“SOJOURNERS IS MY favorite Catholic magazine,” readers occasionally tell us. Even though we’re an ecumenical Christian magazine with evangelical-ish roots, the compliment always makes us blush with pride. As we see it, if these pages resonate with Catholics, mainline Protestants, and evangelicals alike (as well as folks from Pentecostal, Orthodox, and other traditions), we must be doing something right.
In this interdenominational spirit, we publish “The Rise of the Catholic Right,” by Tom Roberts, executive editor of National Catholic Reporter. Through careful investigative work, Roberts offers an in-depth look at how private—and wealthy—conservative Catholic organizations are using money to exert undue influence in achieving their right-wing political and theological agendas.
It’s a compelling story, dotted with fancy cocktail receptions, snazzy resorts, and billions of dollars in assets, but there’s a deeper issue at stake than extravagant wealth. These right-wing groups exhibit a “devotion to individualism, unrestricted capitalism, and diminishment of government services, especially to the poor and marginalized,” that “run counter to the central tenets of Catholic social teaching.”
This unholy alliance of money, politics, and religion is not unique to Roman Catholicism; as Roberts points out, what’s happening today on the arch-conservative fringes of Catholicism mirrors the rise of the Religious Right in 1980s evangelicalism.
“As we know, the mentality that would cover things up, far from helping to resolve conflicts, enabled them to fester and cause even greater harm,” wrote Pope Francis in a recent letter to the U.S. Catholic bishops concerning clergy sexual abuse. Likewise, by shining a light on things done in the dark, we hope to help the whole church stay faithful to the gospel of Jesus—a gospel that is always good news to the poor.
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