The Nut Brigade Trots Out To Battle With Francis

Well, I am about halfway through Francis’ Encyclical Laudato Sii.  I, of course, am pretty impressed.  Not everybody is.  Here are some of the reactions from the better-known wingnuts. 

Rush Limbaugh: in his June 16 broadcast, ol’ Rush claims that the encyclical seems to confirm that Pope Francis is a Marxist.  He furthermore said that the scientific studies the Pope cites in the encyclical are “bought and paid for.”  The following day Limbaugh claimed that the Pope’s vision is for everyone to be living equally in misery and that he wants to drain the rich countries of their resources until they are rich no longer.  On his blog, Rush referred to the Encyclical as “The Pope’s Marxist Rant.” 

Greg Gutfleld of Fox News talked about Pope Francis’ “Marxist background" and called the Pope “The most dangerous person on the planet is someone who is seeking strange new respect from their (sic) adversaries, and that is what the pope is doing.  He wants to be a modern pope.  All he needs is (again, sic) dreadlocks and a dog with a bandana and he could be on Occupy Wall Street.”

Stuart Varney from Fox Business:        Varney links Pope Francis to one of Varney’s favorite shibboleths, Barack Hussein Obama, Kenyan-born pretender to the American presidency.  According to Varney the Pope and the pseudo-President are forming a policy alliance and are a “powerful force, a very powerful force, pushing left.”  Their plan is to tax the rich, tax fossil fuels, and redistribute the world’s wealth to the poor. 

Radio host Michael Savage: Savage declared on June 16 that the Pope “is a danger to the world.”  He went on in true pseudo-evangelical fervor to call Francis a “great deceiver,” comparing the Pope to the false prophet in the Book of Revelation who heralds the coming of the Anti-Christ. On a more secular tone, he also referred to the Pope as a “stealth Marxist” and an “eco-wolf in Pope’s clothing.”

English columnist James Delingpolem went after the pope for using “hackneyed language and extremely dubious science” comparing the Encyclical to the work of a 16 year old vomiting back “formulaic bilge and accepted faux-wisdom” to pass a exam.  He attacked the Pope for being wrong “scientifically,” “morally,” “theologically” and “economically.” 

 John Hinderaker wrote on the conservative blog, Powerline, that Pope Francis has “no ideas what he’s talking about.”  Hinderaker claims that the pope has a hostility towards free enterprise and the prosperity it creates. 

Christopher Monckton, British whacko extraordinaire, Third Viscount Monckton of Benchley and pretender to a seat in the House of Lords (talk about fantasyland) claims that the Vatican is controlled by Marxists and Environmentalists.  

 Right Wing Patriot Post claims: “Many Catholics in the U.S. take strong exception to the pope acting as a water boy for the UN.”  The Patriot Post also claims that the Encyclical is designed to “assist with the UN’s global climate treaty negotiations and the upcoming Paris summit—a treaty which would be more accurately called a “global economic control treaty”.”

What is really frightening is that most of the above would qualify for a gun license in any of these United States.  (Maybe not ol’ Rush, but the others.)  All they would need is a bell tower and we could be in deep doo-doo. And we haven't begun to hear from the Katholik Krazies yet, though I am sure we will.   

OMG: There's A Communist In the Vatican!!!

