Catholicism fast becoming the dominant US religion new poll shows -- As Protestant numbers decline, Catholics now come center stage

Catholicism is now the biggest faith group in the United States

Catholics are now the single biggest faith group in America at 22 per cent, according to the latest Pew research poll.

The news will come as a positive boost to the American bishops who have endured massive negative publicity on child abuse cases these past few years.

The influx of Hispanics has certainly helped the Catholic numbers but the church seems in remarkable shape given its problems.

The emerging Catholic power is shown most clearly in the make-up of the Supreme Court where six of the nine justices share that faith.

Compared to Ireland where the drop-off in Catholic identification has been catastrophic, the American church has been far more solid.

But it surely points to the importance of issues such as immigration reform for the Catholic church to help increase its members.

It also shows that the old Irish dominance of the church in the U.S. will soon be a thing of the past. Cardinal Timothy Dolan in New York will likely be the last Irish prelate and end an unbroken line going back well over a century as Hispanics come to dominate.

The same poll showed that the various Protestant religions have dropped from 66 per cent of all religions forty years ago to under 40 percent.

Surprisingly, the fall-off is across the board from liberal churches to born-again southern churches.
It is an amazing drop-off especially given the media sense that the evangelicals are going from strength to strength especially in the political sphere.

America in fact is becoming more Godless, with twenty per cent saying they have no organized religion. One in five are either atheist, agnostic or of no organized religion.

I have to believe that much of that number is composed of people sick of the political interventions that religious groups continue to make.

I have always had the sense that most Americans I know consider their religion a private matter, not one to pump up in the public square.

Then again, perhaps the drift away is just an inevitable reaction to modern day life where community and church bonds have been weakened.

Either way, the Pew poll makes for extraordinary reading.

All changed it seems.

Notre Dame lawsuit on health law is a huge blow for President Obama -- Damages Obama with Catholic vote, the key one in 2012 election

Father John Jenkins and President Barack Obama

The lawsuit filed by Notre Dame yesterday against the Obama administration and their health care law is bad news indeed for President Obama.

The Fighting Irish are putting up the gloves -- and it is against the president who needs their support more than ever this November.

In an election where the Catholic vote is widely seen as the critical swing vote, the Notre Dame move places the most famous Catholic institution in the United States firmly in opposition to the president on his singular policy on health care.

That is big news given that Notre Dame was widely perceived as being in the president’s corner after they invited him to be their commencement speaker in 2009 over the strong objections of local bishops.

Father John Jenkins is widely regarded as the most articulate and skilful Catholic college president in America, so his stance against Obama on this will be widely discussed and analyzed.

The wording of the lawsuit reflects Jenkins mindset. It is a passionate and emotional statement about the right of religious institutions to safeguard their own beliefs when it comes to what they wish to cover when it comes to medical care.

It is not the usual dry legalese stuff of most lawsuits and bears the hallmarks of Jenkin’s style.

Jenkins is no creature of the Vatican right-wing orthodoxy like so many American bishops. Therefore his lawsuit is all the more potent among moderate American Catholics.

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The college writes, “ This lawsuit is about one of America's most cherished freedoms: the freedom to practice one's religion without government interference. It is not about whether people have a right to abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception…. But the right to such services does not authorize the Government to force the University of Notre Dame… to violate its own conscience by making it provide, pay for, and/or facilitate those services to others, contrary to its sincerely held religious beliefs.

“American history and tradition, embodied in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, protects religious entities from such overbearing and oppressive governmental action. Notre Dame therefore seeks relief in this Court to protect this most fundamental of American rights.

Jenkins makes clear that, "We do not seek to impose our religious beliefs on others; we simply ask that the Government not impose its values on the University when those values conflict with our religious teachings."

It is very hard to disagree with that statement which could have been made by any religious or political leader since independence.

Jenkins is no rabble rousing bishop out to get the Obama administration on religious grounds. His lawsuit is a passionate dissent from the notion that government can mandate what a Catholic college can and can’t do  when it comes to core beliefs.

As Jenkins concludes, "For if one Presidential Administration can override our religious purpose and use religious organizations to advance policies that undercut our values, then surely another Administration will do the same for another very different set of policies, each time invoking some concept of popular will or the public good, with the result these religious organizations become mere tools for the exercise of government power, morally subservient to the state, and not free from its infringement."

Suddenly the one major Catholic institution which had backed Obama now seems to be backing off on this one major issue.

That cannot be good news for the incumbent president. He needs Catholic votes in key states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and indeed Indiana, where Notre Dame is located. This Notre Dame uprising will come as a major blow.

New questions about Father Michael Kelly's guilt or innocence -- Case seen as similar to story of priest accused in the movie "Doubt"

Father Michael Kelly

I had occasion to speak to a person from California who is a long time friend of  Father Michael Kelly, the California-based priest who flew to his native Ireland after losing a civil case against him on an abuse charge.

Yesterday we wrote that Kelly was found liable on the civil charge despite the fact that the accusations against him by a 37-year old man, a pilot for Southwest Airlines, were based on “recovered memories” a highly dubious method as recent history has shown in cases such as the McMartin preschool case.

The man alleged that Kelly abused him when he was a young altar boy back in the mid 1980s.

The person who knows Kelly for over twenty years says they believe that Kelly was likely innocent but they could not be absolutely certain.

The person told me that Father Michael Kelly is straight out of the John Shanley play and movie ‘Doubt’ where an unproven charge against a priest results in his removal from a parish.

“Father Flynn of that movie” the person said, “is exactly like Kelly. “There is suspicion but no outright proof and he has plausibly and extensively denied it.”

This is no open and shut case.  Kelly passed two lie detector tests, has hundreds of his former parishioners still siding with him and an extensive inquiry by the diocese of Stockton found him not guilty.

His flight to Ireland was not illegal. He is not under any prison sentence, he lost a civil case.

My informant also told me that the plaintiff’s attorney John C. Manly who is a specialist and who has won hundreds of millions against the church in such lawsuits, easily outsmarted the Kelly attorneys who were not in the same league. “They were no match for Manly” the person said.

There is said to be another case against him dating to 2002 but the fact that it has never been to court suggests it never will rise to the burden of proof needed to prosecute.

Parishioners still flocked to him and they turned out in large numbers for him despite the guilty verdict.
Kelly is left in a no man’s land, half priest half accused felon.

According to local reports he can no longer publicly perform priestly duties.

Kelly cannot invite people to participate in privately held events, but individuals can invite him.
Kelly did participate in a privately conducted Easter vigil at a rural Lodi-area residence.

Local Bishop Stephen Blaire is required to write a formal report to a Vatican body called the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which is responsible for dealing with clergy sexual abuse crises within the Catholic Church.

"They will advise me back what action they believe should be taken," Blaire told the Modesto Bee.
That could mean they defrock Kelly.

But the question will always remain--- is he innocent or guilty?