Should Susan Sarandon Apologize for Calling the Pope a "Nazi?"

One of my favorite "Catholic" films is Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking, based on the true story of Louisiana death row inmate Matthew Poncelet and the Catholic Louisiana nun, Sister Helen Prejean, who ministered to Poncelet. This picture offers a chilling look at a condemned man's life and an exquisite portrait of Catholic devotion. Susan Sarandon plays a the role of a nun who is assigned to minister to Poncelet but feels ill-equipped and afraid in the face of this challenge. Going on nerve and Holy Spirit, she peels away the prisoner's layers of anguish, animal fear and depravity in an effort to -- in more ways than one -- save Poncelet; the process she unearths thelive man (made in God's image) walking with something that looks like dignity to his death. I keep thinking of Sarandon's brilliant depiction as I puzzle over the flak surrounding her bad choice a week or so ago to refer to the pope as a "Nazi."

Here's what Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman had to say: 

We hope that Susan Sarandon will have the good sense to apologize to the Catholic community and all those she may have offended with this disturbing, deeply offensive and completely uncalled for attack on the good name of Pope Benedict XVI.

Ms. Sarandon may have her differences with the Catholic Church, but that is no excuse for throwing around Nazi analogies. Such words are hateful, vindictive and only serve to diminish the true history and meaning of the Holocaust.

Foxman is right to point out what is wrong with Sarandon's use of the word "Nazi." "Nazi" is misused with alarming frequency. Using the word "Nazi" in a casual, reductive manner is improper, but so too is (albeit to a lesser degree) criticizing Sarandon without taking a closer look at intent and context. Those who use the word "Nazi" as Sarandon did use it fallaciously, but the actor's misnomer does not automatically suggest "vindictiveness" as Foxman claims. Nor hatred.

One complicating factor in this analysis is language itself. Language morphs. Meanings creep in and leech out. Sometimes language is enriched by evolution; sometimes changes detract from the potency of words. "Nazi" is a word that ought never become dilute; the unfortunate fact is that it has.

While making breakfast for my three adolescent children recently, I heard the a radio ad on a family-friendly drive time radio station in which the speaker said something "sucks." "See, Mom?" one of my adolescent children said, "it's not a curse." When, I wondered, did it become acceptable to "sucks" this way on the radio? The answer is: when the meaning of "sucks" changed. I referred to my child's high school application process as "torture" today. Did I, in saying this, exhibit insensitivity to genuine torture victims?

Susan Sarandon was not gunning for Jews. It's likely she does, however, have a problem with the pope who was, for a time, a member of Hitler Youth.

What Roman Catholic doesn't wish to forget that our top priest was a member of Hitler Youth? (This might be the one thing all Catholics can agree on!) Certainly the fast-waning number of Catholics who continue to regard him as a spiritual leader puts lots of holy spin on the facts of Joseph Ratzinger's Hitler Youth stint, but that our pope was a member of Hitler Youth is a thing (all we) Catholics must never forget. Ratzinger says his service was compulsory. One can, as I do, take him on his word in this. But the troubling fact that the man Sarandon called a "Nazi" was for a brief time in his youth an actual "Nazi" can not be brushed aside as some kind of incidental as we consider Sarandon's remark. Ratzinger claims he had no choice but to serve in Hitler Youth, but his membership in Hitler Youth remains a thing for him to live down. There were Roman Catholics in his midst who, driven by Roman Catholic conscience, found ways to avoid working on behalf of the Nazis. Some worked to thwart the Third Reich in its efforts to exterminate every Jew in Europe; we can not ignore that Ratzinger was not one of those.

I find it ironic that Abe Foxman should rush to defend the "good name" of a man who served for a brief, compulsory time as an actual Nazi, while criticizing Sarandon for her mistake. Foxman knows that on one the most solemn days of our calendar, many (not most) Roman Catholics in throughout the world say the following prayer, which Joseph Ratzinger welcomed back into the (optional) Tridentine (Latin) Good Friday liturgy in 2008: 

"Let us pray for the Jews. May the Lord Our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men."

Perhaps Foxman is just glad that when updating (retro-dating?) the prayer for the Jews, Ratzinger the "traditionalist" didn't go with the version that characterizes the Jewish people as 'faithlessness' and blind.

