In all likelihood, you know by now about the rift between the archdiocese of Washington and the DC city council over what the latter thinks is an issue of gay rights, but really relates to religious freedom. First off, the Church really needs some better communications people. The archdiocese got killed in the media over this. Why? The Washington Post spun it as the Church punishing the homeless because they hate gay people. Cue, the big bad Catholic church, the inquisition, and the nazi pope. Of course, if a Post reporter ventured into one of the many black baptist churches in southeast DC, I’m pretty sure he or she would hear far more aggressive rhetoric against homosexuality, but the Post will never go there, will it?
So what’s the real story? At yesterday’s 10am Mass at St. Matthew’s cathedral, Fr. Mark Knestout addressed this issue head on. He didn’t mince words. He spoke with passion, but also with reason and compassion. The issue, he noted, was not really about same-sex marriage at all. The issue was that the DC city council has deliberately and maliciously chosen to narrow a religious exemption that had worked for decades. They amended the bill with one purpose in mind – to teach the Catholic church a lesson. Even the ACLU supported the archdiocese on this one. Fr. Mark also noted that Catholic Charities will never ever end its mission of helping those in need. Nothing would change. If the DC council chose no longer to award contracts to Catholic Charities, that is solely the choice of DC council. It was an excellent homily. Fr. Mark even asked the congregation to contact the DC council. He singled out David Catania, one of the instigators of this revised bill, and a Catholic who actually called the archdiocese for a papal Mass ticket last year…
In other news, Fr. Mark’s older brother, Bishop Barry Knestout, sent out a letter stressing the importance of contributing to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Noting the severity of the economic crisis, he stressed the importance of the CCHD in “funding low-income community groups across the United States that find lasting solutions to the root causes of poverty”. He noted how essentially this funding was to alleviating poverty, especially in current circusmstances. This is important, and sends a rebuke to those narrow partisans that are attacking the CCHD, and implicitly, the USCCB.
In each case, we see the archdiocese of Washington (and the Knestout brothers!) standing up for the basic principles of Catholicism, resisting attacks from the partisans of the right and left. Good for them.
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