A Sore Loser?
William A. Dinges, a professor of religious studies at The Catholic University of America, is steamed. Addressing a national gathering of 100 or so diocesan social-action leaders in Washington, D.C., Dinges says that “polarization” in the Catholic Church has reached a new peak with the 2004 presidential election (according to a Catholic News Service report, Feb. 22).
Who’s to blame? It’s largely the right-wing Catholics, who insisted that the election hinged on abortion and embryonic stem-cell research. Dinges says the rhetoric has been “vitriolic” and the behavior “uncivil,” being characterized by “confrontation, harassment and attempts at intimidation.”
Dinges deplores all this “rancor,” “incivility,” and “name-calling.”
You May Also Enjoy
"Gentle personalism" described his program for renewal. It was an impulse toward freedom and community that had the potential of radiating throughout creation.
A poor woman I knew regarded herself, when pregnant, as the recipient of a gift from God. For me, the matter was at once abstract and circumstantial.
As a storyteller, the Archduke wins us over with little effort; as a mentor, he is the victim of a fatal infatuation with redundancy.