Pope Francis recently indicated he is serious about ending child sex abuse and cover-ups by Catholic prelates by defrocking a former apostolic nuncio (a nuncio is essentially a high level Vatican diplomat) for having sexual relations with young boys.

But while the Holy See should be applauded for this decisive action, there is unfinished business with the bishop of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri. And the bishop in question is Robert Finn a darling of the American Catholic Right who have very little to say - at least now that he is a convicted criminal.

Historian Randall Balmer notes writing in Christian Ethics Today, that the real beginnings of the Religious Right lies not in 1973 Roe v. Wade, but in Green v. Kennedy.  In 1969 a group of Blacks from Holmes County, Mississippi, sued the state for allowing tax exempt status to segregated schools.  This court ruling was to prove to be the unseating of Jimmy Carter and the solidifying of a political movement.

The Supreme Court's recent (and horrendous) ruling in the Hobby Lobby case dealing with workers' access to contraceptives has turned the spotlight on the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the group that sponsored many of the legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate.

Profiles of the group and its founder, Kevin J. "Seamus" Hasson, appeared in The Washington Post and the Salt Lake City Deseret News. Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn was quoted in both stories.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, the overseer of the Diocese of Brooklyn-Queens New York, recently weighed in on the recent US Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the case concerning the ability of certain closely held corporations to opt out of one of the preventive health care  provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") that required that insurance packages provide free birth control for women. In praising the High Court's decision he offered an analogy that was fractured and misses the point.

Imagine if you will, that some of those who once thought America could be restored to the bright, shining Christian Nation they believe had been stolen from them (but arguably never really existed) -- now doubt the dream.

As it happens, some of those people are entertaining such doubts. So much so that they think that a gradual dismemberment of the America they thought they held dear may be necessary to the point of martyrdom, secession, and civil war.

Of course, there are many Tea Partiers in tri-cornered hats or Confederate uniforms that they wear for reenacting the glories of the Old South. We needn't necessarily take such people seriously.  But it is my observation, after 30 years of researching and reporting on various elements of the Right, that there is something else going on. Something has changed -- and merits our attention.

Liberty Universities' Matt Staver, apparent new spokesman for Jerry Falwell's University, mailed out a DVD to encourage "pastors & patriots."  Matt is head of Liberty U.'s legal arm known as Liberty Counsel.  The late Jerry Falwell boasted he never went anywhere without a group of lawyers near him.  The school's social activism, once dominated by a monthly magazine, now centers on the Liberty school of law

In past summers, Child Evangelism Fellowship has targeted children in Boston, Denver, Chicago, Little Rock, Salt Lake City, and the Twin Cities for conversion to their brand of biblical fundamentalism. This summer they chose Portland, Oregon. It may have been a mistake.

What does it mean to be a person? For the anti-abortion group, Personhood USA, a "person" is present from the moment a sperm penetrates an egg, and members are fighting to have their definition encoded into law. Online coaching tools for abortion opponents use the term person interchangeably with human or human being. Are they interchangeable? Does it matter?

Personhood USA is driven by a mission that dates back to Roe v Wade, when, in the process of legalizing abortion, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun made this comment: "If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's [Roe's] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment."

In other words, if an embryo or fetus can be defined legally as a person, then abortion could potentially be classified as murder and a host of other legal rights could accrue to the developing fetus. The set of legal arguments that support abortion rights would not disappear but they would shrink. In recent years, Personhood USA and conservative Christian allies have been building case law and regulatory precedents with this goal in mind.

To win, they have to equate personhood with human life. But that's no easy task.

We have written a great deal at Talk to Action about Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.  For a number of years he was sold to us (along with Rick Warren) as epitomizing a new, moderate, social justice oriented evangelicalism. Even liberals and Democrats were supposed to like him. The media puffed him as the most important Latino Christian leader in America.

But like all things that seem to be too good to be true, there were many problems. Even as he was celebrated by DC insiders as a bridge builder, he was, among other things, an overt religious supremacist and, his denials not withstanding, a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation, and the beneficiary of some very odd journalism.  Over the past year or so, I have written several times for Political Research Associates about Rev. Rodriguez, who continues to play an outsized and undeserved role in American public life.  Here are a few excerpts from those articles which taken together, may serve as something of a refresher about a man who remains prominent in public life.

It depends on whose political ox is being gored and which uninformed pundit is the moron. With the defeat of Eric Cantor and election of David Brat the issue of "Christian Economics" is gobbling bandwidth. Much of the discussion is long on rhetoric and short on facts. Here is a very brief overview. More resources will be posted at Talk to Action over the next few days.

Executive Summary: Brat's election involves legitimate voter anger; right-wing populism as a social movement, the revival of economic and religious Calvinism, the rise of dominionism among Christian conservatives; and the drive to roll back President Roosevelt's government funded social safety net.

Understanding the concept of "Christian Economics" helps explain how these all got connected and took political power with the election of Ronald Reagan.

Tea Party and Religious Right favorite, Houston's Ted Cruz, is riding high as a favored Senator from Texas.  His claim to fame is a filibuster and doing just about anything to oppose the Obama administration.  Ted is a member of Second Baptist Church in the town.  The church is stacked with prominent state GOP party heads and candidates.  Dan Patrick, currently in line to be the next Lieutenant Governor of the state, is in the church house. Ted is a graduate of the church private school and it appears he would like to help fund the school, with federal dollars.

A New Report from Political Research Associates

CONSTRUCTING CAMPUS CONFLICT:
Antisemitism and Islamophobia on U.S. College Campuses, 2007-2011

From the Introduction:

ON CAMPUSES ACROSS THE UNITED STATES, there are Jewish and Muslim students who experience bigotry. At times they feel intimidated and do not express their actual political, religious, or philosophical views in the classroom. In some cases, they do not feel safe when crossing the campus commons.

At the same time, these are not the daily experiences of most Jewish and Muslim students. The nation's campuses are not aflame with religious prejudice, nor are they places where physical threats are commonplace.

How can we explain these apparently contradictory realities? That was the challenge behind this study. Political Research Associates believes both antisemitism and Islamophobia as phenomena exist on campuses, and in this report we offer a set of tools for thinking about them.