Wait a minute.  ”One certifiable whack job”?  In retrospect, that seems a little silly.  The average for legislatures overall has to be that 30-40% of their memebrship are whack jobs.  But I digress.

So anyway, Gateway Pundit has a post up saying that a bill proposed in the Connecticut legislature that would “put local laymen leadership over the Catholic Church in the state.”  And I’m thinking, “Can’t be.  No way.”  

And GP’s first link is to an “action alert” type of bulletin at Family Institute of Connecticut, which makes me doubt the story even more because action alert-type calls make me suspicious.  I’ve received way too many forwarded e-mails touting the latest outrage over which I’m supposed to write my congressman, phone the White House, or sign on online petition, only for the outrage to be entirely manufactured, and sometimes obviously so.  (“Write your congressman now to object to the Obama administration’s plan to make the military chaplain’s corps exclusively Muslim!”)

But then, GP also linked The Corner.  OK, slightly less skeptical now.  Uh oh.  The Corner’s post has three more warning signs against the authenticity of this story: (1) its title includes the word “outrage”; and (2) the writer learned of the “outrage” through an e-mail from a friend at the institute; and (3) it mostly quotes from the institute’s website.

So, what’s a skeptic to do?  Look  up the actual bill. Even then, I wasn’t convinced, because I had simply followed the link from a few different blogs, and I thought maybe someone posted a bogus bill to stir controversy.  So, to make sure I was really looking at the authentic website of the Connecticut General Assembly, I googled “Connecticut Legislature” and, sure enough, this seemed to be the real deal.

So I read the bill, and  . . . wow.  These folks are not exaggerating one bit.  

The bill would delete language from the existing statute regarding incorporation of Catholic churches (why there is a separate statute for them, I can’t say) that makes the pastor and local bishop ex-officio members of the corporation responsible for appointing two lay members (only one of whom is necessary for a quorum).  In place of that governing body, it would substitute a 7- to 13-member board of directors consisting entirely of lay people and making the pastor a non-voting ex-officio member of the board.  In short, it completely  reverses the roles of the pastor and congregation with regard to matters of finance, administration, and even “outreach programs and other services to be provided to the community.”  

The bill claims not to interfere with the “power, right, authority, duty or responsibility of the bishop or pastor in matters pertaining exclusively to religious tenets and practices,” (my emphasis), but that is a rather obviously bogus fig leaf.  It is an indicator that the bill’s author belongs to the school of thought that a person’s religion may not influence his public behavior.  Keep it in church, bub.  Your religions is protected by the First Amendment only in that we can’t dictate what you pray or how you worship in church.  Once you’re outside the sanctuary, all bets are off.

It also ignores that faith is interwoven in all of a church’s activities, not just its worship services.  Community outreach, charity . . . these are religious practices because they are undertaken in accord with the church’s teachings.  Who the hell (excuse me, heck) is going to draw the line between outreach and religious practice?

 

UPDATE: More at American Papist.

UPDATE #2: The Anchoress looks at the issue from a wider perspective, including religious/demographic trends in the U.S. and a philosophical discussion on church governance/doctrine.