Greta Thunberg responds in style to Chinese newspaper after they fat-shame her

Greta always seems to have the last laugh.

 by Joe Mellor

 May 25, 2021

in Environment, News

They keep coming for her, but Greta Thunberg always has the right response.

This time the China Daily newspaper, essentially owned by the ruling Communist Party, published a piece, that attempted to fat shame her and bizarrely called Thunberg the “environmental princess”.

It seems she has got the Chinese state in a state for calling out the country for its carbon emissions.

“Although she claims to be vegetarian, judging from the results of her growth, her carbon emissions are actually not low,” said writer Tang Ge.

The 18-year-old wasn’t having that though.

Response

She tweeted: “Being fat-shamed by Chinese state owned media is a pretty weird experience even by my standards. But it’s definitely going on my resume.”

Being fat-shamed by Chinese state owned media is a pretty weird experience even by my standards. But it’s definitely going on my resume. https://t.co/VfSEHU5N1A

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) May 21, 2021

A lot of people came out on-line to support her.

1.

Adults: the youth are not mature enough to understand politics.

Youth: an exponential rise in carbon emissions are causing the climate crisis and we need to take action to secure out future.

Adults: no ur fat

… 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️

— Saad Amer (@itsSaadAmer) May 21, 2021

2.

I remember in your I Am Greta documentary you laughing when you read a troll had called you an "Asperger cutie piglet".

Your ability to laugh like that is just one of many of God's graces in fashioning you as a role model for the world.

— Don Stribling (@DonStribling2) May 21, 2021

3.

I love you @GretaThunberg , you are a rockstar! I'm old enough to be your mom, yet I've learned so much from you! 🤘😎🤘💚💙 pic.twitter.com/otIFINVxlx

— Lady Raven 🦋😷♿ #LegalizeAll50💚🌿 (@Kraven_Raven24) May 22, 2021

4.

They're just resorting to insults because they're in the wrong and you're making a big difference. Keep up the fantastic job you're doing, Greta! You're a courageous hero.

— Daniel Alan Wurts (@DanielAlanWurts) May 21, 2021

5.

It’s merely distraction. You have tremendous strength, Greta, and are admired by many world-wide for your willingness to speak truth that many do not wish to hear. As an older US citizen, I admire you. Keep the faith and keep up the good work.

— PalpableConcern (@PalpableConcern) May 21, 2021

6 young climate activists making waves, who aren’t called Greta Thunberg

Greta is not the only voice, and recognition is slowly building for other young activists the world over.

Here are just a few of them…

1. Licypriya Kangujam, India

Still one of the youngest members of an already-young movement, Licypriya Kangujam makes Greta Thumberg look like a seasoned campaign veteran. She began advocating for climate action outside the Indian parliament in 2019 at just six years old, with an impressively specific set of demands, including climate education and air pollution laws.

She has already given multiple TEDx talks, spoken at the United Nations Climate Conference (COP25), founded ‘The Child Movement’, a young, global climate justice organisation, and travelled to 32 different countries to give speeches and raise support. What had you done, aged nine?

2. Lesein Mutunkei, Kenya

Kenyan teenager Lesein Mutunkei has two overriding passions: sport and the environment. After reading about the climate crisis in school aged 12, Mutunkei founded Trees4Goals, with the simple mission of planting 11 trees every time he scores a goal. Fortunately he’s a capable footballer, and has planted more than 1,000 trees so far, while also attending climate conferences across the world.

3. Ella & Caitlin McEwan, UK

These schoolgirl sisters from Southampton were as surprised as anyone when their petition against plastic toys in fast food meals went viral, attracting over half a million signatures. The pair, then aged seven and nine, started their campaign after learning about the effects of plastics on the world’s oceans at school, specifically naming and targeting Burger King and McDonalds.

They won both battles, with Burger King calling time on plastic toys in 2019, saving around 320 tonnes of plastic per year, and McDonald’s going plastic-free in 2020. Their efforts earned them the Future Leader Award at the UK Climate Coalition’s Green Heart Hero Awards last year.

4. Lilly Platt, Netherlands

A fully fledged member of the Fridays For Future climate strike movement, Platt’s story starts way back in 2015, during a walk in the park with her grandfather. Then seven years old, she decided to count pieces of plastic on the ground, and totted up 91 bits of refuse in just 10 minutes.

