There are moments when I don't know what I despair of the most--the extreme right or the extreme left. Each side, IMO, did things that made them look stupid yesterday.
On the right, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (spurred by a pronouncement from the Archbishop of New Orleans) "urged Catholics to avoid taking the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine and to choose alternatives from Pfizer or Moderna instead because Johnson & Johnson used cells derived decades ago from an abortion to create the vaccine." It called the J&J vaccine "morally compromised". (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/02/archdiocese-new-orleans-johnson-vaccine/) Yes, indeed, your eminences, the death of an unborn child decades ago is more important spiritually than the health and possible death of your congregants in the here and now.
On the left, after urging from a study in 2019, Dr. Seuss Enterprises has decided to cease publication of six of the children's author's works, on the basis that "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong." The six titles in question are And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot's Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat's Quizzer. (https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/02/us/dr-seuss-books-cease-publication-trnd/index.html) On looking at the things that were considered in these books, I don't disagree that they are inappropriate by modern standards, but I do disagree with the steps taken. Why not simply publish new editions with the kind of "disclaimers" that companies like Disney and Warner Bros. have placed on some of their older material--that these works represent cultural standards of their time and should be viewed in that context?
In each case, again IMO, the authorities in question simply make themselves look foolish and hidebound.
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