Catholic Power in Connecticut

The recent uproar in Connecticut over a bill that would have taken financial control over Catholic parishes away from the Church hierarchy and given it to the laity harks back to the bad old days of rampant ant-Catholicism in these parts. The subsequent deep-sixing of the constitutionally dubious effort has led to some cogitation on the changing role of the church in Nutmeg State politics. What's worth bearing in mind about this odd episode is that, like a good number of recent offenses against Catholicism (in the arts especially), the perpetrators are themselves Catholics. In the present case, frustration with an inability to be involved in financial oversight led some parishioners to persuade their legislators (themselves of Catholic background) to introduce the bill. In contrast to the 19th-century public schools controversy pictured above by the virulent anti-Catholic cartoonist Thomas Nast, this was largely an intra-Catholic affair.

Next up for the Church is a bill to bring state statutes into line with the state's newly instated allowance for same-sex marriage. The CT Catholic Conference has been lobbying for provisions to permit florists, justices of the peace, photographers and other such wedding merchants to decline to peddle their wares to same-sex couples if they have religious scruples against doing so. This, of course, is much more than an intra-Catholic affair. And while the Church was able to get the legislature to stand down quickly on the financial management affairs bill, this is a whole 'nuther story.