She started Lilly’s Plastic Pickup, enlisting participants first from her school and then beyond, and has personally picked up more than 100,000 pieces over the years. She also holds an array of ambassadorial roles, for organisations ranging from Earth.org to the Plastic Pollution Coalition.

5. Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, USA

A powerful voice not only on the climate struggle, but also the struggles of indigenous communities, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez has Mexica heritage (the indigenous people of Mexico), and argues that climate action must be part of a wider struggle against injustice and inequality.

A hip-hop artist as well as a campaigner, sometimes known only by the initial ‘X’, he is youth director for global international activist organisation Earth Guardians, and one of 21 plaintiffs in Juliana vs United States, an ongoing attempt to sue the US government for its use of fossil fuels.

Now 21 years old, He has spoken at the United Nations on multiple occasions, giving speeches in English, Spanish and his native language Nahuatl.

6. Luisa Neubauer

One of the main one minds behind Germany’s Fridays For Future climate strike programme, and often hailed as ‘The German Face of the Movement’, Luisa Neubauer was involved in climate activism long before Greta Thunberg first held a sign outside the Swedish parliament. She earned her spurs in a long succession of advocacy groups through her teens and early 20s, and is now part of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s new Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change.

Now aged 25, she’s been appointed to the judging panel of the Duke of Cambridge’s £50 million Earthshot Prize, alongside the likes of broadcaster Sir David Attenborough and actress Cate Blanchett. William praised the “inspirational” Neubauer, alongside fellow activist Ernest Gibson.

KULTURE WARS
‘Project British values’, Tory minister tells BBC

“It must step up to project British values as our national champion."

 by Andra Maciuca
May 25, 2021
in News, Politics

Oliver Dowden. Photo: PA

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden has ordered the BBC to project British values and prepare for regulation and funding changes in a piece penned for The Times.

It comes following a report by Lord Dyson which revealed the the corporation acted unethically in obtaining an interview with Diana, Princess of Wales in 1995.

Over the weekend, Priti Patel told the BBC to “look at itself” and reflect on the report – whilst dismissing findings that showed she broke the ministerial code.

Dowden has now said that Lord Dyson’s investigation “exposed failures that strike at the heart of our national broadcaster’s values and culture”.

Tory leadership of BBC

He said: “The BBC must act fast to restore trust, and reassure the country that it will shine a light on any other areas falling short of the high standards we rightly expect from it.

“We will not stand idly by in Government either. We cannot and should not get involved in editorial decisions, but we should reflect on the lack of oversight and challenge that these decisions exposed.”

The MP for Hertsmere praised the “more powerful Board” the BBC now has – which includes Robbie Gibb, a Brexiteer with close ties to the Tories.

“The new leadership deserves credit for setting up an independent investigation and accepting Lord Dyson’s findings in full, and I expect them to act swiftly on all of his recommendations.”

The culture secretary said the government is looking into strenghtening the regulation of the BBC. “Its purpose is to look at issues such as the performance of the BBC Board and the effectiveness of the regulation by Ofcom,” he said, adding:

“We will need to be reassured that this system of governance and oversight is now sufficient.”

He said a mid-term review is scheduled for the start of 2022 – and described it as a ‘health check’ provision’ established by his Tory colleague John Whittingdale.

Dowden continued by saying that, “as a conservative”, he believes in “preserving great national institutions”, and praised BBC’s work throughout the pandemic.
Independent and investigative BBC?

The Tory minister supported Prince William’s speech and said that in the “era of fake news, public service broadcasting and a free press have never been more important”.

He added: “I firmly believe we need trusted and impartial broadcasters, high-quality investigative journalism, and an independent and vibrant press today more than ever.

Dowden thinks the BBC needs an new emphasis on accuracy, impartiality and diversity of opinion: “As others have observed, the BBC can occasionally succumb to a ‘we know best’ attitude that is detached both from the criticism and the values of all parts of the nation it serves.

“It must step up to project British values as our national champion.

“Groupthink in any organisation results in a lack of challenge and poor decision making.

