Right Wing-Nuts

Church Isn't A Democracy- and some don't even like ours.


The Papacy is the closest thing to a benign ideological dictatorship that exists on earth, like it or not. It doesn't pretend to be democratic. He is supposed to be "infallible"- his PR guys-not so much (one is getting the boot after fiasco after fiasco). The people in the hierarchy are just supposed to tote the company line. No new-agey free thinking invited or necessary- we liked it just fine in the Middle Ages.
It isn't really safe to be a Democrat in some churchs- or to voice any dissent over things like the ObamaDrama and Notre Dame's invitation without being branded totally unworthy to set foot in the place. Subsequent to a critical piece regarding all the uproar at which I took the side of the Administration of Notre Dame (and identified a graduate of the law school mounting his discontent on his blog- who happens to be a "lector" reader at a mostly republican conservative Washington, DC parish) and posted a petition to bring Obama to Notre Dame, I was handed a non-criminal "barring" order forbidding me entry for the sins of dissent deemed to be undermining the Pastor who cultivates his own republican base - (OK, plus possibly my comments regarding the fact that the obsessively- in- crush suggar momma who google eyes the Pastor needs a man her own age and acts like she is buying an escort and his divorced mother needs a man of her own.)
There is a "name and shame" doctrine at work, at which "sins" like a free mind and opinion
will get you escorted out of the pews by the doctrine police (or worse.) They like to make a public example of you. This "name and shame" practice derives from Medieval pilloring practices where the humiliation was supposed to put the fear of God in people- think the Scarlet letter "A." Public shaming is supposed to make sure no one else follows in your free-thinking footsteps. Think American Inquisition on steroids. I actually heard a Dominican lecture on what he misconstrued as the biblical mandate to do this for the purpose of instilling fear in others witnessing this, in spite of the fact that every Angel who ever appeared first said to "Fear Not" and the opposite of Faith is Fear.

I leave open the possibility that contrary to my usual self, I am just not being nice here.
In that case I give everyone who wants to send me far away the opportunity to pay for me to
go work with orphans in the Dominican Republic with the Foundation for Peace medical and educational missionaries. I will shortly be sending you sponsorship forms so you can help finance this so I stop blogging about how off the wall I think you are.

Thank you in advance for your kind generosity.