The vastly inflated rhetoric coming from the religious right over the president’s policy mandating contraception coverage by insurance companies continues to get nuttier and nuttier. A Catholic bishop from Iowa says the idea comes from the devil himself and must be opposed violently.
Feb 15 2012
Bishop Wants Violent Opposition to Contraception Mandate
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Chiroptera
February 15, 2012 at 1:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Violence to further one’s religious agenda. What could go wrong? Look how well it worked in Central Europe in the early 17th century!
Reginald Selkirk
February 15, 2012 at 1:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He should turn the other cheek.
feralboy12
February 15, 2012 at 1:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Either that, or start cheeking his meds.
Tualha
February 15, 2012 at 1:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I thought I heard on NPR this morning that Obama had caved on that? Doesn’t look like it on Google News though.
busterggi
February 15, 2012 at 1:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Impopsicle! I have it on good authority that only Muslims preach violence.
Tualha
February 15, 2012 at 1:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No, no, Reginald. That saying only applies to people raped by priests. They’re supposed to turn the other cheek – butt cheek in this case.
Chiroptera
February 15, 2012 at 1:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
By the way, do they still refer to Jesus as “the Prince of Peace”?
I dunno why that question popped into my mind.
Tualha
February 15, 2012 at 1:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Um, when he said “violently oppose this”, it sounded to me like he meant “vehemently”, not “with violence”. He will certainly claim so, at least, and many will accept that claim. This is a non-starter.
Ibis3, denizen of a spiteful ghetto
February 15, 2012 at 2:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t know, Tualha. He says there are things more important than worldly values, which would include things like protecting or refraining from harming earthly physical bodies and lives wouldn’t it? It’s not really out of the question that he thinks violent opposition is what’s required to fight Satan and the forces of evil.
Randomfactor
February 15, 2012 at 2:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Onward, Christian soldiers. I’ll be behind you all the way. WAY behind you.
raven
February 15, 2012 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh Cthulhu, even the majority of Catholics aren’t going to buy this one.
Birth control use among relevant Catholic women is 98%, about the same as all American women at 99%.
The vast majority of Catholics think the 19th century Pope who made up the arbitrary rule against BC was wrong and just ignore it.
If the Catholics enforced their rule and kicked out everyone who didn’t have 10 kids, there wouldn’t be a US Catholic church.
No members = No money = No church
hyperdeath
February 15, 2012 at 2:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I agree with Tualha. He said nothing else to indicate support for physical violence, and given that the word “violently” is often used metaphorically, he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
eric
February 15, 2012 at 2:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m inclined to agree with Tualha; we shouldn’t get spun up about every bit of bombastic hyperbole. Yeah I think we should punish people who directly urge violence. But to protect free speech, we should also be willing to let people use violent imagery and exaggeration to make a point. Remember its not supposed to be ‘how a fanatic unthinking religious drone’ might interpret the speech, but how a reasonably informed person would.
***
Chiroptera @1 Violence to further one’s religious agenda. What could go wrong? Look how well it worked in Central Europe in the early 17th century!
You forgot 11th, 12th, 13th (crusades), 15th (inquisition), and 16th (reformation). At least. :)
raven
February 15, 2012 at 2:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is something I’ve noticed for a while.
The Catholics haven’t been able to get good priests for a long time.
They mostly seem to be very warped individuals of dubious sanity and just dumb.
Almost no one wants to be a lifelong virgin anymore and forgo girl (or boy) friends, spouses, children, families and so on.
And it has worked its way up the hierarchy. The bishops, archbishops, and Cardinals seem to be warped idiots as well.
I’d like to believe that every time a priest or bishop does something stupid and/or evil they create another atheist or 4. It may even be true. In the last few years 1/3 of the members have defected, 22 million people. This is an astounding number and a recipe for eventual extinction.
The priests just ignore it. And get more and more extreme and irrelevant.
erichoug
February 15, 2012 at 2:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Whenever I hear stuff like this it makes me incredibly happy.