“That’s why cultural change must be a focus for the Director General and new Chair on the back of the Dyson report.”

Dowden said they will also be looking at longer term aspects such as the correct funding model, shape and structure of the BBC.

Related: WATCH: Patel dismisses ministerial code whilst telling the BBC to reflect on report

 

UK

Full list of TORY MPs who rejected global minimum corporate tax on big multinationals

The UK is now the only G7 country not supporting it.

 by Jack Peat

 May 25, 2021

in Politics

The Tories overwhelmingly voted against a Labour amendment on the global minimum corporate tax on big multinationals last night.

Ministers rejected a move that would force the government to back Joe Biden’s plans, making the UK the only G7 country not supporting it as things stand.

Commenting on the proposal, Labour’s James Murray told the House of Commons that “people are fed up with large multinational companies avoiding their tax”.

“Despite their business success in the UK, profit shifting to Luxembourg meant Amazon’s corporation tax contribution in the UK in 2019 was less than 0.1% of its turnover,” the shadow financial secretary to the Treasury added.

“It goes against the fairness that must be at the heart of our tax system. In this year of all years, when so many British businesses are struggling to get back on their feet while Amazon’s business booms, it is clearer than ever that change is long overdue.”

He criticised claims from ministers that they are “leading the charge” on tackling international tax avoidance and highlighted that the UK is the only country in the G7 group of nations not to have backed the plan put forward by Biden.

“This is a once in a generation opportunity to grasp international agreement on the global taxation of global multinationals that has evaded our country and others for so long. Yet, rather than stepping up, our government is stepping away.”

Biden initially put forward a 21 per cent global rate, but 15 per cent was suggested most recently as a “floor” from which to build. 130 countries are involved in negotiations, and Germany, France, Canada, Italy and Japan have reacted positively to the plan.

Here’s the full list of MPs who voted it down:

Full list of MPs who rejected global minimum corporate tax on big multinationals (thelondoneconomic.com)

Labour calls on Britain to back Biden’s global business tax plan
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said a global minimum rate of corporation tax would ensure tech giants pay ‘their fair share’.

Rachel Reeves / PA Wire

By Gavin Cordon

Labour is calling on the Government to back Joe Biden’s plan for a global minimum rate of corporation tax, or risk isolation at next month’s G7 summit.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the US president’s “historic” proposal could ensure multinational tech giants paid their “fair share” of tax while generating billions for public services.

In a letter to Chancellor Rishi Sunak, she questioned why, alone among the G7 countries which will gather in Cornwall, the UK was the only one that was “lukewarm” about the plan.


“This global pact will bring in billions of pounds in extra tax benefiting Britain while stopping huge multinationals and online giants from undercutting our businesses,” she said

.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak / PA Archive

“By making sure they pay their fair share in Britain, we can level the playing field for our brilliant businesses, and build an economic recovery with thriving industries and good, secure jobs for all.”

The Government has insisted that it wants an international solution to the “tax challenges” posed by the rise of the tech giants and the digital economy.

However it argues that reform should focus on making multinationals pay more tax in the countries where they make sales and operate.

Officials are said to believe that Mr Biden’s plan would disproportionately benefit the US, with firms simply paying more tax in California.

The president initially proposed a minimum global rate of 21%.

However on Thursday the US treasury department put forward a plan for a “floor” of 15%, while calling for discussions to continue to “push that rate higher”.

YELLEN SAID 18% ON FRIDAY ON CNBC

In her letter to Mr Sunak – co-signed by shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy – Ms Reeves said the UK should seek a rate “equal to or higher than” the original 21% proposal.

“It creates the prospect of an historic agreement that could arrest the global race to the bottom on corporate taxation and generate new revenue to support public services,” they wrote.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity and if the government doesn’t back this move, you risk undermining a global deal to tackle tax avoidance.”

UK

Headteacher: Palestinian flag is call to arms, show of support for antisemitism

SAME TROPE USED AGAINST CORBYN

Mike Roper, head of the Allerton Grange High School in Leeds, sparked anger for his comments in a video message amid possible protests from pupils, parents and staff

By LEE HARPIN

The Jewish News 

May 25, 2021

A head teacher has sparked anger after suggesting the Palestinian flag is used by some as a “call to arms” and can be seen “as a message of support for antisemitism.”

