Catholic Church Prepares to Celebrate Holy Week with Outpouring of Hypocrisy

Those of you who have knowledge of my personal history know that I was raised Catholic. I was married in the Catholic church, although I don't go to church anymore. Over the years, I have become increasingly disgusted with Christian religious organizations, in general, and the Catholic church, specifically, because of what I feel is a long-standing history of hypocrisy and intolerance. Jesus was all about intolerance.

Don't just take my word for it. In San Diego, a Catholic man was denied burial rites by the Catholic church because he owned and operated two gay bars. The church released as statement saying that the church is not against burying gay people, but that John McCusker's business practices were not in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Maybe if the guy's business had been child molestation or bombing innocent women and children, that would be more in line with their teachings.

Increasingly, churches and religious groups have increased their political influence. It reached a point during the election, where during a church service that I attended, the priest came out and told people to vote for President Bush in the Presidential Election. I assumed that this was because of Bush's stand on abortion, nevermind that Bush has never actually done a single thing to prevent abortion or killing living human beings, for that matter.

Conservatives have also made a nasty habit of aligning themselves with Christian values. The problem here is not the values, since if people actually followed the beliefs supported by their religions, we would have peace and a world where violence was not acceptable. Discrimination, war-mongering, greed, and failing to meet your obligations to your country are not values promoted by any religion I've ever heard of. In practice, however, the messages coming from the religious right are becoming more and more hypocritical and along those lines.

If you really are a Christian and you are as pro-life as you claim to be, why are you supporting a guy who launched an unprovoked military attack on a sovereign nation, killing thousands of innocent people? How in the hell do you justify supporting someone who, historically, has been this country's greatest practitioner of the death penalty while Governor of Texas? Because he says that he supports a culture of life, yet has not taken a single step to address abortion.

I have no problem with religious groups and churches saying that they will not support and condone certain behavior. Condemning a man who was obviously a highly regarded member of the business community for his sins, while supporting another man who has repeatedly violated Thou Shalt Not Kill with his actions is inconsistent and hypocritical. One man ran a club frequented by gay people. The other man has killed thousands of innocent people. Regardless of your beliefs about God, an all-powerful and all-knowing benevolent creator would not rely on this sort of logic as the theological foundation for his followers.