More on Fr. Bourgeois

From Mark Tooley a politically conservative Methodist. Here he takes on a progressive rabbi who is up in arms about the potential excommunication of Fr. Bourgeois. Oh, and Sr. Joan Chittister is among this progressive religious group.

I am again uncomfortable with the non-Catholic writer delving into the internal matters at stake (women's faux-ordination) and declaring so confidently the hierarchy of Catholic morality in public policy matters. I don't necessarily think he's wrong, but he is a bit too offhand here:

Lerner accused the Catholic Church of hypocrisy for not threatening excommunication against priests who supposedly have failed to uphold “the very progressive teachings of the Church against war and poverty” by supporting U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or “the notion of a violent war against terror.” Of course, the church has no doctrinal stance against U.S. military policies in the same sense that it has one on the meaning of the priesthood. Roman Catholicism is not pacifist. And the public misgivings of Pope John Paul II about the Iraq War did not have the status of doctrine. Religious leftists like to pretend that the Bible and church traditions have very specific mandates that echo the Left’s own temporal political ambitions.

Tikkun’s self-made rabbi knows exactly what is brewing within Roman Catholicism. “Politically conservative forces” have captured the church, Lerner warned, and are suppressing “progressive causes,” while protecting “those who support authoritarian and reactionary and violent causes.” Of course, he did not further describe these reactionary forces. Instead, Lerner condemned the Catholic Church’s “tenth century decision to exclude women from the clergy,” while the church ignores Jesus’ teachings against violence and for social justice, allowing priests who support “economic oppression and wars” to run rife. He urged his Network’s supporters to campaign against the forces of reaction within the Catholic Church. “We are not anti-Catholic,” Lerner insisted, even as he inveighed against the church hierarchy for bigotry and oppression.

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Look, if Mr. Dooley wants to take on Fr. Bourgeois for his leftist pacifism and its consequences, with which he obviously disagrees, I think that's fine. I am uncomfortable with Dooley's--as well as rabbi Lerner's--jumping into our own intramural matters on some basic tenets of the faith and Tradition. I am of the opinion that Dooley and Lerner are talking out of school on this.

I give Lerner some allowance as he is personally associated with Fr. Bourgeois and obviously their mutual agenda (which I do not share) will be adversely affected if Fr. Bourgeois is excommunicated. But why is this Mr. Dooley's concern?