Mike Roper – head of the Allerton Grange High School in Leeds – had issued a warning about the possible protests and briefed pupils, parents and staff about the possible repercussions of demonstrations.

He had intended his speech to calm tensions over the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

But a video of his remarks went viral at the weekend and he was accused by some of “blatant Islamophobia”.

Police were seen patrolling outside the school on Monday.

In a two minute long video he said: “When I spoke to them they were so articulate in how they felt about innocent people in the Middle East and how they were being treated.

“But the problem is by using a symbol such as the Palestinian flag that message is lost because for some people they see that flag and they feel threatened, they feel unsafe.

“And they worry because for other people that flag is seen as a call to arms and seen as a message of support of antisemitism, for being anti-Jewish and it was never meant to be like that in the first place.”

Some pupils claimed they had come to school with pro-Palestinian lanyards which had been confiscated by teachers.

In a statement by Roper and the Leeds education authority the headmaster said his speech had been “an attempt to address tensions”.

It added: “I am deeply sorry that a particular example I used in that assembly referring to the Palestinian flag has caused such upset within the community. That was never my intention.”

ISLAMOPHOBIA IS THE OTHER SIDE OF ANTI-SEMITISM

In 45 years, I've never seen Americans shift this much on Palestine

READ MORE FROM DR JAMES ZOGBY

In the 45 years since launching the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, I have witnessed more tragic wars than I can care to count and defended Palestinians against more heinous crimes than I can bear to list. During all this time, we have had American supporters who have embraced the cause of Palestinian rights and supported our calls for justice. But never have I witnessed the sea of change in opinion and its impact on the policy debate that is now taking place.

Five decades ago, there were a handful of members of Congress who would courageously speak out and there were some Christian churches, peace and civil rights leaders, and small progressive Jewish groups who would endorse our appeals for Palestinian human rights. For their efforts, they, like us, were subjected to intimidation seeking to silence their voices or punish their advocacy.

Change began with the first Intifada, as national television broadcast Israeli troops firing on stone-throwing Palestinian youth, and the horror that greeted then defence minister Yitzhak Rabin’s orders to his soldiers to break the bones of the young protesters. Building on this shifting opinion, the prominent political activist Jesse Jackson elevated the issue of justice for Palestinians during his 1988 presidential campaign. That year, we succeeded in having the issue debated, for the first time, at the Democratic convention. I will never forget the feeling I had as I mounted the convention podium to introduce our platform plank calling for Palestinian rights.

READ MORE FROM DR JAMES ZOGBY

Egypt’s cycle of discontent keeps on turning

The sins and horrors of 1967 are alive today

Diversity should be America’s greatest strength

After the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 and the Oslo Accords between 1993 and 1995, there was another observable shift in US opinion. On closer examination, however, the change was largely on the Democratic side. Then president Bill Clinton and the Democrats backed the “Oslo process", while Republicans, whose party had increasingly come under the influence of the right-wing Christians and Reagan-era neo-conservatives, embraced a hardline pro-Israel stance. Since then, this partisan divide has continued to widen.

As a review of current polling makes clear, this partisan split increasingly masks America’s very real ideological and demographic divide on a range of domestic and foreign policy concerns. On the Democratic side, the largest component group of voters are African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, millennials and college-educated women. While on the Republican side, over 40 per cent of their voters are white, older, less than college-educated, or “born again” Christians. Their respective views on the Palestine-Israel issue are mirror images of one another. More revealing is the divide between self-identified liberals and conservatives.


Polls now show that the majority of Democratic voters hold deeply unfavourable views of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, oppose many Israeli policies, and favour conditioning US aid to Israel based on their treatment of Palestinians. Not only have attitudes changed, but progressive Jewish groups and organised Arab Americans have been empowered by this new political environment and have been engaging their elected officials. This has emboldened members of Congress to speak out. In response to both Israel’s recent policies in Jerusalem and the bombardment of Gaza, this split is having an impact in Congress.

