Up above, Musket describes the Catholic Church as an organisation that sees itself as fit for judging the morals of others.

I wonder what qualifications an organization has to have to be worthy to comment on the morality of something.

To my mind, "morality" has very little to do with sexual conduct. Sexual matters fit in there somewhere, but most of the time they serve to distract us from the real matters of morality, the well-being of people who are oppressed and the commandment to "do unto others as you would have them....."

The Washington Post says that last Sunday, Pope Francis hosted Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in what he termed a "Prayer Summit." Peres and Abbas "concluded the two-hour ceremony by kissing each other on the cheek and then planting an olive tree, gestures intended to signal a commitment to trying to end one of the longest-running, most intractable conflicts in the world."

I'd say that was quite an accomplishment, to get Peres and Abbas together in peace for two hours.

I've been working particularly hard the last two weeks as a Catholic representative in an interfaith effort on two projects - to reduce the phenomenal incarceration rate in the U.S., and to provide housing for homeless people in our community. Particularly in the mass incarceration project, I had to stand up before county officials and tell them they were wrong.

I suppose you could say that in these situations, the Pope and I were guilty of "judging the morals of others." The Pope said Israel and Palestine were wrong to have kept fighting these 65 years, and I said our county officials were wrong to suppress a report that pointed out mismanagement of our criminal justice system.

According to Musket's logic, the Pope and I have no right to speak out on such matters, because we belong to a church that was responsible for running institutions in Ireland that practiced cruelty in a variety of ways during the first half of the twentieth century.

In my area, most of the social service programs have Catholic roots, the community organizing group where I'm the spokesman and the women's center where I do maintenance work, the food bank, the dining room that provides meals and services to homeless people, Mercy Housing that builds low-income housing, and many other services. All of these agencies started out Catholic, but they are now all but Mercy Housing* are disconnected from any church and open to all volunteers and clients. But still, these agencies show their Catholic roots - two have nuns as executive directors (and I'm proud to say that both of them are friends of mine). And these agencies are very vocal in speaking up for the rights of people in need, so they also are guilty of making moral judgments of the actions of those who seek to oppress the poor.

I get really involved in this stuff, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of doing something worthwhile - but it's hard work. The worst part is having to get up early in the morning when the work demands it. I'm not the kind of person who functions very well before about noon.

But according to Musket and many others who have posted above, I'm not worthy to be doing this work, because I belong to a church that was responsible for some really bad stuff in Ireland during the first half of the twentieth century.

What they say about the industrial schools and the mother and baby homes and the Magdalene Laundries is all true, as are the countless stories of priests molesting children, as are so many other stories of injustice committed by people in the name of the Catholic Church. I wouldn't dream of denying these things. Indeed, I have been aware of child molestation in the Catholic Church since the 1960s, and I have worked in many different ways to promote efforts to stop this abuse and punish the offenders. One time, I was recruited by my diocese to monitor the conduct of a priest who had been accused of making inappropriate advances toward a woman, and (because of my background as an investigator) I have been called on to provide assistance in a number of programs designed to protect the safety of children.

I am well aware of the many bad things that have been done under Catholic auspices. Rog Peek says, "If Joe you had heard some of the harrowing stories that people have been telling on RTE radio recently, of their personal experiences you would realise just how right he is." I'm sure that I would be moved by those stories, Rog - but I'm already convinced that what was done in the mother and baby homes was wrong, and in the industrial schools, and in the Magdalene Laundries, and in the countless cases of molestation of children by priests. No question about it - I am appalled by these things, just as appalled as anyone here.

But these things happened in the past, and most of them were done by people I would readily condemn. But then some other things were done by people I've known and admired, and It's really hard for me to decide what to think about that. I knew so-and-so, and I really liked him. He was a brilliant person, and he was good to everybody. And he led a number of programs that accomplished wonderful things. But along the way, he molested children - and the news accounts have convinced me that the accusations against him are true. But I've known this guy, and I've seen all the good things he's done. I can't understand why he molested those children, but the reports are very credible and there's no way I can deny them. But do the accusations mean that everything good this man has done is for naught?

And what about me? I know my own faults very well, and I've done lots of things I'm not proud of. Do my faults mean I'm not worthy to do anything worthwhile? But if I'm not worthy do do what I have to do this week to oppose mass incarceration, nobody is going to do it - so what do I do now?

Peter Laban asks difficult questions, but he does so in a way that's fair; and I've never found reason to oppose him. I know Jim Carroll and Musket and MtheGM much better and I like them very much, and I appreciate much of what they have to say, but sometimes I think they're unfair. I'm not sure they realize how much I like them, but I do.

I have to say that threads like this give me a lot to think about. They also give me good reason for humility, which is a very good thing. I think they're right in many ways. I really am not worthy to stand in front of county officials and tell them they are wrong. Who am I to say that? Since I know I am not worthy to pass judgment on them, I've been forced to think about them and their value, and I've come to really like most of the people I'm opposing. And then a funny thing is happening - I'm finding that they like me. And I'm actually finding out that we want the same thing, but that we describe it differently.

-Joe-

*Mercy Housing is operated by the Sisters of Mercy, who also operated some of the mother-and-baby homes and industrial schools in Ireland. Now they use hospital profits to build housing for homeless people in my area. I'm an associate member of the Sisters of Mercy, by the way. Oh, and they gave my community organizing group a $20,000 grant from those hospital profits, so we can fight for immigrant rights and against mass incarceration.