The vast majority of people, Theist or non Theist do not want to see violence in the street over these sorts of theoligical points. Especially the ones that are already using birth control.
Despite what the Bishops think, this sort of rhetoric does nothing but hammer nails into the coffin of religion.
Keep hammering fellahs, keep hammering.
laurentweppe
February 15, 2012 at 2:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Come on: the catholic priestdom never forwent girlfriends, families and so on: they merely forwent the official recognition of their families.
raven
February 15, 2012 at 2:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What also bothers me about this whole tempest in a tea cup is how cuckoo it is.
The Catholic church has a rule made up by a dead pope and not even that long ago, IIRC, the 1800′s. It’s not even anything found in the bible.
It’s so obviously wrong that the members sensibly ignore it.
So the Catholic church is asking the US government to enforce their silly rule. And why should the US government bother. If the priests can’t bulldoze the members into submission, that is their problem not a federal government problem.
Any Catholic who actually buys into their insanity can just say no. No one is forcing them to actually use their insurance benefits and buy birth control services.
iariese
February 15, 2012 at 2:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Iowa has had this mandate as a provision in our code since former Gov. Vilsack signed it into law in 2000.
richardelguru
February 15, 2012 at 2:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@eric
And Islam did pretty well with it in the 7th 8th 9th and 10th!!
den1s
February 15, 2012 at 2:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
….this is after all a papist priest from….. wait for it…. Iowa. That’s the state with the largest and best Baptist church in Freehold Iowa, Landover Baptist, where the unsaved are not welcome. :)
richardelguru
February 15, 2012 at 2:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ raven “Any Catholic who actually buys into their insanity can just say no.”
I’d guess that the reason biscops are getting their frocks in a twist is that (as someone else mentioned) there are not many Cat-oholics who do. It rather rubs the clergy’s collective nose in the fact.
baal
February 15, 2012 at 3:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I agree this is totally cuckoo. The tense body language and strain in the bishops voice makes violence seem like the word he wanted to use. Also given that demeanor, I’m not sure using ‘vehemently’ would have changed his overall message.
Again, this controversy sprang up like a centrally distributed talking point from the right. It has the hallmarks of a political push from the republicans to create a wedge issue between the Obama reelection campaign and the Catholics (collectively).
Does anyone know of evidence of a bishop convocation where the talking heads were selected and the arguments distributed?
Tualha
February 15, 2012 at 3:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Um, raven, Judeo-Christian opposition to at least some kinds of birth control goes back to the Onan story in Genesis, at least.
raven
February 15, 2012 at 3:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah, happened a few weeks ago. Nothing secret about it.
Makes me want to leave the Catholic church. Violence just isn’t my cup of tea. However, not being a Catholic, that isn’t even possible.
Oh really? Most Protestant churches don’t have a problem with birth control. Probably the vast majority in fact. The average family size in the USA is 2+ after all. Birth control use is 99%. The breeding like rabbits syndrome is pretty rare these days.
If this bishop was bright enough, he might realize he just called most Protestants spawn of the devil. Maybe he can restart the Reformation wars again. That worked so well in the past and did Northern Ireland a lot of good.
raven
February 15, 2012 at 3:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Not that one at least.
Onan’s sin wasn’t spilling his seed on the ground. It was disobeying god who told him to knock up his dead brothers wife.
Area Man
February 15, 2012 at 3:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s like the Catholic leadership is trying as hard as it can to sow the seeds of its own destruction. Look, if they wanted to pick a fight over abortion, they may have gotten somewhere. Even a fight over gay rights would win them some sympathy among their flock. But birth control? Idiots!
I’ve certainly got nothing against Catholics, but ever since the Church decided to wage a shoot-the-messenger campaign after the latest round of sex abuse allegations was reported by the NYT, I’ve lost any and all respect for the Catholic hierarchy. Any pretense they may have had to the moral high ground was completely blown after that. The sooner they exit stage right, the better.
