Rabbi Accuses Church of Oppression

So you remember this about the Maryknoller priest named Bourgeois who is being told he may be excommunicated for his participation in the unauthorized ordination of a female priest.

Well who’s speaking out for the priest and against the Church but a self professed Rabbi. According to Front Page Magazine, former Hillary Clinton guru Michael Lerner, publisher of Tikkun magazine is now slamming the Catholic Church for threatening to excommunicate leftist priest Roy Bourgeois.

“It’s not just Jews who demean others or see one type of human being as more valuable or closer to God or more appropriate to serve God than another,” Lerner bemoaned. “The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (the office that was previously named The Inquisition, but now no longer using violence to achieve its ends) has sent a letter to Father Roy Bourgeois threatening him with ex-communication (which effectively means an end to his income and to his teachings inside the church) for daring to publicly support the ordination of women and to offer remarks in a ceremony ordaining a woman as priest.”

They never wait long to bring up the Inquisition do they? But so many people see every institution as a power struggle between the powerful and the oppressed. I guess he doesn’t believe that the Church has any right whatsoever to expect adherence to rules. But, according to Lerner, this has nothing to do with fidelity. Here’s how Lerner sees the Church:

According to Lerner, the Catholic Church’s “current conservative leadership” aspires in “one fell swoop” to “rid itself of the progressive Catholic who has created the most important spiritual progressive demonstration taking place anywhere in the country for peace and against torture.”

Yes, of course, the ad orientem goon squad moonlights Tuesdays at the pro-torture “Go Gitmo” rallies.

Tikkun’s self-made rabbi knows exactly what is brewing within Roman Catholicism. “Politically conservative forces” have captured the church, Lerner warned, and are suppressing “progressive causes,” while protecting “those who support authoritarian and reactionary and violent causes.” Of course, he did not further describe these reactionary forces. Instead, Lerner condemned the Catholic Church’s “tenth century decision to exclude women from the clergy,” while the church ignores Jesus’ teachings against violence and for social justice, allowing priests who support “economic oppression and wars” to run rife. He urged his Network’s supporters to campaign against the forces of reaction within the Catholic Church. “We are not anti-Catholic,” Lerner insisted, even as he inveighed against the church hierarchy for bigotry and oppression.

I’m always amazed how little people know of Catholicism yet feel free to criticize it or even condemn it.