PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Philly Post
The head of the Catholic Church should spend less time pandering to the Republicans and more time dealing with local problems.
By Joel Mathis 3/26/2012
It can’t be a fun time to be Catholic in Philadelphia.
On Friday, defrocked priest Edward Avery pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a Northeast Philadelphia altar boy in 1999. This week—assuming all goes as planned—Monsignor William Lynn goes on trial, accused of covering up many more allegations against many more priests while he served during Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua’s reign in the city. And there are the non-rape problems: The diocese has struggled with massively declining enrollment in the city’s parochial schools. They ain’t exactly packing them in at the parishes, either.
So what’s Archbishop Charles Chaput’s plan to fix a diocese in crisis? Apparently, it’s to turn the church into the Republican Party at Mass.
Suddenly Philadelphia Catholics under Chaput are rallying against President Obama. This week they’ll be fasting and praying in protest against the president. And Chaput himself is now releasing an 99-cent e-book—A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America—that plainly takes aim at the president and his policy that employers provide contraceptive coverage as part of health insurance plans. Under Chaput, the local church has been busy, busy, busy reminding everybody that Obama is coming to take your religious freedom away.
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