Originally posted at Talk to Action.
I recently called on mainstream Catholics to remonstrate against the aggressive behavior of reactionaries within the Church. Increasingly bishops are playing politics with the Mass itself, denying Catholic elected officials who dissent on some matters, the sacrament of Communion. Such coercion appears to me, and to many other Catholics, as part of an effort to compel all Americans to live under Catholic orthodoxy, subject to the interpretation of the prelates.
As I have written, dignified but firm acts of resistance are now the order of the day. In this post and the next, I will put forth and discuss possible paths for resistance. One obvious such path is to call out the hierarchy when they are being hypocritical. So let's begin there. One obvious example is the hypocrisy of church reactionaries when it comes to the politics of tobacco.