2nd post of my series on the 2024 presidential election, and I’m still debating if I even want to type any of this, because it feels stupid. No one cares. (Is anyone even going to read this? Does it matter? Should it matter? This is like a fire in my bones and I can’t not, either way….) I was on an organizing call last night for Women for Harris and – oh my gosh right, so the energy is real.

I am also taking (most of) this week off being Catholic, off daily mass, except for Thursday when I’m supposed to lector. Because, I need a minute to assess if I really want to stay Catholic, and knowing if so I need to be angry. I’m going to be really angry this year. I wonder if it might help to wear some hat or a t-shirt that shows I am voting all Democrat this year – again – just to let the people here know that The Bishops Do Not Speak for Me.

Because this feels like 2016 all over again. And, the horror of Trump’s first victory. Except worse. I reluctantly voted for Clinton, because – ugh – another Clinton. This time, if Harris loses, I will be devastated. She is that fresh face in national politics and that’s what I thought in 2020 too. I would have rather voted for her in 2020 than Biden, not even lying. Her and a couple of other cogent, responsible sounding candidates not already part of the elite. Is she perfect? Heck, no. But this could be the real change to the political machinery that we desperately need right now. You never know until you try.

This feels like former pastor of Saint Catherine Laboure, Father Neil Sullivan, after Brett Kavanaugh finally got that nomination, giving a homily that horrified me. In 2018, I will never forget or let this go, that he stood up there in front of the congregation and said, This is going to sound bad, but maybe it was worthwhile to get a probable rapist on the Supreme Court in order to overturn Roe v. Wade. Yeah, so f*ck you, Father Neil Sullivan, currently pastor across the river at Good Shepherd. Now you guys don’t even know where unwanted babies come from. Is that it? Are you stupid?

I would respect you more, if I thought you were just stupid.

Because honestly I don’t know how anyone can live with this kind of cognitive dissonance. It must help to have educations paid for by laypeople, to have jobs that are pretty much guaranteed unless you do something so egregious that the diocese basically has no choice but to fire you. It must be nice to be able to say incredibly stupid things with so little fear of recrimination for what you say in public in front of a roomful of people that all I can think is – oh man, if this were anywhere else, I would feel morally obligated to either respond right now or else get up and leave the room and talk with my feet.

Not that you will hear me. Not that anyone cares.

Because it is not enough for me to just say “you can be Catholic and be Democratic.” No, I need to call out and acknowledge that the guys in charge, whose salaries we laypeople are covering. They are in fact saying the opposite. Loudly. Using our tithes to do it. Bending if not breaking the first amendment of our constitution. Hi! We see you what you’re doing over there and it is very not okay.

I am not okay with that. I don’t think we should be okay with that.

Where are the religious leaders here? Are they content to go to Christian nationalist prayer breakfasts and Important Meetings with Important People while ignoring the least of these? Ignoring the cries of the poor and the marginalized except of course for the photo ops and as one ACTUAL public service person I know puts it, “the big ticket” (photo op) forms of service? Did Jesus not say that our almsgiving should be (mostly) in secret, for God to see? What am I missing here?

Are they going to deny – via silence – the role they have played in potentially propping up a guy who may well be the end of democracy as we know it?

Either way, for what it is worth, of course I’m voting for Kamala in November. I’m also praying the bishops shut their stupid mouths this year and not be stupid – again – but if they do, among other things, debating if I want to have talking points ready to go, to anyone who will listen. Here is one talking point for you: if we really want to reduce abortion then … how about we acknowledge the real harm in Humanae Vitae’s sexist components. Let’s talk about contraception, sexual education, an end to rape culture, maybe even – get this – a female president and dignity to women. This could be a necessary step forward, toward a future where all women around the world get to see themselves as something more than sex objects for men.

There is more than one way to be anti-abortion, and I still think that the anti-abortion movement as it is, that’s just another way of trying to cut corners, to ask other people to do something difficult without lifting one finger to help them. These and other things actual Jesus would actually call out.

Ergo, Christian nationalism is neither Christian nor nationalist (in a United States-specific sense.) It’s not respectful to the founding principles of our nation, including the separation between Church and State literally carved into our actual constitution. It doesn’t honor the teachings of Jesus either.

That will be all.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FciQeRGYFlw%3Fsi%3De_f3a3KFYDsT9yn3