Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) February 26, 2012: I find it difficult to generate a strong sense of empathy in myself for the Catholic bishops. On an intellectual level, I understand that it must be tough to be a Catholic bishop today. Nevertheless, even though I come from a Catholic background and was for a period of time a Jesuit seminarian, I somehow just cannot generate a strong sense of empathy for the American bishops today in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), because they seem to me to be consumed with non-violent religious zealotry regarding sexual morality in a way and to a degree that I am not. For this reason, I find it hard to empathize with their religious zealotry regarding sexual morality.
As American citizens, the Catholic bishops are of course free to express their views about legislation and regulations and other matters they consider to be connected with the tenets of Catholic sexual morality. But I do not agree with the tenets of Catholic sexual morality.
In the spirit of at least trying to understand how difficult the job of being a Catholic bishop today must be, we should note that Pope Benedict XVI has proclaimed war on secularism. By proclaiming war against secularism, Pope Benedict has locked himself into a Manichaean worldview of supposed good (i.e., Roman Catholicism) versus supposed evil (secularism, as defined by the pope and bishops).
This is the Catholic cultural war in which Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the president of the USCCB, is a warrior. Contraception is but one focus of this Catholic culture war. As is well known, the anti-abortion crusade against legalized abortion in the first trimester is another focus. (Disclosure: I am not opposed to abortion in the first trimester, just as I am not opposed to contraception.)
To help advance the Catholic culture war against secularism, Pope Benedict XVI has called for New Evangelization, which sounds like a call for renewed efforts for the evangelization that was already in place.
For Cardinal Dolan, promoting the New Evangelization and inflaming the culture war are two sides of the same coin. In effect, they are one and the same thing -- interchangeable with one another. The New Evangelization helps inflame the Catholic culture war against secularism, and the Catholic culture war against secularism should in principle help make Catholic culture warriors stand out as non-violent witnesses to their religious faith, thereby contributing through their example to promoting the New Evangelization.
The aim of the New Evangelization is to recruit new would-be non-violent martyrs for the Roman Catholic Church. Of course the new recruits need to be properly indoctrinated, so that they learn that they should be willing to die a martyr's death for Catholic doctrines. Once they are properly indoctrinated in Catholic doctrines regarding sexual morality and certain other matters, then they will be well equipped religious zealots like Pope Benedict and Cardinal Dolan.
So Cardinal Dolan's religious zealotry is designed to show that he's leading by example -- he's showing by his words how a non-violent Catholic culture warrior advances the Catholic culture war proclaimed by Pope Benedict against secularism. As a non-violent Catholic warrior, Dolan is willing to die a martyr's death, if necessary, as a witness to his religious zealotry.
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