Back in the day, \u201cconservative Catholics\u201d were (I thought) all about standing with the teaching of the Church against the Progressive Dissenters who wanted to trim out all that stuff that interfered with their sex lives and their politics.<\/p>\n
The torture debates cured me of that illusion once and for all. A great deal of what passes for \u201cconservative Catholic\u201d stuff in the public square is really an attempt to co-opt and even contradict the Church (while still selling itself as the \u201cvoice of truly true Catholicism\u201d over against those awful leftist dissenters that you should, by all means, go on condemning (and pay no attention to \u201cconservative Catholic\u201d dissent). So while I am deeply saddened to see Catholics laboring to defend, excuse and deny the reality of Bush era torture, I am no longer astounded to see things like:<\/p>\n
Do My Eyes Deceive Me?<\/a><\/p>\n
Or did Jody Bottum just describe the possible prosecution of interrogators who violated even the Bush administration\u2019s laws <\/em>governing the treatment of detainees as a way of \u201ccriminalizing policy differences\u201d<\/a>, and accuse Eric Holder of attempting a coup?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Tragic and revolting to see the struggle to excuse, deny, downplay and justify torture continues in \u201cconservative\u201d Catholic circles. But, alas, no longer a surprise to me. Meanwhile, we are called to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of conservative and liberal attempts to subvert and dissent from the Catholic Faith.<\/p>\n