Ed Brayton
February 15, 2012 at 3:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I agree that the bishop probably doesn’t really mean to encourage violence here; he probably did mean vehemently. But that isn’t what he said. And this kind of rhetoric still needs to be criticized.
cptdoom
February 15, 2012 at 4:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I am very sure Mr. Nickless was not advocating actual physical violence – or at least is smart enough to claim he wasn’t if called on his statements – but that does not mean he can’t incite violence with these statements. In their rush to attack Obama and the Dems, the right wing leadership, in alliance with the leaders of the Catholic church, is stirring up the basest emotions among their true believers. Those emotions are a powerful force, however, and not easily controlled.
This stance is especially hypocritical because it singles out only one instance where the government demands Roman Catholics violate their religion. Catholic institutions and individual employers are already required by federal and state law to overlook heresy and blasphemy (can’t discriminate by religion) as well as fornication and adultery (can’t discriminate by marital status, including those not married in any church or divorced and remarried). How is it worse to require contraceptive coverage in an insurance plan than to require that insurance plan to cover people the Catholics believe are living in perpetual sin.
tacitus
February 15, 2012 at 4:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wish people who use this figure would qualify it properly. The number only includes women between the ages of 15 and 44 who have been sexually active in the last three months. It’s still a very impressive number and makes a strong point, but it’s too easily dismissed as nonsense by those who oppose the HHS mandate when the context is omitted, as I heard them doing when listening to Catholic radio last night.
They also mentioned that a Catholic army chaplain had been told by his superiors he could not issue a public statement about against the mandate, and that he might have ended up in jail if they had not reach some kind of compromise. Sounds like typical hyperbole to me (part of the whole “imprisoned for my faith” meme) but I don’t know any more details about the case.
Dr X
February 15, 2012 at 4:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My take:
He would probably say that he didn’t intend to encourage acts of violence, and he would feel honest saying that because non-violence is probably his consciously held ideal. But funny thing about people is that we often have multiple and competing inclinations that sometimes clash with our own highest values. We tend to own expressions of our ideals as who we really are, while dismissing expressions of our less noble inclinations as NOT REALLY who we are.
This guy comes across as if he’s sitting on volcano of rage, and while he almost surely believes in non-violence as a moral imperative, a more primitive part of him his exerting a great deal of internal pressure. It’s palpable in his presentation, and it’s leaking through his narrative and word choice.
When people start invoking Satan as the animator of their opponents, extreme actions become justifiable. There are no rules when you’re combating pure evil; you can rationalize exceptions to your highest values.
d cwilson
February 15, 2012 at 4:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If altar boys could get pregnant, the Catholic Church would probably consider contraception a sacrament.
eric
February 15, 2012 at 4:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed:
Agree that the general ratcheting up of rhetoric is a subject ripe for ridicule and satire. (Rrrr! :)
But his message also needs to be criticized as idiotic.
***
Even with Tacitus’ caveats, the numbers really bring home just how ridiculous this opposition is. What does the church think will happen – that when the laity no longer has to pay for birth control, the number who use it will go up? There ain’t much room TO go up – how much higher do they think it will go?
Note to RCC: pouring money into political efforts to keep birth control use from going above the current 99% rate should really make you question your return on investment.
RickR
February 15, 2012 at 5:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s time the catholic church put its money where its mouth is- quit whining in the media and take some of that exorbitant wealth, and purchase a supply of AK-47s, a few F-16s, and several thousand Holy Hand Grenades™.
You know….for when they don’t get their way.
exdrone
February 15, 2012 at 6:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m on the bishop’s side! Why are we forcing priests to wear condoms and nuns to use diaphrams? … er … I mean, why are we forcing secular workers at Catholic sponsored organizations to become Catholic? … Sorry, no. … Why are we forcing Catholic sponsored organizations to co-pay contraception? … Um, no. … Why is the President advocating Satanism? … Wait. I get the darkness, light and Satan thing, but what’s this dude’s problem again?
sailor1031
February 15, 2012 at 6:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wasn’t it a catholic bishop who famously said to the Commander of besieging forces at the fall of some city in France “kill them all, God will know his own”. These guys may be more pacific today but it was not always so! He said “violently”, I take it he meant “violently”. Sure sounds like a threat to me.
