Church Militant’s homophobic agenda
Author: Rhina Guidos (Catholic News Service)
BALTIMORE — On the first of two days of public sessions during the U.S. bishops’ fall general assembly, a group of sex abuse survivors in a Nov. 16 news conference called on the prelates meeting in Baltimore to focus less on who can take Communion and instead do more to end sex abuse and other abuses by clergy.The survivors also demanded the bishops condemn a group that was holding a nearby protest claiming homosexuality is linked to pedophilia.
“We wanted to come here today on behalf of survivors, a group of survivors of sexual abuse who are committed to fighting for justice and to also highlight what’s not being talked about when they’re focused on the Eucharist,” said Sarah Pearson, a sex abuse survivor from Wisconsin who joined other members of the organization Ending Clergy Abuse in addressing bishops.
“They’ve shown us in focusing on this culture war, about the Eucharist, what they care about and what’s important to them: talking about one man’s ability to take Communion,” Pearson said in an apparent reference to President Joe Biden, a Catholic who supports legal abortion.
“Meanwhile, there’s millions of Catholics around the world who’ve been impacted by this [sex abuse] issue,” she said, “and they’re not being recognized inside there [the hotel where the bishops were meeting)] today and that’s a shame.”
The bishops still had to debate and vote on their statement on the Eucharist and an early version of it — without amendments — did not specifically call out Biden and other Catholic politicians who support abortion.
The survivors also demanded that the bishops, as a group, denounce Church Militant, a right-wing group that had organized a rally nearby, and the ideas they said the group was dispersing.