CV NEWS FEED // Fr. Peter Daly, a prominent retired priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, compared bishops concerned about President Biden’s support for abortion to “ayatollahs in Iran” in an essay published by the liberal National Catholic Reporter.
Other prominent clerics, including Fr. Thomas Reese of the Religion News Service, shared the article, which called out pro-life bishops such as Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for publicly suggesting pro-abortion Catholic politicians should repent before receiving Communion.
Pope Francis “wants dialogue, not condemnation,” Fr. Daly wrote:
But what do we get from our ‘culture warrior’ bishops here in the U.S.? We get calls for public condemnation of politicians. We get talk of excommunication of Catholic officeholders who disagree with some bishops.
While Daly claimed to advocate for “respectful dialogue and civility on both sides” of such debates, his essay contained a considerable amount of invective against what he called “culture warrior” bishops.
Daly accused “some U.S. bishops” of having “a positive thirst for excommunication,” and cited Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone as an example.
As CatholicVote reported, Cordileone recently called on Catholics to pray a daily rosary for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, that she might have a “conversion of heart” and begin to defend unborn children from abortion.
Cordileone praised Pelosi for speaking “fondly of her children” and said that she “clearly has a maternal heart.” “Please join me in praying the rosary and fasting for a conversion of Speaker Pelosi’s maternal heart to embracing the goodness and dignity of human life not only after birth, but in the womb as well,” he wrote in a statement.
“[The] path of dialogue is difficult,” Daly wrote in his essay. “It seeks reconciliation, not the defeat of the other side. Dialogue recognizes that the United States is not a theocracy but a secular and pluralistic representative government.”
“Cordileone and others do not seek dialogue, they seek censure,” he argued. “Their political program is similar to the ayatollahs in Iran, not Pope Francis. …As one letter writer to The Washington Post asked in response to Cordileone, ‘Sharia, anyone?’”
The National Catholic Reporter (NCR) published Daly’s piece under the headline “Thank God for Pope Francis: Now, if only our culture war bishops would listen to him.”
Notably, NCR regularly promotes positions which do not comport with Catholic teachings, or even with Pope Francis’ opinions, on a number of issues.
Earlier this month, NCR published an essay by a self-proclaimed “Catholic mom” who “marched for abortion rights.” In the piece, Valerie Schultz denounced the pro-life movement, which she accused of driving her to become pro-choice.
“Some abortions do literally save the life of the mother. Some abortions do help to alleviate the suffering of a victim of rape or incest. Regardless of the heart-wrenching circumstances of any particular situation, however, the state, in the form of a lot of Republican men, should not force a woman to give birth,” she wrote, “any more than it should force a woman not to give birth.”
Shortly after publishing the piece about marching for “abortion rights,” NCR published another opinion piece, by liberal Catholic priest Fr. Daniel Horan, OFM, which blasted Catholics who do not use the “preferred pronouns” of “trans and nonbinary persons.”
As CatholicVote reported, Horan argued that not using LGBT pronouns is “unchristian and sinful.”
He referred to bishops and Catholic school administrators who do not call LGBT people by their chosen names and pronouns “victimizers” who “are perpetrating on an already vulnerable population in our schools, churches and communities….”
“It is a continued disgrace that so many of those who self-identify as Catholic use our faith tradition to reject and erase the self-identities of our sisters, brothers and other siblings in Christ,” Horan concluded.
In addition, just last week NCR published a profile on a woman which the publication called “Father Anne,” a “future womanpriest” seeking ordination in the Catholic Church. The woman was part of an organization that lobbies the Church to change teachings about the priesthood, NCR reported.
NCR did however acknowledge the fact that “Father Anne” and the movement she represented are opposed to the Catholic Church and to Pope Francis:
The official Catholic Church disputes their claims. In his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope John Paul II said, “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women.” Pope Francis further codified the church’s stance this June, updating canon law to reflect a 2007 decree that women who are ordained be automatically excommunicated.
