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Recalled to Action:
A Peek at the Catholic Left
by John Horvat II
Hype and media coverage often give the
impression that leftist organizations make up almost monolithic
forces of change against which conservatives can do nothing.
This is also true of the so-called progressive Catholic
groups whose media projection of their influence and activities
often overshadows reality.
There are, however, times when leftist
Catholics themselves speak out and one gets a real picture
of what is happening inside their ranks.
Such is the case of Frances Kissling, the
25-year president of the misnamed Catholics for a Free Choice.
The media has long made Miss Kissling the unofficial spokeswoman
of pro-abortion advocates who call themselves Catholics.
While her organization is often billed as the nation’s
largest “Catholic” pro-choice organization,
the entity has no Catholic recognition, no membership and
is funded almost entirely by wealthy pro-choice foundations.
Parting remarks
Miss Kissling just stepped down from the $200,000 a year
post to pursue studies elsewhere. In parting remarks to
the National Catholic Reporter’s Joe Feuerherd,
she lambasted the Catholic left with undeniable frankness.1
While acknowledging the “viciousness”
of certain periodicals and organizations of the Catholic
right, Miss Kissling was none too generous with her fellow
“Catholic” progressives. Whether considered
as reform movements within the Church or mere political
forces, she rated them as “nonentities.”
Among the first liberal group to
fall under her criticism was the Boston-based Voice of the
Faithful, founded five years ago amid the sexual abuse scandals.
Miss Kissling reported that the now toothless organization,
which had the ideal mobilizing issue, has simply not succeeded
in mobilizing Catholics, suffers from ever-falling donations
and claims questionable active membership numbers.
Other liberal organizations fared
no better. Despite the fact that the mainstream media constantly
rushes to them for commentary and dissident opinions, Miss
Kissling concluded that the “rest of us, Call to Action,
ARCC [the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the
Church], Dignity, the Women’s Ordination Conference”
are so small in number and influence as to question whether
a movement even exists.
Betraying Principles
Part of the problem, it seems, is what Miss Kissling claimed
is the progressive religious community’s efforts to
ingratiate itself with the Democratic Party to the detriment
of its radical principles.
She noted that progressive Catholics,
for example, have long discarded Christian symbols and religious
habits as relics of the past and yet they are often asked
to vest themselves in these symbols of respectability and
credibility to get their message across.
Miss Kissling complains that no one
calls for the most radical theologian to get a story. “They
call and say, ‘Do you have a nun who still wears a habit
who can show up at my press conference [or] can you send me
a collar?’” in obvious reference to a priest in
his clerics.
She decried a kind of hypocrisy
and “lying” among many Catholic progressives who,
while personally being pro-abortion, simply will not admit
it publicly out of fear of being marginalized by the hierarchy
and parishes with which they work.
For someone who has worked in the
field for so long, she has not much to show for her efforts.
She believes the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade
or abortion will be eviscerated to the point where it will
be sent back to the states. Her future studies will try to
find “common ground” between proponents and opponents
of the gruesome abortion practice.
Surprisingly, her successor as champion
of the woman’s “right” to abortion will
not even be a woman. Irish-born executive vice president Jon
O’Brien has taken her place as new president.
Jumpstarting a Movement
Miss Kissling is not alone in her commentary. Other Catholic
“progressives” sense a similar lack of direction
or progress. At the thirtieth anniversary of Call to Action
National Conference last November, Sister Joan Chittister
O.S.B. delivered the keynote address which was almost a
State of the Union address for the Catholic left.
The reoccurring theme was the admonition
that things are not as bad as they seem. Things could be worse.
The outspoken sister proposed a “spirituality for beginning
again” to jump start the lagging movement.
To encourage the ever-more-graying
crowd of aging progressive faithful, the outspoken sister
cited a far-from-encouraging story of a Zen master who was
asked where enlightenment might be found. The master told
the disciple that “if you want to know if your work
is accomplished and you are still alive, it isn’t.”2
Such peeks into the “progressive”
Catholic left serve to highlight the reality of their weakness
and lack of popular appeal and dynamism. It should serve
to expose the lack of substance behind the media reports
that cite leftists as spokesmen for the Church. Finally,
it should serve to encourage Catholics to hold firm to the
Faith and continue to fight for Catholic morals and doctrine
so often attacked by today’s secular society.
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