Wills on the “Murderous” Catholic Church

A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a Word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, what kind of gospel is that? Preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed do not light up the world!
– Archbishop Oscar Romero

Garry Wills – (Staggeringly Inarticulate Author, What Jesus Meant, Viking Press 2006): There is…a message of life and love in the New Testament. Little of that comes out of Rome now. People are dying of AIDS all around the world now especially in places like Africa and Indonesia now, when the Pope refuses to allow people to have contraception, he’s killing them. He’s responsible for murder. This is hardly a gospel of life and love.

Interviewer: You say that Pope Benedict is responsible for murder?

Garry Wills: Sure, sure. More people are more resentful and hateful toward the Catholic Church because of that than because of the sexual molestation problem…sexual molesters are terrible it’s…you know here in Boston, but for the most part, not always, but for the most part they didn’t kill people. This is killing people on a grand scale, and it’s a horrendous scandal, much greater than any sexual molestation scandal.

I’ve always found it interesting that people who have no intention of following church teaching on chastity will DEMAND that the church change its teaching on condoms. It’s not like they’re actually paying attention to anything the church is saying, and clearly it is a ruse. Gay men are not carousing in bath houses or at the meat racks of Fire Island while thinking…”wait…the Catholic church says Condoms are Bad, and I don’t want to be separate from the church, so I guess I’ll just have to chance it and go bareback, because there is no way I’m not partying tonight!!

– The Anchoress June ’05

One finishes this occasionally illuminating book wondering whether its author is ever going to drop his tiresome pose as a suburban Poverello and take a course in elementary logic. – Edward Oakes, reviewing Wills’ book