The Washington Post suggests that maybe the “tense relationship” between the Catholic church and the Girl Scouts is approaching a “resolution” – without really clarifying why the bishops think it’s any of their business or why anyone else does either.
Potentially at stake is whether troops can continue meeting in Catholic churches, and whether many Catholic girls, who make up a quarter of the nation’s 3 million Girl Scouts, will continue in scouting as the organization marks its 100th year.
How can the second item be at stake? The bishops can’t actually force people to do things, after all. They’re not cops. They don’t have badges or guns or clubs, and they’re not licensed by the state to enforce the laws. It’s really not within their power to tell Catholic girls what groups they can belong to. (They can tell, but it’s just noise.) They’re not the boss of Catholic girls. They’re not the boss of anyone except their own employees. They can’t stop Catholic girls continuing in scouting.
“There had been some complaints about the Scouts, and the bishops couldn’t turn a deaf ear,” said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the bishops. “So they want to know, what’s the story?”
Couldn’t turn a deaf ear? Why not? Who says?
Critics of the Girl Scouts contend their materials shouldn’t have any links to groups like the Sierra Club, Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, or other groups that support family planning and contraception. Other critics are unhappy that the American Girl Scouting organization is a member of an international scouting association that supports contraception access.
Oh yes? Is that right? Well I say the Girl Scouts shouldn’t have any links to the Catholic church, which attempts to mandate and impose a state of affairs in which women are stripped of any right to control their own fertility and are left helpless to avoid or postpone childbearing unless they avoid sex altogether. That’s what I say. Too bad I can’t impose my wishes on anyone.
For the past two years, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has had its Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth ask the Girl Scouts to explain their stances and materials.
Could you ask for a better list of things the Catholic church knows nothing whatever about, is self-handicapped from knowing anything about, and has no business on earth interfering with? What does it know about laity? Much less marriage? Or family life? And all it knows about youth is how to swear it to secrecy when a priest is caught raping it. Fuck its Committee, and fuck its asking.
Sigh.
Sometimes, it seems like the people on the other side of the culture wars are like a Bizarro version of reality. Everything good and uncontroversial is evil and wrong; everything oppressive and hateful is freeing and wonderful.
Like seriously. I understand why groups like NOW are controversial even though I support them. I don’t understand why groups like Doctors Sans Frontieres are controversial. They are like, unqualified good guys. But that’s the problem, I guess: They are missing all the hate, so they must be evil. Yuck.
I know. Isn’t that enough to just make you want to scream? MSF are my favorite example of doing real, heroic good.
I hate the Catholic church more every day, every hour. They do a hell of a good job of eliciting hatred.
If I started a petition to keep these fools out of the Girl Scouts, would anyone sign it?
Ophelia?
Even if it doesn’t actually stop this inquisition, it would, at the very *least*, help to let these bishops know that they are being watched just as closely. It could be nothing more than a widely-signed, harshly-worded Statement of Dissent. I think it would be important, though.
Anyone?
Doctors Without Borders is entirely secular and not affiliated with any religion. Clearly that’s not how charity is supposed to work!
“How can the second item be at stake? The bishops can’t actually force people to do things, after all.”
What? Of course they can! Remember when they said birth control was bad and people shouldn’t use it. We all remember how successful that was. ;p
From one of the links:
A not uncommon experience for 10-year-olds dealing with the Church.
“There had been some complaints about the Scouts, and the bishops couldn’t turn a deaf ear,”
No, they can only turn a deaf ear to priests who abuse children, the science of contraceptives and AIDS, and women’s rights. No way they can possibly ignore an organization that doesn’t follow their rules.
According to your bible so does your god, but you still keep tithing to your church.
The fact that the RCC is so often in opposition to organisations that are dedicated to trying to make the world a better place needs to be highlighted. The Catholic Church gains much of its power and influence from its claims about how many people it represents. The more that ordinary Catholics can be made aware of what a nasty organisation it is the better.
Years ago, the Happy Heretic blogged about a TV documentary about two childless couples, one Catholic couple and one normal couple, who underwent fertility treatment. At the time, this treatment tended to lead to multiple pregnancies. The normal couple had their six embryos reduced to two and the woman gave birth to two healthy twins. The Catholic couple had a discussion with a priest and, as a result of this discussion, the woman gave birth to six severely disabled babies, some of whom died. The point made by the HH was that the RCC’s medieval dogma has no relevance whatsoever to the modern world and that thinking that it does causes great suffering.
