Monday, February 13, 2012

Your Leaders

I think Ed Kilgore put this pretty well.

Catholic liberals are a tough breed who deserve great respect, particularly when their religious leaders betray their best traditions and confirm their detractors’ worst insults. But while “pluralism” depends on mutual respect, it does not require deference to other people’s private authority figures. The attitude of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops towards contraception is a constant problem for U.S. Catholic lay people, though one they manage to handle just fine most of the time. Frankly, it’s only a problem for the rest of us if we allow it to be, and we shouldn’t.

I'm actually genuinely a lot more respectful of religious beliefs/believers than I would guess a lot of people imagine, but that respect doesn't obligate me to have any interest in/deference to/respect for specific religious leaders.