Activists and protesters march in support of Palestine near the Washington monument in Washington. AFP

The result: for the first time in 30 years, a dozen members took to the floor of Congress to denounce Israeli efforts to evict Palestinians from their Jerusalem homes and the killings of civilians in Gaza; more than one-half of the Democratic Senate caucus has called for an immediate Hamas-Israel ceasefire; and progressives in the House of Representatives are calling on President Joe Biden to stop a proposed US arms’ sale to Israel and a bill has been introduced calling for US aid to Israel to be conditioned on their treatment of Palestinians. Also noteworthy has been the muted responses of normally pro-Israel Democratic senators and representatives. They know where their base voters are on this issue and they, therefore, are treading carefully.

The American media has given extensive coverage to this development. I was so proud to see a New York Times front page story, which appeared on May 15, open with the sentence: “In 1988, when James Zogby ... pushed Democrats to include mention of Palestinian sovereignty in their platform they responded with a clear warning ... If the P-word is even in the platform, all hell will break loose.” The article goes on to note how the issue we raised and lost back then, is now centre stage in the policy debate.

That’s the good news. More sobering is the fact, as I noted in the same story, that "the base of the party is in a very different place than where the party establishment is". We haven’t won this policy debate, not by a long shot. But what’s new and important is that we are forcing a debate. And that’s the first step on the road to change.

Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute and a columnist for The National

Israel Admits to Huge Economic Damage Caused by Gaza Rockets

May, 25, 2021 - 


TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Israel admitted to the huge economic damage sustained by the regime as a result of the barrage of missiles coming from the besieged Gaza Strip during the Palestinian resistance's Operation al-Quds Sword against the Zionist entity.


A Monday report by Israeli Manufacturers’ Association says Israeli businesses lost 1.2 billion shekels ($368 million) during 11 days of fighting between Israel and the Palestinian resistance groups based in Gaza.

The association, which represents some 1,500 firms and 400,000 workers, said the loss was mostly due to employees choosing to stay at home due to the nearly nonstop rocket fire from Gaza.

The main industrial group pointed out that about a third of workers were absent from work in southern Israel and about 10% stayed home in areas closer to the commercial hub of central Israel during the war.

"The non-arrival of workers led to a significant decrease in the outputs of industrial companies, a decline in sales and a direct harm to revenues," it said.

Fifty Israeli factories suffered millions of shekels in direct damage from rocket shrapnel, though the manufacturers association did not include in its estimate indirect damage, like cancelled orders.

In the 2014 war that lasted seven weeks, Israel's central bank estimated the Tel Aviv's economy took a 3.5 billion shekel hit, plus nearly the same amount in damages to the tourism sector.

Ron Tomer, president of the association, called on the government to set up a permanent compensation scheme that would more efficiently help businesses in future rounds of fighting.

"It is not time for bureaucracy and procrastination rather for rehabilitation and full support for these companies, which throughout the operation proved they know how to function and produce under rocket fire," he said.

Israel's parliamentary finance committee is slated to debate the issue on Tuesday.

The Palestinians’ victory in the recent war was predictable because the Zionist regime had not won any wars in the last 16 years, neither in Lebanon nor in the Gaza Strip.

Israel sustained a heavy defeat in its latest confrontation with resistance groups in the Gaza Strip. The regime declared a ceasefire early on Friday after 12 days of heavy bombardment of Gaza, to which the resistance responded with firing thousands of rockets into the occupied territories.

At least 248 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including 66 children, while Palestinian rockets killed 12 in Israel.

Finance sector declared as one of UK's biggest contributors to climate change
UK banks and asset managers financed carbon emissions that were 1.8 times the annual net emissions of the UK as a whole

Pedro Gonçalves and Hope William-Smith
25 May 2021

UK banks and asset managers were responsible for financing 805 million tonnes of CO2 in 2019, which would make the City of London the ninth biggest emitter in the world if it were a country, according to a report by Greenpeace UK and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The new research points towards finance as one of the UK's largest contributors to climate change and supports calls for regulation to be introduced across the sector to bring it into line with Paris Agreement targets.

UK banks and asset managers financed carbon emissions that were 1.8 times the annual net emissions of the UK as a whole, the report reveals, placing UK finance at the same level as oil and gas extraction, coal mining, aviation and transport, high-carbon sector.

Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven, said: "Finance is the UK's dirty little secret. Banks and investors are responsible for more emissions than most nations and the UK Government is giving them a free pass.

"How can we say we are 'leading the world on climate action' while allowing financial institutions to plough billions into fossil fuel production every year? The claim is almost laughable.

"As the host of this year's pivotal global climate summit, the government can no longer turn a blind eye. Rather than relying on self-regulation, we need legislation that forces all banks and asset managers to align all financing activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement. That would be genuine climate leadership."

The analysis, carried out by climate solutions and project developer South Pole, used carbon accounting methodology to calculate, for the first time, the carbon emissions associated with the lending and investment activities of the UK's financial sector.

However, the report might just have revealed the tip of the iceberg as the analysis used an indicative sample of the UK's financial institutions - made up of 15 banks and ten asset managers - which excludes certain financing activities such as underwriting.

Despite this, UK financial institutions are not currently regulated in the same way as other high-carbon sectors and, when it comes to cutting emissions, they are not legally required to align their financing activities with the UK's or global climate commitments.

Instead, some banks and other financial institutions are making voluntary pledges to reduce their carbon emissions, which have been dismissed by as greenwashing and alone will not deliver the emissions reductions required to successfully tackle climate change.

WWF UK chief executive Tanya Steele said: "Trying to set a path to net-zero emissions without tackling the UK financial sector is like sticking a plaster when the patient needs open heart surgery.

"Despite seeing ambitious commitments to tackle the climate emergency, our finance sector is still driving global investment towards the old, destructive ways of doing business that are destroying our one shared home.

"The UK financial sector could be the first in the world to be aligned with the Paris Agreement targets - and reap the rewards as global business shifts towards clean, green investments. But it is clear voluntary pledges are not getting the job done.

"The UK government must show the global leadership expected of the COP26 Presidency and commit to mandating all financial institutions to have net-zero transition plans that cover their investments in every corner of the globe."

Greenpeace UK and WWF are now calling for legislation that requires all UK-regulated financial institutions to adopt and implement a transition plan that is in keeping with the goal of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5°C.
Pension pressure

The findings from Greenpeace and WWF come after The Pensions Regulator (TPR) warned the defined contribution market to pay more attention to climate change back in February. TPR then followed up with the release of its climate strategy, calling specifcially on trustees to "act now" to protect pension savers from climate risk.

The Exorcists Who Are Battling Black Lives Matter

Across the country, right-wing Catholic clerics are weaponizing their rites to own the libs.

ILLUSTRATION BY LIA KANTROWITZ

Audrey Clare Farley/May 25, 2021

THE NEW REPUBLIC

In Elysburg, Pennsylvania, there is a Vatican-trained exorcist and professed expert on spiritual warfare, who lectures and tweets about the “demonic” forces of our times. It might surprise you to learn what these latter-day Regan MacNeils bedeviling our safe suburban homes are: Black Lives Matter, Marxism, critical race theory, intersectionality, and wokeness. And this cleric is not the only exorcist very publicly conflating the Evil One with the left, real and imagined.

Last fall, a Portland archbishop led a procession into a public park, where he conducted a Latin exorcism to dispel the evil spirits left by racial justice activists. The very same day, a San Francisco archbishop performed a similar rite at the site of a felled statue of Father Junipero Serra, an eighteenth-century Spanish friar whose missionaries forced Indigenous people to convert to Christianity, whipping and torturing many to death. Flanked by rosary-praying nuns, priests, and laity, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone asked God to “purify this place … purify the hearts of those who perpetrated this blasphemy.” He later called upon authorities to press felony and hate crime charges against the Native protesters who toppled the statue.

Many locals were outraged. Gregg Castro, an activist of the Salinan and Ohlone tribes, told the National Catholic Reporter, “Exorcisms are a throwback to the thinking of the 1700s, which justified what the Spaniards did to us. To them we are some kind of demonic spirits.” One individual suggested that exorcisms might be better suited at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, where immigrants are kept in cages and women report being forcibly sterilized. A retired priest offered that more wisdom could be gained from listening to the people “for whom Serra is a stumbling block to the church’s credibility.”

