to their conscience?

In his victory speech on Saturday night, Joe Biden quoted the 1970s Roman Catholic hymn, ‘On Eagle’s Wings’. The President-elect said that its message helped him cope with his various personal tragedies, which are undoubtedly very real and sad. Still, Cockburn wonders whether Biden is correct in his assessment that this particular hymn ‘captures the faith that sustains’ America. If Biden is right about that, then Cockburn wonders whether the ‘battle for the soul’ of the nation was even worth having.Of course, Cockburn doesn’t pretend to be a Catholic, let alone a good one, but having borrowed a friend’s Bible, he suspects that the hymn in question — a bastardization of Psalm 91 — rather misses the point.

On the day after the presidential election, Amy Coney Barrett, now beginning her career as a Supreme Court justice, will hear oral arguments in one of the most significant civil rights cases to come before the Court in decades. The case is Fulton v. Philadelphia. The point of contention in the case could hardly be more sensitive, since it pits the protection of religious freedom against the interests of same-sex couples — and the context is the foster care of children. Its journey to the nation’s highest court has been long and bitter. In 2018, city officials in Philadelphia insisted that the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s foster care agency certify same-sex married couples as foster parents.

Last week we learned that Pope Francis has torn up the Catholic Church’s teaching that same-sex civil partnerships are gravely immoral. This week he will be rooting for the pro-abortion candidate in the US presidential election. These two surreal developments are causing distress bordering on spiritual despair to conservative American Catholics. Whether you feel any sympathy for them depends on your point of view. The Pope, it is safe to say, is unlikely to lose any sleep over the matter. Francis dislikes the United States in general and its president in particular. That’s not surprising; so do most Argentinians. What is surprising is the depth of his contempt for conservative American Catholics.

Oooff! If you’re to go by Twitter — not always a good idea — there’s one thing not to like about Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump’s potential nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that’s her religion: Catholicism. The Washington Post’s Ron Charles quoted her saying that ‘a legal career is but a means to an end...and that end is building the kingdom of God’. Cue for others to pile in to the effect that there’s meant to be a separation of church and state in the US, and others witheringly observing that it’s not far to go from here to overturning Roe v. Wade. You can expect the quote to be widely circulated in the next few days.

Kimberly Guilfoyle has a surprising message for Catholics come November: vote for Donald J. Trump. The former Fox News host, now senior adviser to the President’s reelection campaign and girlfriend of Don Jr, spoke Monday about the role her Catholic faith plays in supporting Trump.While Guilfoyle makes some convincing arguments, Cockburn has a feeling her checkered past may scare some Catholics away.West Coasters certainly remember Guilfoyle for when she was married to then-San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, who of course is now the governor of the Golden State. At the time, Guilfoyle was known to be a charming figure, with her media nickname being ‘the babe of the San Francisco bar’. She was quite open about her sex life too.

Though you wouldn’t know it from most American media outlets, the phenomenon of vandalizing and burning religious sites which is accelerating in Europe has, like a virus, jumped an ocean and is now among us. Over the past month, statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary have been damaged in states as far apart as Colorado, Missouri, New York, Tennessee, and Massachusetts. On July 11, a vehicle was driven into a Catholic church in Florida with the clear intent of burning the building to the ground while congregants were inside. But it’s not just Catholic symbols and edifices being targeted. America’s Jewish community has received similar treatment.