So, the local Diocese has filed for bankruptcy. That is quite predictable given the insular habits of the Catholic church. Not only is this a financial hit, but is indicative of the ethical bankruptcy of that institution which wildly, but intentionally, breaks the Ninth Commandment that instructs us not to “bear false witness.” This is another way of saying the priests believe they are exempt from that rule or it won’t be noticed.

We the People have witnessed this constantly since the Church decided to become active in politics around the time of the Roe v. Wade abortion case in 1973.

The Church, as an institution, has been attacking Democratic politicians with abandon and not a shred of decency or accuracy. The Bishop of Denver is especially active in this dispersal of lies over many years that were unmet by the Democrats even though they were provably false.

Every even numbered year this Bishop gets on his high horse and gallops off to join the fray of politics and somehow claim a moral compass for a Church increasingly caught in a morass of desperate attacks on the Ninth Commandment that end up merely exposing the deep hypocrisy of the Church and its methods.

They’ve got a lot of explaining to do.

The Bishop of Denver, as well as many others around the country, stands on the Church roof-top shouting to the world how low the Church has sunk, allowing their lies to fester and harm the Democratic party, which should be the best friend the Church ever had.

The bad bishop claims that Democratic politicians who are Catholic do not deserve the sacraments because they are in opposition to the Church’s doctrines. For example, Catholic Democrats are accused of opposing the teachings of their own church by promoting and trying to protect the right to abortion.

The Republicans almost never attack the Church for its position on abortion because they are too busy conducting their own attack on the Church because of the Church’s stand on other right to life issues such as opposition to capital punishment.

Opposition to the death penalty is just as much a part of Church doctrine and philosophy as is its opposition to abortion. In 2019, Pope Francis sent a letter to President Trump regarding the impending execution of a Mexican citizen for the crime of murder and begging for mercy. The president ignored the pope’s pleading and allowed the execution to proceed. Not a single Republican, Catholic or whatever, anywhere, denounced the Republican Party for its opposition to the Church teachings on this other pro-life issue.

Yet the Republicans never catch hell for this slimy behavior. That’s because the Democrats are terrified at being viewed by the public as “promoting the exercise of religion,” a gigantic no-no that they picked up (God knows where) that prevents them from saying anything that may be considered an endorsement of religion.

This is all a part of an otherwise sturdy Democrat party now trembling at the very thought of saying something pro-religion simply because they do not want to violate the First Amendment, (or at least their interpretation of the First Amendment), by actually saying something nice (and true) about Catholic philosophy.

It starts with Jesus. Believe it or not, Jesus loves poor people. Amazing, but true. Both Testaments of the Bible are quite clear about how the poor are morally superior to the rich. Jesus said: “It would be easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 19:24)

Another verse in the Bible tells us, 2,000 years after it was written and still true, “the love of money is the root of all evil.” (1 Timothy 6:10) It is vital to understand that all our problems today are caused by greed, which is the cause of all evil. Get rid of greed and we solve all our problems in one fell swoop.

The greedy rich from the corporate state give massive donations to radical Republican causes and follow reactionary ideas because the wealthy executives have an exceedingly strong desire to secure and maintain their exalted place of wealth and power in which they must (secretly) oppose the teachings of Jesus and try to help Republican politicians by attacking Democrats who only want to help the poor.

Coal miners are poor. Coal companies now use “mountaintop mining” methods where entire mountains are mined from the top down by guys driving bull-dozers. A bull-dozer is efficient and does work equal to 50 miners laboring underground. Coal companies then fire the 50 miners they no longer need.

Democrats tried to eliminate this practice but the companies and the Republicans defeated them. Now the companies and their propagandists claim that the Democrats put the miners out of work. This is a lie. The greedy coal companies, using mountain-top mining, put the miners on unemployment but the Democrats don’t get that message out because they are too busy clogging the media with stories about “trans” issues, which affect a tiny population, much smaller than the coal miners.

The Church’s reaction to homosexuality is the cause of the Church’s misery. Years ago, when homosexuality was not talked about, young men from strict Catholic families who exhibited gay tendencies were often nudged by their families to become priests and be celibate and that would save them from the fires.

But so many families engaged in this practice and so many gay men entered the Priesthood that Seminaries developed a great confluence of conflicted homosexuals who were thrust together in close quarters, hormonal young gay guys constantly surrounded by other hormonal young gay guys, thus, I believe, causing the current problem.

They all aged and settled into their lifestyle. Many malformed, immature priests who were never permitted to develop an adult sexuality were constricted into a sexual lifestyle that peaked at the level of adolescence.

Where is Dorothy Day when we need her?

— — —

Rick Gombas lives in Saranac Lake.