But Archbishop Cordileone seems uninterested in defending the racially oppressed or critically examining the church’s history of white supremacy. Like the exorcists writing screeds against Black Lives Matter and the U.S. bishops preparing to formally declare President Joe Biden unfit for communion because of his support for abortion rights, Cordileone is a culture warrior. He has previously made headlines for demanding Catholic schoolteachers sign morality clauses and opposing pandemic-related worship restrictions, which he calls the work of “secular elites.”

It is tempting to view the weaponization of religious rites against one’s political enemies as a product of our hyperpoliticized times, wherein so many prominent officials and even corporations are compelled to wear their persuasions on their sleeve. But such a view obscures how thoroughly Catholic clerical power is tied up in the racist, misogynist politics of the contemporary right. For people like Cordileone, the capitulation to secular politics has become a means to preserve the perverse hierarchy from which priests have long derived their power. Understanding this hierarchy is key to combating the influence of the Catholic far right.

“Clericalism,” as some call the doom-laden cult surrounding priests, has become much talked-about in this era of rampant sexual abuse. Acclaimed Catholic author James Carroll argues it’s been “at the root of Roman Catholic dysfunction” since its origins in the late Roman empire. In The Truth at Heart of the Lie: How the Catholic Church Lost Its Soul, Carroll writes that the early church was fairly egalitarian, with believers breaking bread in each other’s homes and many recognizing women’s authority to preach the “good news.” It wasn’t until Emperor Constantine desired a more imperial religion in the Fourth Century that an all-male clergy was marked as the “chosen,” through whom believers were compelled to seek salvation. The religion shape-shifted from one based on hospitality and love of neighbor to one fixated on sex—something Carroll blames on the sexual neuroses of theologians like St. Augustine, in addition to the practical need to enforce celibacy. (If priests fathered children, their heirs would lay claim to the church’s wealth; and if they didn’t appear to transcend their flesh, they couldn’t as effectively wield power over the embodied masses.)

It’s no wonder to Carroll that torture, sexual abuse, and colonial violence long pervaded a world in which believers were taught God required their suffering and urged to submit to authorities or else face the fires of hell. But something radical happened in his lifetime: A reformer was elected pope. In 1962, Pope John XXIII convened Catholic hierarchy to “throw open the doors and windows,” and the ecumenical council now known as “Vatican II” ushered in a range of democratizing liturgical changes. The church replaced Latin with the vernacular of congregants and brought the altar down to the people’s level. It formally apologized for centuries of wrongdoing against Jews, which many viewed as laying the groundwork for the Holocaust, and even established a commission to revisit the prohibition of birth control, which promised to elevate women by recognizing the sacredness of sex apart from reproduction. Reflecting on this moment in history, which inspired him to enter the seminary and take his vows with the Paulist Fathers, Carroll writes, “Instead of trusting priests, we began to trust God.”

But he and other progressive Catholics didn’t stand long in the sun, as traditionalists found ways to preserve the old order. After Pope John’s death from stomach cancer in 1963, the birth control commission was disbanded; and after the council’s official conclusion in 1965, other social justice initiatives fell by the wayside. Over the next several decades, during which time a disenchanted Carroll left the priesthood, the church made opposition to abortion the primary marker of Catholic identity.

According to John Gehring, author of The Francis Effect and Catholic director at Faith in Public Life, this “single-issue Catholicism” became especially prominent in the United States, where Pope John Paul II appointed figures like Cardinal John O’Connor and the now-disgraced Cardinal Bernard Francis Law. Both “leaned into a style of culture-war Catholicism by publicly challenging pro-choice Catholic politicians and more broadly viewing progressive strains of Catholicism with suspicion or even contempt.” Gehring tells The New Republic that the 2020 presidential election marked unprecedented partisanship, with bishops and priests becoming “full-throated cheerleaders for Trump … using their Twitter pulpits to audition as Fox News pundits.” These pastors were perfectly willing to “ignore Trump’s racism and contempt for democratic norms” in exchange for his promise to appoint anti-abortion judges.

