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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy Paul Ryan's chaplain firing is very weird
Why Paul Ryans chaplain firing is very weird
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
There's a mystery bubbling in Washington this week: Why did House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) fire the House chaplain? It's generally a noncontroversial job. The chaplain offers the daily prayer before the start of each House session, and provides spiritual counsel to all lawmakers. But seemingly out of the blue earlier this month, Ryan fired the Rev. Patrick J. Conroy. Now, some lawmakers are asking why, and they're not getting a clear answer.
. . . .
Ryan gave no reason and complimented Conroy on his way out the door. When Conroy read his resignation on the House floor last week, he made clear Ryan asked him to leave: Dear Paul, the Peace of Christ! As you have requested, I hereby offer my resignation as the 60th Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives. Some lawmakers say they are just finding out Conroy was fired and want answers about why answers the speaker's office hasn't given.
Ryan told House Republicans behind closed doors Friday that there was no malfeasance on Conroy's part, according to Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), who spoke with reporters.
. . . . .
One potential reason for Ryan's silence: He doesn't want to kick the chaplain while he's down by explaining all the reasons he thought it was time for a change.
The chaplain thinks he was fired over a prayer he gave
The Rev. Patrick Conroy leads a prayer with members of the LGBT and Muslim community for the victims who were killed by a gunman in an Orlando nightclub in June 2016. (Christian K. Lee/The Washington Post)
He prayed one day on the House floor about the tax bill: May their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.
After that, Conroy told the Times: A staffer came down and said, We are upset with this prayer; you are getting too political.
. . .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/04/27/why-the-paul-ryan-chaplain-firing-is-very-weird/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.78c322ed4021
Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)Resign, and leave in disgrace, you shameful fake Christian.
malthaussen
(17,216 posts)I am boggled by how the people in Congress could be so uncomfortable with the scolding of a Chaplain (however mild) that they would want to get rid of him. Is there some kind of intersection with respect for authority and knowing they're being bad boys (and girls)?
And why Congress has a chaplain to begin with is a separate, but interesting, question.
-- Mal
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)not a flood, but they've been falling away in worrying numbers for some time now. Big surprise.
My best ignorant guess is that Ryan probably wanted for some time to fire this guy who hinted at the spiritual bankruptcy, even evil deeds, of the Republican caucuses and took the opportunity offered by not running again to do so. It does pretty come close on his personal announcement.
poboy2
(2,078 posts)'given' of what I know of growing up Catholic...lip service. Literally lip service.
Not act on it, but give the cover of consideration. For show, even.
Fucking thugs.
Cirque du So-What
(25,972 posts)Take whatever suits your purpose at the moment - usually when it's for scolding someone.
Mr. Ected
(9,670 posts)Are apparently hopeless and prayerless.
Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)vi5
(13,305 posts)Haha. Just kidding. They won't care because they are hypocrites who are just as hateful and greedy as every other strain of Republican shitheel.
Oh sure maybe they'll harumph and furrow their brows and pretend to care but as long as they get them sweet, sweet tax cuts and anti-female laws passed they will come around.
politicaljunkie41910
(3,335 posts)the tone considerably and has sent the message to his flock to be less judgmental and I think it's working. Of course Catholics have never been as judgmental as Evangelicals because they have always known it was not their place to
be judging their neighbor because they have always known two things we were taught as children:
(1) "All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. Proverbs 3:23. and
(2) Confession is held every Saturday (If you break one of God's commandments and ask for forgiveness, you are forgiven.)
vi5
(13,305 posts)I have many issues with the Catholic Church, but I know probably just as many liberal catholics who focus on the charity and peace aspects of Christ's teachings and don't go in for the judgmental, anti-woman, anti-sex, homophobic parts of the church. But Catholics I know who are conservatives are just as hypocritical and judgmental as any evangelical.
misanthrope
(7,428 posts)I was brought up in the Southern Baptist church. I am well familiar with the hypocrisies, falsities and shortcomings of its flock.
I've lived 35 years in a Roman Catholic town hallmarked by that church's patterns, institutions and culture. I married into a deeply Roman Catholic family littered with priests and nuns. Their coziness with the archdiocese has procured annulments on the fly.
Much of what disgusted me about the Protestant Christians of my youth I see present in the Roman Catholics around me. I find the judgement, the materialism, the vanity, the racism, the gossip, the backbiting and the politics from the pulpit. My wife has come home highly upset on Sundays from the terrible things she hears among the parishioners and from the priest, about the LGBT community, about healthcare, about women's rights, about what is the "right" way for Catholics to vote.
I've also been privy to Catholics condemning Baptists' universal disdain for them. Those same Roman Catholics don't give it a second thought, though when they portray Baptists as primitive and dangerous in comparison to their own enlightened and acculturated selves.
