{"id":1320,"date":"2019-07-13T22:50:50","date_gmt":"2019-07-14T03:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/chaosandoldnight\/?p=1320"},"modified":"2019-07-15T21:24:41","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T02:24:41","slug":"1320","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/chaosandoldnight\/2019\/07\/1320\/","title":{"rendered":"Archbishop Chaput, I see you"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"
Charles Joseph Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

I\u2019ll give Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput one thing: he knows how to cover his tracks. He knows how to sound above the fray, impartial, when pushing a right-wing agenda. Advising his flock in August, 2016<\/a>, on how to vote in that fall\u2019s election in a way consistent with their Catholic faith, he wrote:<\/p>\n

For Catholics, no political or social issue stands in isolation. But neither are all pressing issues equal in foundational importance or gravity. The right to life undergirds all other rights and all genuine social progress. It cannot be set aside or contextualized in the name of other \u201crights\u201d or priorities without prostituting the whole idea of human dignity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As I like to say, nothing matters before the \u201cbut.\u201d This passage sounds benign at first. It is true that \u201cno political or social issue stands in isolation.\u201d But then Archbishop Chaput pulls his bait-and-switch: \u201cThe right to life undergirds all other rights and all genuine social progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

The subtext was clear: vote Republican; for Donald Trump. Or at the very least, do not vote for Hillary Clinton, who, Archbishop Chaput wrote earlier in that piece, \u201cshould be under criminal indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pulling the same trick<\/h4>\n

Archbishop Chaput pulled the same trick last week in a speech delivered to<\/a> the Alliance Defending Freedom Summit on Religious Liberty. Again, he promoted right-wing politics under the guise of impartiality. But don\u2019t take my word for it. The Catholic News Agency, perhaps inadvertently, thought so too<\/a>, writing in their lede:<\/p>\n

Christians are called to win the battle of ideas and values in secular society, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput said Tuesday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, using a term first introduced into America\u2019s political vocabulary by Pat Buchanan<\/a> in his speech to the 1992 Republican National Convention, Archbishop Chaput defended conservative Catholics against the accusation that they engage in culture war. \u201cWe are\u00a0<\/em>fighting for what we believe,\u201d he said, \u201cBut of course, so are advocates on the other side of all these issues<\/em>. They too are \u2018culture warriors.\u2019\u201d (Emphasis in the original.)<\/p>\n

That by \u201cfighting for what we believe,\u201d Archbishop Chaput means fighting for our place in an earthly kingdom\u2014an earthly kingdom governed by a Republican agenda\u2014and not how to more thoroughly live and be the Gospel in society, is clear in the context of the entire speech.<\/p>\n

Religious freedom<\/h4>\n

The speech is titled, \u201cBuilding a Culture of Religious Freedom.\u201d The term \u201creligious freedom\u201d appears about a half-dozen times. Archbishop Chaput never defines \u201creligious freedom,\u201d but speaking to a friendly audience, he probably felt he didn\u2019t need to.<\/p>\n

\u201cReligious freedom\u201d became a rallying cry of conservative Catholics during the Obama years who objected to the contraceptive mandate<\/a>, a regulation enacted in conjunction with the Affordable Care Act that required contraception to be added to the list of preventative services provided by the ACA.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a rallying cry for religious conservatives, Catholic and Protestant, who support bakers<\/a>, photographers, etc., who refuse to provide their services for gay marriages.<\/p>\n

While, on the surface, \u201creligious freedom\u201d sounds like a perfectly legitimate ideal\u2014preserving the First Amendment rights of believers\u2014as applied by Catholic and Protestant conservatives, what it really means \u201cmy rights, but not your rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Archbishop Chaput askes, \u201cHow can we build a culture of religious freedom?\u201d But without defining it, he\u2019s speaking in a vacuum\u2014and a partisan vacuum. He gives himself some cover by saying the United States \u201cis not our final home.\u201d But his partisan intent comes clear when he continues:<\/p>\n

The eagerness of Catholics to push their way into our country\u2019s mainstream over the past half century, and to climb the ladder of social and economic success, has done very little to Christianize American culture. But it\u2019s done a great deal to bleach out the zeal and faith of everyday Catholics, and to weaken the power of any distinctive Catholic witness. Joe Biden\u2019s recent reversal on the Hyde Amendment may frustrate or anger us. But it shouldn\u2019t surprise us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So he deplores Mr. Biden\u2019s support for federal funding of abortion, but makes no mention at all of President Trump, no mention at all of Mr. Trump\u2019s concentration camps<\/a> where children are tortured and sexually abused<\/a>, no mention at all of Mr. Trump\u2019s pagan worship of power for its own sake<\/a>, no mention at all of how Trump tramples the rights and dignity of the poor, the immigrant, the most marginalized of our society.<\/p>\n

Same old, same old<\/h4>\n

Remember, Archbishop Chaput is the guy who in 2016 tricked Catholics into voting for Mr. Trump with false equivalency lies. He wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

One candidate\u2014in the view of a lot of people\u2014is an eccentric businessman of defective ethics whose bombast and buffoonery make him inconceivable as president. And the other\u2014in the view of a lot of people\u2014should be under criminal indictment. The fact that she\u2019s not\u2014again, in the view of a lot of people\u2014proves Orwell\u2019s Animal Farm principle that \u201call animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Archbishop Chaput exonerates Mr. Trump by saying what everybody at the time already knew about him. Ms. Clinton, on the other hand, should be under criminal indictment \u201cin the view of a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catty much, your excellency? But conservative Catholics never fret too much over the 8th Commandment. Never mind that, though Ms. Clinton probably is the most investigated politician in American history, no one, not even Republicans, have found anything to indict her for.<\/p>\n

Then, Archbishop Chaput as much as calls Ms. Clinton an animal.<\/p>\n

We are called to be leaven<\/h4>\n

Archbishop Chaput is, well, an archbishop. And I\u2019m just me. But I\u2019d like to say something. No, your excellency, Christians are not called to fight secular culture wars, no matter how much we tell ourselves we are fighting for what we believe. We are not called to win the battle of ideas.<\/p>\n

We are called to be leaven in society, transforming it from within by obeying Christ\u2019s commandment to \u201clove your neighbor as yourself,\u201d and living the Beatitudes and the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. By reducing a full life in Christ to a political slogan\u2014\u201cWe are fighting for what we believe\u201d\u2014you reduce the Faith to an ideology, one ideology among many, fighting for dominance.<\/p>\n

Many outside the conservative Christian bubble view that brand of Christianity as a perverse, twisted version of the religion of the Gospels. I say it does not even rise to that. It\u2019s pagan idolatry with a nod every now and then to someone named Jesus who may have said something once about foot hygiene.<\/p>\n

And this is what Charles Chaput\u2014a Catholic archbishop\u2014is peddling.<\/p>\n

(Image licensed by Flickr<\/a>. -spd)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll give Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput one thing: he knows how to cover his tracks. He knows how to sound above the fray, impartial, when pushing a right-wing agenda. Advising his flock in August, 2016, on how to vote in that fall\u2019s election in a way consistent with their Catholic faith, he wrote: For Catholics, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3482,"featured_media":1326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,39,20,36],"tags":[183,22,186],"class_list":["post-1320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alarms-and-discursions","category-catholic-church","category-politics","category-religion","tag-charles-chaput","tag-donald-trump","tag-hillary-clinton"],"yoast_head":"\nPhiladelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput knows how to cover his tracks.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Archbishop Charles Chaput peddles far-right politics under the guise of authentic Catholicism and impartiality. 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