U. S. Catholic Bishops May be Moving Left

During the reign of Pope Benedict, the Bishops appointed were rock-hard conservatives. The evil pair, abortion and gay marriage, were front and center. There were so many conservatives they began to be the face of the organization called US Bishops. I don't know how often they meet as a group, but the publicity issued has been for years has been backward-looking instead of forward looking. The impression given to an outsider was Bishops thought Pope Francis wrong, we will ignore him. The real pope was Benedict. That is the Benedict who assailed gay marriage during a Christmas Eve Public message. 

In a recent gathering, however, Pope Francis' reach was felt. Part of the Bishops' published message was young people who grew up in the faith are leaving. Further, young people are more liberal about many issues, especially the environment which Francis also has talked about for years, and we Bishops need to get on board with Francis. A position promoted in the recent gathering was the Catholic no-meat (fish only) Friday should be fired up again. This time, however, it is not to fast (I don't actually know or care what the origin of this Friday thing was) but to save the environment because meat producing animals degrade the environment.

I didn't read the link carefully but if the Bishops want followers to eat fish on Friday but other animals the rest of the week, it's not very environmentally friendly. There are terrible things going on in the fish industry. One of them is fencing off parts of the ocean and filling the area with salmon. The salmon are fattened up there and then loaded and slaughtered. Those areas of the ocean are harmed by the food dumped there for salmon and their own manure. Better that the Bishops promote vegetarianism and practice it themselves. I'm sure all Bishops agree being good stewards of the earth is a good idea in general, but many are only willing to go only to the Friday thing. Doing God's work has limits.

Even if the only give lip service to the environment, the Bishops will be doing something better than talking up only Forced Birth and anti gay. 

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