General Discussion

...a lot of other knock-on effects. As the favored ultraconservatives began getting the big promotions, many went along with the new party line whether they agreed or not. The reactionary turn in the Church attracted billionaire money from people like Tom Monaghan, and these two trends reinforced each other. Pretty soon we had reactionary publishers, media networks like the execrable EWTN, and phony radtrad "colleges" for neurotic parents who wanted to silo their kids off from "modernity" (Christendom College, Franciscan University, etc.).

A good illustration of just how much times have changed is to look at the activities of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) over the years. In the mid-1980s, the USCCB released pastoral letters on topics such as the arms race and economic justice. By 2011, the USCCB was attacking same-sex marriage with slick, Hollywood-style videos like Marriage: Unique For A Reason, which can charitably be described as patronizing (at best). The reactionary archbishop of the Twin Cities at the time (John Nienstedt) organized a mass mailing of more than 400,000 DVDs to Minnesotans before Election Day 2010, calling for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. (It failed).

https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2019/rise-catholic-right
https://www.startribune.com/catholics-to-get-dvds-opposing-gay-marriage/103494984/