Restoring prayers that call for the spiritual cleansing of the Jews strikes me as being at least as offensive as the careless use of the word "Nazi." Ratzinger's choice in 2008, restore a toned- down version of Good Friday prayer for the Jews reveals a lot. How can the church as a whole every truly be absolved of the atrocities we, historically, inflicted upon the Jewish people, when our leader, a former member of "Hitler Youth" lends his imprimatur to reviving and restoring a suppressed prayer that calls for the Jews to wise up to Moshiach Jesus?

In a Washington Post blog entry, Los Angeles Rabbi David Wolpe reminds us, most eloquently, of what is wrong with Sarandon's employment of the word "Nazi":

Unless you are an enthusiast for genocide you do not qualify [as a Nazi]. Unless you believe that large segments of humanity are intrinsically inferior you do not qualify.

Might not praying for the spiritual improvement of Jews (via Jesus) be tantamount to viewing "large segments" of Jewish "humanity" as, spiritually and metaphysically speaking, "intrinsically inferior" to the extent that their beliefs and tradition warrant (spiritually) elimination. Maybe Sarandon sees it that way too.

Rabbi Wolpe's summary about what Nazis are and do packs a wallop, but he generalizes and, even exaggerates for effect. People speaking extemporaneously on subjects they are passionate about tend to use hyperbole. It is not just poets who use poetic license. Not every member of the Nazi party threw a baby against a brick wall. Not every Nazi wanted every homosexual wiped off of the face of the earth. (Somewere homosexual.) Rabbi Wolpe's impassioned generalizing in no way undermines the truth he sets out to convey. Indeed his broad brush delivers us a fuller picture of the truth.

My guess is that Sarandon was also generalizing -- and exaggerating for effect. My guess is that she made the "Nazi" remark without the slightest ill will toward any Jew, but with some ill feeling for a man much of the world believes regards "large segments of humanity" as "intrinsically inferior." My guess is that Sarandon might believe that Ratzinger views women and gay people as inferior. I'd add Jews to that list.

Sarandon's use of the word "Nazi" is very different from that used in the "The Soup Nazi" episode of theSeinfeld television show although both do trivialize the term. (Is everyone who thought that show funny a Holocaust diminisher? I don't think so.) The man Susan Sarandon called "a Nazi," stands credibly accusedof systematic and widespread sex crimes against children internationally. Amnesty International (AI) has condemned the Vatican for its laxity in the face of crimes against children, many of which AI classifies as torture. The Vatican's alleged tyranny consistently makes front-page news throughout the world, and though the pontiff is certainly not a Nazi, allegations of Vatican wrongdoing do have bearing in the analysis of Sarandon's characterization. Susan Sarandon may believe the man she erroneously called a "Nazi" is guilty of having abetted the abuse of tens of thousands of children. She may believe that forbidding Catholics in nations in which 15 and 20% of the populations are infected with HIV and AIDS to use condoms imperils the lives of "large segments of humanity." She may regret the many abortions that are the result of the Vatican ban on contraception. If she does hold such beliefs about the Roman Catholic pontiff, she is not making light of the word "Nazi" when she applies it Ratzinger; she may using the word inaccurately, but is not, in so using it, the least bit cavalier.

My favorite radio personality used the word "paddywagon," recently, to describe the police vehicle that transports groups of newly arrested prisoners. "Paddywagon" derives from "Paddy," a derogatory word for Irish people. I'm Irish. It bothers me that this word is still used with impunity. I encounter Catholic-bashing regularly too. I don't like it, and I don't let it slide. But calling Ratzinger a "Nazi," is pontiff-bashing, not Catholic-bashing. The Vatican is not the church; Ratzinger is one Catholic; and as a religious leader, he is a Catholic who is widely ignored, dismissed, disrespected distrusted by a vast number of active Roman Catholics who, like me, renounce him as a matter of conscience.

I hope that Susan Sarandon will have the good sense to apologize to and all those she may have offended through her use of the word "Nazi," but to demand her apology without taking a good look at the partial truth her erroneous diction reveals is to decline to learn from her mistake.

I give Susan Sarandon a pass -- My guess is that there isn't an anti-Semitic bone in her body. Furthermore, I suspect any actor who could capture Sister Helen Prejean so well must have a hell of a lot of Holy Spirit within.

