The Popes of America

You can't really talk about a Pope unless you talk about the Pope of the Catholic Church. He is the sole arbiter between Catholics and God. He is also the single Supreme Court Justice of the church. If he says no divorce, there's no divorce, since he also happens to be infallible. I have been informed that Popes are no longer considered infallible in some regards, but when they make a doctrinal decision and decree, the Pope cannot be in error. This, as I understand it, is still true, BUT...American Catholics apparently do not accept this doctrine, either. There are two incontrovertible examples. Popes have been unwavering in their opposition to divorce. Divorce is not only wrong, it's unacceptable, except in very narrow circumstances. And yet the divorce rate among American Catholics is 21%. While that's much lower than the population at large, it is still over 1/5th the Catholic membership. I suspect even more Catholics are not opposed to marriage. So on this one point, a large number of American Catholics do not accept the infallible decree of the Pope. This is interesting to me because, in the end, which one has more power? Well, clearly the people who get a divorce have done what they wanted. The Pope was powerless to stop them. The church does have the power to punish them and quite often does, by denying sacraments or even excommunication. Just so you don't think this is the only example, I'll also mention birth control. Among several sources, it seemed to me the most credible number was 86%. That's how many American Catholics USE birth control. That's about as strong a rejection of infallible doctrine as I can imagine. So the Pope is the supreme leader of the Catholic Church. There's no one above him to correct or admonish him. He's at the top and he calls the shots. But people don't have to do what he says, apparently.

That gets us to our American popes - the Supreme Court of the United States. Once chosen, the justices serve for life or until they retire. They are part of our governmental system of checks and balances because they can override the actions of the legislative and executive branches just by decreeing those actions unconstitutional. They are checked at two levels. First, by the nature of their appointments. The President nominates a justice and the Senate has to approve him/her. So both the other branches get a shot at the nominee. The fact that there are 9 of them is another check - one guy can make a mistake, but we assume that the majority of 9 experts on constitutional law are pretty much going to be right almost every time. AND...if they're wrong, we can overrule them. But they have to be SO wrong that 2/3 of Congress is willing to amend the Constitution, then 3/4 of the states have to ratify the amendment.  This has been done 17 times (yes, there are 27 amendments, but the first 10 were tacked on in order to get the Constitution approved). So it's not impossible, but it is justifiably difficult. I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with the amendments that abolished slavery, or gave women the right to vote, or repealed prohibition.

And now we get to the decisions this week by our infallible justices. You can squirm all you want to about their decision on Obamacare, but it's the law of the land. The argument is over. The court basically says they're not going to do the legislature's job. If Congress doesn't like it, they have the power to rewrite it or repeal it. That's their job, not the court's. I like that. It was a 6-3 decision, so the message couldn't be clearer. For Republicans, it's a challenge. Do something. Anything. But don't expect them to do it for you.

The justices also made a decision about fair housing, but it's simply not as controversial as the other rulings. I really like their decision, but I'm not going to discuss it here.

The other huge decision was the one on marriage equality. Once again, I agree with and applaud the court's decision. The howling on the right mirrors the howling that ensued when Social Security was created, when biracial couples were allowed to marry, when schools were integrated...it's all so old and tedious. None of the suggestions for avoiding the ruling sound plausible. Civil disobedience? What are you going to do? Not get married to someone of the same gender? At least two Republican presidential candidates have suggested either doing away with the Supreme Court or impeaching the justices (absurd because they would face the same "high crimes and misdemeanor" standard presidents do - making a decision a minority of Americans disagree with doesn't meet that standard). Doing away with the Supreme Court essentially would end our country as we know it. So if you're opposed, know the Constitution and understand how our government works. You don't have the voting power, the legislative power, or the executive power to overturn any of these decisions, because most Americans agree with them. Deal with it.