Gehring believes conservative Catholics’ view of the Black Lives Matter movement as extremist grows out of “a distorted worldview shaped by the far right,” as well as their unwillingness to examine white supremacy within the church—something other critics have linked to the paternalist culture described above. In Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, Father Bryan Massingale, who is a Black priest, chronicles U.S. bishops’ persistent condescension toward civil rights activists, as well as their stubborn framing of racism as a spiritual (individual) problem rather than a social one. The latter allows the church to continue centering whiteness in its aesthetics, music, and theology and avoid the kind of truth-telling needed for real healing and reparation. Truth-telling might involve leaders meaningfully reckoning with the church’s introduction of slavery into the U.S. and its history of segregating African Americans in parishes, schools, hospital, convents, and seminaries—atrocities discussed by other Black Catholic scholars like Shannen Dee Williams and Olga M. Segura.

In Birth of a Movement: Black Lives Matter and the Catholic Church, Segura notes the deference that bishops, fewer than 3 percent of whom are Black, pay to police in pastoral letters like “Open Wide Our Hearts,” which was issued in 2018. “We must reject harsh rhetoric that belittles or dehumanizes law enforcement personnel who labor to keep our communities safe,” the clerics urge, utterly dismissing people of color who report traumatic experiences with law enforcement. It surprises neither Segura nor Massingale that priests empathize with the police, given what Massingale calls the “normative whiteness” of the church. With this, Massingale nods toward the parallels between police and priest culture, about which Fr. Daniel P. Horan has more pointedly written: “In many ways, the criminal laws and institutional policies that maintain doctrines like qualified immunity [for abusive officers] provide something of a civil equivalent to the culture of clericalism in the church.” For Horan, men in blue and men in black are inextricably bound together by their each being above the law.

In view of this bond, it’s hard to read the actions of Cordileone and other self-styled demon-chasers as anything other than acts of power, intended to put progressive-minded laity back in their place. If these officials wish to exorcise the bad politics from their parishioners, they have their work cut out for them. Catholics are actually divided on Black Lives Matter, despite priests’ declaring activists “maggots and parasites” (one Indiana priest’s words). This may stun some men of the cloth, who have been taught to view themselves as moral superiors. Conservative clergy are certainly alarmed by Pope Francis, who, while not nearly as progressive as many on the left would like, is steadfastly laboring to shift power away from Rome and return the church’s focus to the vulnerable and dispossessed. Some, like Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, have preposterously tried to implicate Pope Francis in the sexual abuse crisis in order to undermine his agenda.

These extremists do have the benefit of ready-made platforms, thanks to the rise of outlets that, in Gehring’s words, “operate more as propaganda mills for right-wing Catholicism than legitimate news sources.” Case in point: A handful of sites like the National Catholic Register published Viganò’s accusations against Pope Francis, despite their being unfounded. Kaya Oakes, author of The Nones Are Alright, adds that many conservative Catholic news outlets have deep-pocketed donors, which means sensationalistic voices get amplified, while those defending the poor and marginalized are drowned out. “There’s no equivalent to the Koch brothers on the Catholic left,” she tells The New Republic. But, she says, there is something that sensationalists are losing, and that is congregants. “People are leaving the church in droves, particularly Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z Catholics who disagree with these conservative stances.”

Some may reject religion altogether. Others may simply find God in other spaces, where, in Segura’s words, referring to Black Lives Matter, people understand “what it truly means to fight for the most marginalized groups in our society, what it means to truly care about human life.” Carroll urges that Catholics shouldn’t be afraid to abstain from formal rituals, as the first and most enduring church was always the “people of God.” He himself has not gone to mass in several years, all the while declaring his unwavering love of Jesus. “I refuse to let a pervert priest or complicit bishop rip my faith from me.” Others report going to church at night to be with God when no one else is around.

Some conservatives may rejoice in a more homogenous faith community, reasoning that progressives weren’t “real” Catholics anyway. But they will still have to contend with their own dwindling moral relevance at a time when many believers are ready and willing to build a more just world. Further weaponization of rites and sacraments will gain headlines, but as these holy men drink ever deeper draughts from the Gospel of Owning the Libs, they’ll continue to shed congregants and grow more isolated. It would be well for these exorcists to examine their own demons before they cause even further harm to the church.

Audrey Clare Farley @AudreyCFarley
Audrey Clare Farley is the author of the forthcoming book The Unfit Heiress: The Tragic Life and Scandalous Sterilization of Ann Cooper Hewit