Click here to read "Roy Bourgeois is Detained at the Vatican for the Crime of Showing them What  Primacy of Conscience Means"

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Roy Bourgeois is Detained at the Vatican for the Crime of Showing them What Primacy of Conscience Means

I’ve been following and writing about Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch for some time now, so I was saddened to learn that the Nobel Prize-nominated Viet Nam veteran-turned Roman Catholic priest and human rights activist was detained by police in Rome, yesterday, as he arrived at the Vatican to deliver a petition signed by 15.000 Catholics in support of him and women's ordination.  

The Vatican is in the process of defrocking and formally excommunicating Bourgeois for supporting and attending women’s ordinations.  In March of this year, Bourgeois was ordered by his superiors to recant his position under penalty of laicization, and he has refused.  

Technically speaking, Bourgeois excommunicated himself the first time he attended a mass celebrated by a woman.  Taking part in a mass celebrated by a woman is one of several means for do-it-yourself excommunication. Indeed many a Catholic “self-excommunicates” without even knowing it.  


Receiving Communion while sexually active outside of sacramental marriage, according to some, is self-excommunicating behavior. Using (so-called "artifical") contraception, engaging in heresy, and being remarried after divorce can all lead to automatic self-excommunication -- especially if one receives the Sacrament of the Eucharist while engaging in excommunication-worthy  conduct.  


If you are thinking that this means most Roman Catholics in the industrialized world areexcommunicated, you are probably right.  So, why does being excommunicated make so little difference to so many active Catholics?  

One reason is that, for a price, the bishops look the other way when self-excommunicated Catholics are faithful to worship.  The vatican would prefer to see Catholics “resolve and sin no more,” but the bishops will settle for full collection baskets. The many “come back home” campaigns designed to lure lapsed Catholics back into church are aimed at excommunicants -- those who left because breaking the rules made them feel unwelcome.  

Another reason the sting and stigma are now absent from excommunication is that Roman Catholics in the United States and Europe, being reasonably well educated, take “primacy of conscience” seriously. We learn as we study Catechism in preparation to receive First Holy Communion (generally at about age 7) that all Catholics are called to discern with the help of well-formed conscience. 


Men enshrined canon law and doctrine, and men make mistakes. Vatican apologists and strict adherents will fulminate on and on about the first priest Peter receiving the keys to  the church and such, but even if those who ignore the several weak links and breaks in the historical chain of apostolic succession generally freely admit that Peter himself was a bit of a hot-head, the great mistake-maker of the apostles.  "Primacy of conscience" checks the mistakes of priests like Peter, helping to ensure that the failings of men (pontiffs, being men, included) do not come between believers and their God. When it comes to God's truths -- the buck stops with the individual Catholic working together with the Holy Spirit within: 

On their part, all men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and His Church, and to embrace the truth they come to know, and to hold fast to it.

This Vatican Council likewise professes its belief that it is upon the human conscience that these obligations fall and exert their binding force. The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power... (Dignitatis Humane,  2)  

“Primacy of conscience” is not, according to Catholic teaching, some imprecise catch-all term for all manners of religious dissent. Nor is it Vatican II-sanctioned variation on “If it feels good, do it.” “Primacy of conscience” applies when mind and feeling well-saturated with the wisdom of the Word and Catholic teaching shape conscience and turn it in the direction of the God (Holy Spirit) within:

"the most secret core and sanctuary of the human person. There he/she is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his/her depths" (Gaudium et Spes, 16).  

In plain English, if having listened to the gospels, the bishops, and God, a Roman Catholic concludes that obeying a man-made ecclesiastical law is immoral, he or she is obliged to refuse to obey it. 


Father Bourgeois knows "breaking the silence" is not optional. It is an obligation:

 “I’ve always felt that when you see an injustice, really it’s your conscience and faith in God calling you to address the issue and to break your silence. And when your superior tells you to be obedient, then you have to make a decision: Do I follow God or man? And there was no question I must go with my faith in God....

"Over the pope ... there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary, even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority,” Bourgeois quotes from the future pope’s words." (National Catholic Reporter April 8, 2011)

Although most Roman Catholics anguish little -- if at all -- over latae sententiae excommunication, I suspect the sting is not lost on Father Bourgeois. We hear so much about bad priests in the news, and not nearly enough about good ones; but for an exemplary priest like Bourgeois, obedience is not a burden.  More often, a good priest experiences such submission, when it is in keeping with Christ's earthly ministry, a jurors gift. 

