While I was researching the previous blog entry on the upcoming US bishops’ statement on homosexuality, I was looking for a copy of the previous statement homosexuality statement, “Always Our Children,” online and the top return on Google placed it on the web site of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, a radical group that wants the Church to be organized along the lines of the US Constitution and for all the usual heterodox positions on the Church teachings to supplant, well, the Truth.
Considering how zealously the USCCB copyright and permissions office guards their copyright, preventing anyone from posting Church documents that give us the Word of God or outline Church teaching or tell us how to worship, I’m a bit surprised that the ARCC’s posting of this very controversial and noteworthy document all the way back before at least April 1998 would go unnoticed. Unless they were given permission to re-publish it.
But then why would a heterodox group like ARCC be given permission to publish it, while orthodox web sites—even a fellow trying to make a podcast of the daily Lectionary readings for the benefit of commuters who can’t attend daily Mass—would be denied permission to post Church documents? That’s quite perplexing.
I’ve sent a fax to the permissions office requesting clarification. Hopefully, an answer will be forthcoming.
Update: I received a fax back from the USCCB this morning. Their response: “Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. We will research the history of the posting and take appropriate action.” Anyone want to lay odds on whether the page is still up in two weeks? Of course, now I’m bringing attention to it, they may actually do something. I wonder if they needed someone to call attention to orthodox groups posting Church documents before they acted.
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Maybe it’s not worth suing them.