I’m hoping, but it’s a rather forlorn hope I confess, that the Parents and Girl Scouts themselves tell the bishops to take a hike. It simply doesn’t occur to these self-absorbed, arrogant kiddie-fiddlers that catholic Girl Scouts could simply avoid the forbidden bits about sex-education if they wanted to – GS is not the League of german Girls (BDM) for fuck’s sake. But no – everybody out of the water – NOW!!
Is this another ploy to get folks to forget about child-raping clergy being protected and supported by these very same bishops?
As usual with the Catholic Church, their whole position on contraception and abortion is not even necessary or logical within the framework of their own religion. The position is based on God’s commandment “thou shalt not kill” (which, as an aside, the Chosen People cheerfully ignore with His Blessing in the following chapters of the Bible when they merrily slaughter their way through the Promissed Land). But for this to translate into an anti abortion position you also need to add the additional idea that “life begins at conception”. That, for Catholics means “ensoulment” ie the “soul” invests the cells of the zygote at the moment of conception. Well, oddly enough, there is nothing anywhere in the Bible about when “ensoulment” happens. You can scour the text you will come empty. Equally obviously, there is no scientific indication of when the invisible, intangible, unmeasurable soul suddenly appears. So why the moment of conception? No reason, you just make it up and call it Holy Truth. And for this made up stuff, women around the world are dying.
A conservative wing of the Catholic Church which I believe J. Ratzinger is negotiating for their return to the fold (Latin Mass and all) has a high school in AZ which wouldn’t play baseball because the opposing team had a – you guessed it – a GIRL on its roster.
http://espn.go.com/high-school/story/_/id/7918253/girl-baseball-player-15-cited-opponent-forfeit-phoenix
“Catholic girls” implicitly endorses the bullshit – they’re children, not ideologues.
If hell actually existed, it would have opened up long ago and swallowed the RCC with all the child-fucking priests, monsignors, bishops, cardinals, supporters like that fucking worthless piece of shit bill donohue, and the king rapist nazi-loving pope long ago. Sorry that this comment doesn’t add anything to the conversation but I have no other outlet for my frustration.
“groups like the Sierra Club, Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam”
Those are things I can easily see young girls getting quite passionate about, and more than a little PO’d at someone trying to convince them the causes are “bad”. With luck, this will backfire on the dogan busybodies, and help some girls find their way out of the church.
“bishops couldn’t turn a deaf ear”
Here, turn your head and allow me to pound some oakum in that earhole. It will make it easier for you.
“That’s what I say. Too bad I can’t impose my wishes on anyone.”
The Catholic church in particular really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really thinks it can. Those church buggers genuinely don’t understand why people object to their horrifying commands. That’s what’s so terrifying about them and their influence.
I have been known, when the local boy scouts come to the door to ask for contributions for some sort of food drive, to give them a bit of a riff when I hand them a couple of cans of soup. I say something like this:
“I very much admire what you are doing here as an individual and what your troop is doing. But I want you to know that it is not a comfortable thing for me to be supporting a boy scout project. The Boy Scouts have been taken over by the Mormon Church, a group that has a lot of prejudices. So if you are gay or if you are an atheist, you cannot be a boy scout now. The scouts fought all the way to the supreme court to fight to be able to exclude gays and atheists, and as the BSA is a club, I guess, they have the right to do that. But it makes it hard for me to support you and what you do because of it. I am conflicted. It feels wrong no matter what I do. But what makes it really hard is they say that the reason that they must exclude gays is because they are immoral, and that is a lie. And they say the reason they must exclude atheists is because atheists are immoral, and that is also a lie. And the whole thing just shows that the people who are running the BSA are immoral. And I’m sorry to be laying this all on you when you are just out trying to do some good. But it is important to understand the big picture.”
I try very hard to express my distress with the organization, while supporting the young person. What I want to do, is to get the message out to the kids who unwittingly are made to carry the banner of hate.
And Catholicism? Ugh. The recent activity of the church forces me to pay attention to it. I don’t like that. I’ve spent many years trying to forget how creepy it was to grow up Catholic. I just want them to shut the fuck up and go the fuck away.
So do I!!
I suppose they could try to enforce the second item by threatening to excommunicate Catholics who continue to associate with the Girl Scouts. That’s pretty harsh, though.
Yes, I don’t think they would do that. That would make them look stark raving mad – and alienate millions.
“groups like the Sierra Club, Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam”
Sure, because taking care of the environment, healing the sick, and feeding the hungry are definitely things that Jesus wouldn’t have done…!
Add another vote to the list of those who are sick of the Catholic Church and their evil practices.
And because taking care of the environment, healing the sick, and feeding the hungry are as nothing compared to the urgent, selfless, holy work of stopping women using contraception.
Ecclesiam Catholicam odi.