I once heard a Roman Catholic say to me, "All Baptists are narrow-minded." I feigned not hearing her and asked her to repeat it twice in hopes she would see the irony in her statement, but it escaped her.
Sure, Roman Catholics put a respectable amount of resources into good works. However, I've also met Protestants who indulge in plenty of "good works" of their own.
And Catholics aren't as puritanical as evangelicals, but they utilize plenty of political sway in their own right. Were you to look at their voting records down here, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. That's decided more by socio-economics and race than anything else.
As an agnostic, I no longer see enough discernible difference between them to really amount to much. I find superstitions all equally silly.
vi5
(13,305 posts)I am a staunch atheist who grew up in a very devout Catholic family (who were also very liberal). I by no means meant my post to be an endorsement of the Catholic Church in any way.
As you said, it's probably a matter of experience. I personally have no use for any religion, and ESPECIALLY any sect of Christianity.
I just find that the Catholics I know are split fairly down the middle between liberals and conservative. Lutherans and Episcopalians tend to maybe lean ever so slightly more liberal. And Evangelicals it's maybe 80/20 on the conservative side (and voting patterns and Trump support tends to bear out those numbers.
Personally it's all ridiculous to me.
misanthrope
(7,428 posts)Jeff Sessions-ville, actually. The most liberal congregation I know of in town -- other than UUs -- is at an Episcopal church.
QC
(26,371 posts)as Ryan does, then remarks like Fr. Patrick's are most assuredly blasphemy.
His bishop needs to have a pastoral visit with him and explain that he cannot be both a Randroid and a Christian.
Whiskeytide
(4,462 posts)... -even in the House - that any defection was a problem for the GOP. If the Chaplins prayer had motivated a few to soul search and change their vote, it would have been a disaster. I think Ryan thought that was what the Chaplin was doing, and he was going to make sure he knew his place. Hes an asshole after all, and assholes gonna asshole.
dawg
(10,624 posts)God might be listening!!!
JDC
(10,133 posts)Pence wants an evangelical in there. This is all just making way for someone who has been loyal to the Trump/Pence brand.
We can all rest assured of one thing: the replacement will surely be a hack and cause controversy.
erronis
(15,328 posts)like pence and other evangelicals, holier-than-thous, proselytizers, adulterers, incesters, insect exterminators, used-car salesmen. And the obligatory "I don't mean any disrespect to insects."
It is convenient that 95% of them in congress have "congregated" under one broad repuglicon umbrella. Just getting rid of anyone with an (R) after their name would make this country and world a much better place.
Thanks for letting me vent!
Ryan said he got complaints from other members of Congress about the tenor of the pastor's sermons. We know it was the prosperity gospel evangelicals. The Freedom Caucus is made up of them. Ryan might have traded this firing for votes on some shitty bill.
Ilsa
(61,698 posts)if PR fired him over that prayer.
Kirk Lover
(3,608 posts)separation of church and state.
Second...can this priest just be fired or does there have to be cause?
TomVilmer
(1,832 posts)In Denmark the politicians at least go to a church outside parliament, when they feel such strange urges...
Kirk Lover
(3,608 posts)misanthrope
(7,428 posts)To indulge in levity.
Vinca
(50,303 posts)It sounds like the padre made GOP members uncomfortable with prayers about helping poor people.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)Evangelicals don't think Catholics are christians. Personally , I don't think evangelicals are christians, they're a lobbying group for the 1800's, but that's beside the point. Maybe we should abide by James Madison's opinion on the subject of chaplains:
Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness, the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation?
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)The Taliban wing of the GOP wants to complete its take over and a chaplain who talks of compassion and justice does not fit their brand of Grifter religion.
And as you said, they do not consider Catholics Christian.
misanthrope
(7,428 posts)I've known plenty of evangelicals who recognize Catholics as Christian. That includes both my mother and father's sides of the family.
I've heard what you said -- "they don't see Catholics as Christian" -- utilized by Catholics in the past. I wonder if it's not perpetuated to reinforce persecution complexes and tribalism.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)So you know there is no enforced theology and the Southern Baptist Churches run the gamut in beliefs.
My parents did not question Catholics Christianity. But many in my church disagreed. And I have heard pastors go both way.
But watch, SB are too liberal for many of these guys. They want full Pentecostal wealth loving grifters.
tanyev
(42,608 posts)As soon as power is in sight, the factions begin fighting among themselves over who has the true version of the nominal religion. If one faction achieves dominance, then that also starts to crumble as individual leaders start targeting each other. If it doesn't collapse completely, what usually emerges is one emperor/dictator/anointed of God, those who swear loyalty to him, and a lot of heretics.
northoftheborder
(7,574 posts)PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)From:
https://chaplain.house.gov/chaplaincy/history.html