Disclosure:  I was raised very Catholic – including 17 years of Catholic education.  My dad taught psychology at five different Jesuit universities.  Three of my sisters became nuns and one brother studied briefly to be a priest.  In 1976, I was unofficially dubbed candidate Jimmy Carter’s “Catholic Advisor” (I was the only non-Baptist on the campaign).  Further Disclosure:  Today I only see the inside of a Catholic church for weddings and funerals.

So, I’m guessing they can’t excommunicate me for what I’m about to write.  This morning’s news raised not one but two issues that cried out, “What, in God’s name, is the Catholic Church Thinking?”   The first, in the New York Times, is about the row going on between Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence, RI and Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, son of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy and one of Rhode Island’s two members of the House of Representatives.

The battle started when Mr. Kennedy voted to allow limited abortion funding under the health care reform bill just passed by the House – in other words, a pro-choice vote.   This led Bishop Tobin to accuse Kennedy of “false advertising” in describing himself as a Catholic and to say he should be denied holy communion because of his vote.   In response, Mr. Kennedy wondered “how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social justice issue of our time” because they opposed one provision of it.   (The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has vowed to fight any health care bill that does not explicitly ban the use of public money for abortion.)

The second piece of news about the Church appears on the front page of this morning’s Washington Post under the headline, “Catholic Church Gives D.C. Ultimatum.”  It seems the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, in their wisdom (not to mention mercy), is prepared to withdraw their support of various public services potentially affecting “tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness, and health care” if the city passes a law prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

It is fashionable these days to ask, “What would Jesus do?”  Somehow it is hard for me to imagine that He would say, “Screw the 47 million people living without any health insurance and to hell with the poor, the homeless, and the sick of D.C.  If you allow any federal dollars to fund abortion or allow gays to marry, I’m taking my football and going home.”   But, then, it was always hard for me to believe that Jesus would have had anything to do with first perpetrating and then covering up the greatest sexual abuse scandal in history.  What is not hard to imagine is Jesus calling together his management team, brandishing today’s Times and Post  and demanding “Where do we find these people?”

Ironically, it was just three months ago that Patrick Kennedy’s father was himself embroiled in a posthumous battle with the Church.  It was then that one of the saner and more compassionate voices of the Church, Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, presided over a Catholic funeral service for the Senator despite Kennedy’s longstanding pro-choice position.  Defending himself against attacks from his clerical brethren all the way from Rome to Madison, Wisconsin, O’Malley wrote,

“As Archbishop of Boston, I considered it appropriate to represent the Church at this liturgy out of respect for the Senator, his family, those who attended the Mass and all those who were praying for the Senator and his family at this difficult time. We are people of faith and we believe in a loving and forgiving God from whom we seek mercy.”

On that same day, it was revealed that Senator Kennedy had sent Pope Benedict XVI a personal letter asking his blessing as he approached the end of his life.  He received a reply…from the Pope’s staff.  Jesus.