Resign, and leave in disgrace, you shameful fake Christian.

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

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.

'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.

Take whatever suits your purpose at the moment - usually when it's for scolding someone.

Are apparently hopeless and prayerless.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

Jeff Sessions-ville, actually. The most liberal congregation I know of in town -- other than UUs -- is at an Episcopal church.

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.

... -even in the House - that any defection was a problem for the GOP. If the Chaplin’s 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. He’s an asshole after all, and assholes’ gonna asshole.

God might be listening!!!

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.

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.

if PR fired him over that prayer.

separation of church and state.

Second...can this priest just be fired or does there have to be cause?

In Denmark the politicians at least go to a church outside parliament, when they feel such strange urges...

To indulge in levity.

It sounds like the padre made GOP members uncomfortable with prayers about helping poor people.

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?

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.

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.

So you know there is no enforced theology and the Southern Baptist Churches run the gamut in beliefs.

My parents did not question Catholic’s 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.

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.