The Superior of the Maryknoll order has accused Father Bourgeois of bringing "grave scandal upon the  people of God."  The vatican has threatened to defrock him. 

But if you listened to Bourgeois during the panel, the only scandal he seems to experience is his embarrassment over not speaking out sooner on the issue of women’s ordination. “I just feel bad it took me so long,” Bourgeois admitted sheepishly. (National Catholic Reporter, March 30, 2011.)

Bourgeois is not some frivolous cleric deciding to let a few girls into the He-man Woman Haters Club on a whim. He has devoted his life to the pursuit of justice and recognizes injustice when he sees it. Bourgeois is expert on bullies. It is clear he has long meditated the question of whether Jesus called women as priests.   


I can imagine that a vatican so accustomed to a weaselly approach to defending itself against accusations must find Bourgeois's honesty unsettling.  Why doesn't he save himself? Ratzinger et al may be thinking.  Possibly Ratzinger is not thinking. The truth is the vatican's tyranny may be better served by not defrocking Father Bourgeois.  If they let him get away with his scandalous crime, he gets away with his scandalous crime. If they defrock him, they put him on a path to sainthood. The vatican can't win this one. 


Bourgeois's critics like to focus on the notion that the Maryknoll is an activist seeking celebrity (Think St. John of the Cross meets Kim Kardashian.) and it's easy to see how the bullies would, in their confusion, paint a Nobel Prize nominee Purple Heart as a lens louse in search of his 15 minutes of fame.  So estranged are the vatican and its chauvinists from the kind of holy integrity this prriest epitomizes hat they don't know what to make of him.  


Why even ask a man like Roy Bourgeois to recant? 


His entire existence has been consecrated to laying his life on the line in order to work toward making the world a more noble place. Now his vocation is on the line. For an exemplary priest, his or her vocation is everything. 


The pope can strip Bourgeois of his frock, but he won't have much lucky wresting his priesthood from him, and even his Hitler Youth experience does not leave Ratzinger tough enough to stuff the women's ordination genie back into the bottle.  

Read more about Father Roy Bourgeois:

"A Frock Does Not a Priest Make: The 'Tuning Up' of Roy Bourgeois"

"Christian Sacrifice and the Crusade to Defrock Roy Bourgeois"

Catholic Bishops Endanger Tax Exempt Status of the  the Church

New York Archbishop and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) president Timothy Dolan recently sent a letter to Barak Obama asking the president to sign the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA):

We cannot be silent, however, when federal steps harmful to marriage, the laws defending it, and religious freedom continue apace. 

Can the marriages of some truly "harm" the marriages of others? Does Dolan not know how much support there is among active, practicing Roman Catholics for same-sex marriage?  Scores of LGBT Catholics who attend his own masses at St. Patrick's Cathedral are married and refusing to give up the sacraments. Some are working in Catholic ministry, some are raising their children in the church?  His diocesan schools are filled with families in which there are one or two children? Can he be naïve enough to imagine that this is accomplished through NFP alone? (NFP is Natural Family Planning, the method of birth control the Vatican recommends and which its parishes often teach.)

Like much of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, Timothy Dolan is out of touch with who we American Catholics actually are.  He has every right not to remain silent, but there's something alarming about the bishops' presumption (fantasy?) that a majority of active U.S. Catholics will lend support to Vatican efforts to restrict the reproductive and marriage rights of non-Catholics -- especially since so many active Catholics exercise those rights. Furthermore, although the pope and his bishops may truly believe a zygote is a "preborn child," the truth is that a great number of active Catholics do not.

There's a reason the Vatican appointed the cigar-smoking, baseball-loving borderline-charming Dolan to serve as shepherd of the Sodom and Gomorrah that is New York City.  The passing of same-sex marriage rights legislation in his state and the reproductive health aspects of the new health care mandate present New York's top priest with fresh opportunity to make his mark as the United States defender of the faith. On September 30, 2011, Timothy Dolan, in his capacity as USCCB president, announced the formation of a sub-committee whose task will be to respond to the "erosion of freedom of religion in America."

... the new subcommittee would be one of several initiatives designed to strengthen the conference's response and bring together a broad cross-section of churches and legal scholars to oppose attacks on the First Amendment.

