Dr. James Jenkins Editorial Opinion
NATIONAL SURVIVOR ADVOCATES COALITION NEWS
September 8, 2009 Vol. 1, No 132
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Op-Ed
This section of NSAC News is designed to permit Survivor Advocates to express their opinions and ideas relevant to the subject matter of this newsletter. Your participation is invited and encouraged. Letters to the Editor addressing a particular article should be sent to the Editor of the publication in which the article originally appeared.
Dear Bishop Martino:
Press reports regarding your departure suggest that there is more to your resignation as Bishop of Scranton than “insomnia and fatigue.”
Perhaps now freed from your episcopal duties, you will have more time to pursue your first love: secular politics. Of course, as we all know, bishops and popes are only the most successful practitioners of the medieval, feudal brand of clerical politics. But, that’s “inside baseball” for us Catholics.
I never object when a bishop speaks out vigorously to teach, inform and preserve Catholic morality — after all, as Americans we should exercise our right to free speech. However, when like yourself, bishops and priests consistently engage in partisan politics I believe the antidote is for the church to loose its tax-exemption and start paying like the rest of us.
Besides, we Catholics know that most of the time when some bishop rails about the evils of abortion and attempts to vilify desperate women and Catholic politicians, we understand that he is mostly trying to cover-up the corrupt leadership of the hierarchy. Especially their moral vacuity and complicity in the sexual abuse of our children by their “brother priests.”
I do hope that you will find peace in your early retirement.
Sincerely,
James Jenkins
Berkeley, CA
James Jenkins is a psychologist in private practice and a member of Newman Hall community at the University of California, Berkeley.