Vatican Disconnect.Shifting gears, I have written in various places about the significant disconnect between the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church Roman Catholic Church, Christian church headed by the pope, the bishop of Rome (see papacy and Peter, Saint). Its commonest title in official use is Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. and the views of most ordinary Catholics. By most indices, since 1965 there has been an implosion implosion /im·plo·sion/ (im-plo´zhun) see flooding. im·plo·sion n. 1. in the Catholic church in the United States. Weekly church attendance is down to below 30 percent, tithing In Western ecclesiastical law, the act of paying a percentage of one's income to further religious purposes. One of the political subdivisions of England that was composed of ten families who held freehold estates. a percentage of income has dropped by half, parochial school enrollment has slid from half of all Catholic kids to under 20 percent, and varying majorities of Catholics disagree with official hierarchy positions on divorce, contraception, abortion rights, ordaining women, and allowing priests to marry. Furthermore, Catholic voters preferred Clinton over Bush by 44 percent to 36 percent in 1992 and over Dole in 1996 by 56 percent to 37 percent, with Clinton picking up twenty-four of the twenty-five most heavily Catholic metro areas and the twelve most heavily Catholic states, despite Clinton's and the Democrats' pro-choice and anti-voucher stances. And the National Catholic Reporter showed in August that Democrats in Congress support traditional Catholic social justice positions (similar to humanist and Unitarian Universalist positions) more often than Republicans. What I am leading up to is a strong recommendation that readers access the excellent publications of Catholics for a Free Choice Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) is a pro-choice political organization whose founders hold the belief that "the Catholic tradition supports a woman's moral and legal right to follow her conscience in matters of sexuality and reproductive health. (www.catholicsfor choice.org). CFFC CFFC Catholics For a Free Choice CFFC Commander, Fleet Forces Command CFFC Commander, US Fleet Forces Command CFFC Christian Forever, Forever Christian CFFC Cult Forever Forever Cult (band) is the lead sponsor of the "See Change" campaign to convince the United Nations to revoke the favored status uniquely granted to the Holy See, the governing body of the Roman Catholic church. See Change is supported by the American Humanist Association The American Humanist Association (AHA) is an educational organization in the United States that advances Humanism. It is the original Humanist organization, and embraces secular, religious, and other manifestations of Humanist philosophy. and over 500 other U.S. and foreign groups. I recommend CFFC's latest publications, The Holy See and Women's Rights The effort to secure equal rights for women and to remove gender discrimination from laws, institutions, and behavioral patterns. The women's rights movement began in the nineteenth century with the demand by some women reformers for the right to vote, known as suffrage, and : A Shadow Report on the Beijing Platform for Action and Catholic HMOs and Reproductive Health Care. Edd Doerr is president of the American Humanist Association and executive director of Americans for Religious Liberty. |
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