Dolan is fronting this crusade, and the degree of difficulty involved makes going out on a limb with a shaky "First Amendment" argument worth the gamble. He has appointed a Bridgeport, Connecticut Bishop, William Lori to head up the new committee.  Unfortunately the first association many Catholics have with "Diocese of Bridgeport" is its notorious status as a locus of clerical sexual abuse. In 2001, the Diocese of Bridgeport settled in 23 civil sex abuse cases, and there, according to Bishop Accountability.org, Timothy Dolan's predecessor is alleged to have allowed priests facing multiple accusations to continue in ministry.)  The USCCB aims to make same-sex civil marriage illegal in the US and to deny (Catholic and not) employees in agencies run by the church medical coverage for contraception and sterilization. Dolan can count on the holy father-knows-best Roman Catholic fringe to serve as hoplites in what the hierarchy-friendly National Catholic Register calls the "culture wars." They'd follow the Borgia pope into hell.  However,  the bishops will lack critical Roman Catholic mass in these "culture wars," and the USCCB's strongest support for DOMA may come the from "bring-your-gun-to-church" and "God hates fags" so-called "Christian" churches. Progressive Roman Catholics, who tend support LBGT marriage and who view family planning not as a sin but as a moral responsibility, are likely to think the "First Amendment" angle disingenuous and inane; and moderate Catholics, who, not long ago might have had the USCCB's back in such controversies as DOMA or the health care mandate, are alienated and sickened by the pedophilia crisis, and can no longer be counted on to fall in line behind the bishops.

Were so much not at stake I might find reports on Timothy Dolan's recent foray into First Amendment advocacy amusing.  Has Dolan bothered to read the First Amendment?" If so he appears to miss the point. The First Amendment does not guarantee one religion the right to obtain religious liberty by stripping other religions of theirs.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

The marital covenants of many LGBT Americans are sacred, made in the context of their faiths. Many religions recognized and sanctified same-sex marriages long before any same-sex marriage was legal in the U.S.  What (legal or moral) right has Timothy Dolan to tear legal marriages asunder? Or to nullify covenants consecrated by Reform Jewish or Christian rites? Dolan's campaign to (in effect) annul same-sex marriages reflects neither the spirit of ecumenism nor that of secular, civil law. Same-sex couples in states in which Equal Marriage legislation has passed are family now. Their unions are legally binding.

Furthermore, many atheists hold marriage equality (for lack of a better word, I say) "sacred." Under the First Amendment, atheist LGBT and straight Americans enjoy the right not to be subject to religious law. The single aim of DOMA is to impose religious law on all. This is an affront to all who take seriously the principle of separation between church and state. Though same-sex marriage is legal in the state of New York, no law compels Timothy Dolan to recognize them, and the First Amendment protects his right to refuse to marry LGBT Catholics in his church.

The consternation of the conflicted "believer" working at the marriage license bureau who finds processing marriage licenses for LGBT couples distasteful is nothing new. Many a court clerk during the Civil Rights Era no doubt endured a similar kind of anguish when required to process marriage licenses for heterosexual interracial couples. People allow moral discernment to shape their decisions about employment all the time, under various conditions. Marriage Bureau employees who find gay marriage distasteful must either suck it up -- or seek employment that better accommodates their prejudice.

Dolan is quoted in the National Catholic Register as having said the following:

If the label of "bigot" sticks to us -- especially in court -- because of our teaching on marriage, we'll have church-state conflicts for years to come as a result,"

The archbishop is right to worry.  The "label of 'bigot' " will stick. The best way to defend against being called "a bigot" is to not be one.

Dolan is not nearly so interested in the First Amendment protections as he is in holding the Vatican's doctrinal/political ground. The Roman Catholic hierarchy is under attack from within and without. Dolan is taking his shot. He's hoping that cloaking bigotry the finery of constitutional protections might make him and his hierarchy appear more freedom-forward and perhaps a tad less medieval. But blurring, perforating, crossing and erasing the line of demarcation between church and state won't win the archbishop any points with most American Catholics.

And outside the church, Dolan's First Amendment-based power play is likely to come off as the Captain Queeg-like snit of a "religious leader" who knows his ship is going down.

Dolan is playing the "good cop" role now, but "bad cops" surround him. On the matter of the health care mandate, Daniel N. DiNardo, chairman of the US bishop's pro-life committee was quick to whip out the shiv. He said the following about a month after the USCCB announced its dissatisfaction with the terms of the the federal health care mandate:

Under the new rule our institutions would be free to act in accord with Catholic teaching on life and procreation only if they were to stop hiring and serving non-Catholics."

