You Be the Judge: Mayor Pete

Petet Buttigieg, Mayor of the home to the University of Notre Dame, one of the most prominent Catholic schools in the country and where his parents were professors, the 37-year-old Episcopalian did not grow up in a religious home. His interest in faith emerged at St. Joseph’s High School, when he was drawn to Catholic theology, and grew while he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University. After graduating from a St. Joseph’s, Buttigieg went to Harvard, becomong Episcopalian and discovering his sexual attraction to other men, now as a “married” homosexual.

Buttigieg stands as an icon of so much of what is deviant in the contemporary Church. Darren Dochuk has said Buttigieg clearly endorses a progressive faith rooted in Christian social gospel teachings, a movement that tied faith to action, which many young people in both Protestant and Catholic churches will find appealing. “I have doubts that his talk about God and social Christianity and his desire to shift the religious politics of our day to the left will gain much traction among a majority of white evangelicals and conservative Catholics,” said Dochuk, citing opposition to Buttigieg’s abortion rights stance and the anti-LGBTQsentiments in those communities. “Whatever the case, I think he rightly senses the need for Democrats to quit avoiding or dodging or minimizing the God factor in American politics.” Reading Dochuk, one wonders exactly which “progressive faith” it is that Mayor Pete endorses.

“Avoiding or dodging or minimizing the God factor in American politics” -- This is something that I have never feared doing—hence this piece. What differentiates Buttigieg from our present President in my view is the mayor’s “abortion rights stance” and his LGBTQ feelings. For starters, Pope Francis and the mayor our at odds on these two issues. When asked in a March 5, 2014 interview with Corriere della Sera, “Many nations have regulated civil unions. Is it a path that the Church can understand? But up to what point?” The Holy Father replied, "Marriage is between a man and a woman". Again Taking our cue from the Pope, on abortion he has stated that “Abortion, Even of a Sick Fetus, Is Like Hiring a ‘Hitman’.”

In the end, Mayor Pete’s biography gives evidence that his home life, parish life and education  have failed him in not providing the spiritual and theological preparation needed to deal with his homosexuality, which the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches is an  intrinsic disorder.