Patriarchal paternalism is at the heart of leadership, according to the Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in their assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

Sadly, that kind of paternalistic leadership rarely works out well. See the stories pouring out of a Philadelphia courtroom over the last month, or the horrific story from Sister Joan Chittister, OSB from her recent trip to Africa.

I thank God for those who speak out against anyone who imperiously looks at the world and asks “Who are you to question us?” I thank God for the sisters of LCWR, and especially for Sister Joan.

I am a white male. I grew up in a rural part of NE Ohio that was nearly all white middle class. Both my parents had college degrees and both worked in professional fields. My knowledge of and experience with those who are blue collar was limited to my aunt and uncle on my father’s side of the family and a few friends.

After my father passed away, my mother moved us down to South West Florida, which at that time was a mix of Northern transplants and Florida natives IE those born there. Nearly all of which were white and most middle to upper middle class. We mostly shared the same world views and ideals.

There are many, many people of faith, progressive houses of worship fighting out and proud against Amendment One in solidarity with their LGBT neighbors who will be hurt by it, should it pass. On the other side? A man reveling in shooting up an anti-amendment sign, and now this news of a pastor in Fayetteville, [...]

Hey kids! Remember this? “Americans United has protested a Virginia county official’s announcement that citizens who are offended by Christian invocations at board of supervisors meetings can ‘leave the room.’”

This weekend, two prominent New York columnists used their Sunday columns to send a united message to New York’s Cardinal Timonthy Dolan and the Catholic hierarchy: lay off the nuns unless you want to read a lot of stories about predator priests and the massive coverup scandal involving the Bishops and the Vatican.

Seattle’s Archbishop J. Peter Sartain is a busy guy. He’s involved in getting his flock motivated to put an anti-marriage equality measure called Referendum 74 on the ballot in Washington, even though local priests and congregations are resisting. Now he’s also been tapped to oversee a Vatican-ordered obedience training for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, who keep talking about things like women’s health issues instead of opposite-sex marriage that the bishops want them to talk about. So much for religious freedom.

Jesus’s angry older brother Bill Donohue sat up all last night wishing and hoping and thinking and praying that blasphemer Jon Stewart would give him a call in order to apologize for his televised slur against the holiest of holies (vaginas, hoohahs, va-jayjays, Play-Doh and bacon mash-ups) but Stewart did not call and Bill Donohue is not about to turn the other cheek [Matthew 5:38-42] like that big homo Jesus kind of suggested.

Owner of a Stage 3 Systolic/Diastolic BP, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League is not amused by some smart-assed Jew York comedian who placed Our Lord Jesus Christ’s birthbarn right next to A LADY VAGINA which is wrong wrong wrong because everyone knows that Jesus and Catholic Priests would never go there.

The TheoCons have hauled out their cannons to fire warning shots at Mitt Romney. Ralph Reed, Richard Land, Tony Perkins, and a host of others are all pointing to Teh Awesome Power of the Religious Right, and warning Romney not to ignore them or tick them off.

So how will Mitt play this? Bow to their read-between-the-lines demands, or ignore them as whiners who backed a loser? Either way, the TheoCons are not done campaigning against Romney.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is trying to play the martyr once more. This time, they are trying to claim the mantle of James Madison and Martin Luther King Jr. as they self-righteously hold themselves up as the defenders of religious liberty. If the bishops were truly honest and transparent about what they are doing, however, there’d be a revision of Dante’s sign hanging over the door to every bishop’s office and over the entrances to far too many catholic churches: “Abandon all independent thinking, ye who enter here”.

Sorry, your eminences, but the answer is no.