I wonder why, when we have evil bastards like this around, he feels the need for a satan!
whheydt
February 15, 2012 at 6:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The irony here is that birth control pills were invented by a *Catholic* doctor who was trying to find a reliable way for Catholics to practice family planning and still abide by their church’s position on the subject. Then the Vatican rejected his solution…
Meanwhile, I’ll get out the popcorn and wait for the Boston SWAT team to start breaking the heads of Catholic officials rioting in the streets…
–W. H. Heydt
Old Used Programmer
ambulocetacean
February 15, 2012 at 7:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m not going to get too worried until they start putting out maps with “surveyors’ marks” on the pharmacies.
raven
February 15, 2012 at 7:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Doesn’t look like too many Americans care what the Catholic bishops say.
FWIW, in these polls, the Catholic membership usually tracks with the general population.
Any Catholic who actually tried to follow all their silly rules and regulations would probably end up poor, broke, and crazy. They ignore them because they don’t make sense and they want to have a real life.
I suspect that at the end of the day, the bishops have probably made more ex-Catholics. It’s estimated that 10% of the US population are ex-Catholics.
Area Man
February 15, 2012 at 7:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh, right. Those silly researchers didn’t look at birth control use among post-menopausal women and young children! What were they thinking?
Seriously, the only way these qualifications matter at all is if Catholic women tend to be disproportionally celibate. I am unaware of any evidence to that effect. And the fact that most non-immigrant Catholic families are not notably larger than others is evidence of rampant birth control among married couples.
W. Kevin Vicklund
February 15, 2012 at 9:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Heh. Imagine my reaction when I heard that Cummins bought out ONAN. Both being in the generation business.
DaveL
February 15, 2012 at 10:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have to agree with Area Man here. If we’re going to start counting children, post-menopausal women, and women who haven’t had sex in months in a survey on birth control use then we might as well go whole hog and add in household pets, fictional characters, and inanimate objects.
Michael Heath
February 16, 2012 at 6:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t support using the 98 percent assertion either. Primarily because the referenced population doesn’t include women between the ages of 15 and 44 who are trying to get pregnant. We should remember that within Catholicism and some fundamentalist protestant sects, women have a biblical edict to always accept God’s will to get impregnated by her husband. So this study strips out authentically obedient Catholic women, of which there’s a declining number though they still exist.
This graph looks at women who’ve been sexually active within the last three months. It shows 83% of Catholic women used an effective to mediocre method of birth control (up through condoms, I excluded ‘natural planning’ and other).
anandine
February 16, 2012 at 8:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
sailor1031 said: Wasn’t it a catholic bishop who famously said to the Commander of besieging forces at the fall of some city in France “kill them all, God will know his own”.
Arnaud Amalric, aka Arnaud of Cîteaux, an abbot.
Wikipedia says he probably didn’t say it, and it wasn’t in his own report about the battle, but some contemporary writer says he heard somebody say that Arnaud had said it. Close enough. It’a a good line.
richardelguru
February 16, 2012 at 9:02 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Heh! Heh!
This reminds me of (was it way back in the early 60s?) when the Pope banned further discussion of birth control.
I was in high school in England (no separation of church and state of course) and they brought in an RC
pederastpriest to talk to us.When he asked for questions at the end of some dozy spiel I jumped up and said I that I did have one, but the Pope seemed to have got wind of it.
Got a good laugh from the kids.
Bastard masters made me write a letter of apology.
To the
pederastpriest, not the Pope.Fun times.
Sigh!
Area Man
February 16, 2012 at 1:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Gosh, why didn’t those silly researchers think of this! Oh wait, they did:
So Catholic women are no more likely to abstain from sex if they’re unmarried, nor are they more likely to try to get pregnant (or be post-partum, etc.) if they’re married. So you can’t explain away the high rate use of contraceptives by pretending that Catholics are remaining celibate or are breeding machines.