Although this new rule gives the agency the discretion to authorize a 'religious' exemption, it is so narrow as to exclude most Catholic social service agencies and healthcare providers," he warned.

The hierarchy-friendly Catholic New Service's choice of the word "warned" reveals much. DiNardo's remark is code for "Give us what we want or we'll stop healing, clothing, feeding, sheltering and offering hospice to non-Catholics."

Another bishop, Bishop David A. Zubik of Pittsburg, weighed in with a similar kind of warning in a September 15th letter to Human Health Services (HHS) secretary Kathleen Sibelius;

...Catholic Charities in his diocese alone has served over 80,000 people last year 
"without regard to the religious belief" of those they ministered to.

But "under this {health care} mandate, Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh would either be forced to cease to exist or restrict its employees and its wide ranging social services to practicing Catholics alone."

Essentially Bishops Zubik and DiNardo are floating ultimata. They don't come right out and say so -- but the implication in Zubik's case is that the bishops might little choice but to force 80,000 people currently under the care of Catholic Charities to suffer, be hungry, forgo programs, clothing. Not much Christ in that solution, is there?

Thank God this vicious game of chicken won't work. The public relations fallout would be disastrous if the bishops were to make good on such threats. Even the most conservative of Catholics would likely be ambivalent about such tactics because even daily mass attending, novena praying, rosary ladies who oppose abortion know that sacrificing sick, hungry, homeless "born" children to the supposed greater good of preserving the lives of zygotes and embryos would constitute a sin as grave as any.

That any bishop thinks it acceptable to use works of mercy as leverage is troubling and indicates just how estranged from Christian ideals many of the Catholic bishops are. The utter lack of diplomacy in such expressions as Zubik's reveals how out of touch the Catholic hierarchy is with what the worlds sees when it beholds the church.

Much of the world now views the Roman Catholic Church as a corrupt organization led by a there-but-for-the grace-of-extradition-agreements-go-I pontiff. Were Ratzinger not head of a sovereign state, the world would have witnessed his perp walk by now. The damning Cloyne Report turned the most pious Catholic nation in Europe against the hierarchy. The Vatican is on Amnesty International's list of torturers for its human rights violations/crimes gainst children. The Center for Constitutional Rights and SNAP (Survivors Network of Persons Abused by Priests) are filing suit against the Vatican in the International Criminal Courts. Yet even as it faces the possibility of a trial at the Hague, the Vatican continues to show poor faith in addressing the hundreds of thousands of brutal crimes against its own children.

Catholics in the pews are repulsed by this, and have grown weary of pro forma expressions of contrition for the anguish pedophile priests inflicted and which bishops facilitated. These apologies are never more tainted than when topped off with not-so-gentle reminders that justice (i.e. damages) for each and every victim would bankrupt the church.

The Vatican may be rich, but the church has money problems.

In the Brooklyn (NY) diocese where I worship, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio has used his weekly column to urge Brooklyn and Queens Catholics to vote against the Child Victim's Act in the New York State Assembly. Payouts, we have been told, would bankrupt the diocese.  DiMarzio has publicly threatened to close parishes whose members fail to vote his way. He recorded robocalls for a local politician.  His politicking is at least, risky behavior; and at worst, possibly a violation of tax law. The aforementioned attempts at clerical blackmail, though unseemly, may be blessings in disguise, however, because they show the world who these "religious leaders" really are and where they stand on the church/state divide.

I take great pride in the work my church does on behalf of the aged, infirm, indigent and marginalized in the city where I live. I have engaged in much Catholic social justice ministry myself and have seen up close how fervently devoted we (Catholics) are in it.

But I believe the world outside the church would indeed pick up the slack were the bishops to take their ball and go home.

The church receives much financial support from the government in the form of tax exemptions. Bishops play a dangerous game when they threaten to use the leverage they think they have to bring secular law in line with canon law.

I don't want to see my diocese or any other lose its tax exempt status, but the bishops are pushing their luck, which could soon run out -- along with the money.  The religious freedom argument cuts both ways. The bishops would do well to bear in mind that they are called to be teachers and priests, not emperors.  They play fast and loose with their tax-exempt status at their own peril and their recklessness in this puts needy people of all faiths -- and no faith -- at risk. Political power can be expensive. The religious freedom argument cuts both ways.