Pope Francis greets Ban Ki-Moon

Well, Pope Francis may not be after the nuns, but he sure keeps himself busy stirring up hornets’ nests.  Last week he received the Secretary General of the United Nations, Doctor Ban Ki-moon along with the executive officers of the U.N.’s programs, agencies, and funds who were meeting in Rome and paid a courtesy call on the Holy Father. It is customary for the Pope to give a little exhortation on such an occasion and Pope Francis did so.  It was all rather pro-forma and the Pope really didn’t break any new ground.  “Father Z,” the Wizard of the Krazy Katholic’s Emerald City, said that for the most part it was simply (and I love this, I really do): “warmed up John Paul II and Benedict XVI.”  But Rush Limbaugh, old pill-popper that he is (or, hopefully by the goodness of God’s grace and 12 steps, was), went thermal and called the Pope a Marxist (again.)  And the Katholic Krazies on the blogosphere picked up his rant and formed a virtual reality mob of pitch-fork-carrying, torch-brandishing, lunatics howling that the Pope wanted to reach into their pockets and take their hard earned money and give it to the undeserving poor of the world.  My old friend Janet over at Restore DC Catholicism http://restore-dc-catholicism.blogspot.com) implied that Francis is “naïve,” “simplistic,” and even “moronic” for advocating socialism.  (Janet also refers to Judas as “the patron saint of Social Justice”—so you know where she is coming from.) The only problem is that the Holy Father is not advocating socialism—much less Marxism.   The talk, as Father Z said, is consistent with the Catholic Social teaching of the previous two popes—and, for that matter, with the magisterium stretching back through Progressio Popolorum, Gaudium et Spes, Mater et Magistra, Quadragesimo Anno, and Rerum Novarum.  Ol’ Janet can’t figure out why the Holy Father speaks about “legitimate redistribution of wealth.”  Duh.  Maybe to differentiate what he is calling for from the sort of illegitimate redistribution of wealth represented by the confiscation of private property such as happened in Marxist societies.  The Pope is not calling for individuals to be deprived of the fruits of their labor, but for new economic and social systems that will “promote generous, effective, and practical openness to the needs of others.”  He is calling for nothing more that what was the major theme of John Paul II’s papacy—“solidarity,” the consciousness among people that we are responsible for and to one another to insure that each of God’s children has the proper share of this world’s resources that our Father in heaven wishes them to have.  Nowhere does Pope Francis say that the pie should be cut up in equal shares, or that Peter should be robbed so that Paul won’t starve.  He is just saying that you and I and Peter all need to be deeply aware that we are responsible for Paul’s welfare, material as well as spiritual, and that we need to work for a world in which not a few are wealthy to excess while many lack the basic necessities of life.  The question will come down to this for the Janets and Rushes of this world: where is your treasure?   I am not surprised that Rush walks away from Jesus like the rich young man in the gospels, but I would have expected more from Janet and her kindred.  

Why Are They Afraid of Pope Francis, 11

Distinguished authority on Marxism, intellectual,

and theological commentator, Rush Limbaugh

I have been meaning to get back to Pope Francis’ interview with La Civilta Cattolica/America and now he has released the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium which, at almost one hundred pages, promises to give us fuel for quite some time to come.  Rush Limbaugh, savant of the Tea Party faction, has gone ballistic accusing the Pope of “pure Marxism,” and taken some easy but irrelevant shots at Vatican “wealth.”  Neo-Trad voices within the Church have either ignored it completely or paid it some light reference—such as Rorate Caeli’s observation that it is “a much more Thomistic text than anything authored by Benedict XVI” and then moved on to their usual cant about how Vatican II has destroyed the Roman Rite and how the advance of “homosexual marriage” is not inevitable.  Meanwhile EJ Dionne, writing the Washington Post, has called the spade.  Maybe they have reason to be afraid of the Pope. 

Christianity has been used over the centuries to prop up the powerful. But, from the beginning, the Christian message has been subversive of political systems, judgmental toward those at the top and demanding of all who take it seriously.

Pope Francis has surprised the world because he embraces the Christian calling to destabilize and to challenge. As the first leader of the Catholic Church from the Southern Hemisphere, he is especially mindful of the ways in which unregulated capitalism has failed the poor and left them “waiting.” His apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel” is drawing wide and deserved attention for its denunciation of “trickle-down” economics as a system that “expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power.” It’s a view that “has never been confirmed by the facts” and has created “a globalization of indifference.” Will those conservative Catholics who have long championed tax-cutting for the wealthy acknowledge the moral conundrum that Francis has put before them?

I am anxious to read it because I think I will find it challenging and I need to be challenged.  This season of Advent is one in which we each need to take a look at our lives and see what the barriers to God’s Kingdom we have erected in our lives and allow the Joy of the Gospel to dismantle them.  But we will go back first to the interview and keep looking at the previews Francis granted us there before looking at the feature Evangelii Gaudium.  And as for Francis being a Marxist, it just shows that ol’ Rush wouldn’t know the Gospel from Das Kapital.  Friday is St Nicholas Day—maybe Saint Nick will bring him a copy of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.    

Is Rush Limbaugh to be the Next American Cardinal?

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin (1928-1996)
A wise prelate whose advice about 
dialogue should have been heeded

Rush Limbaugh calls a Third-Year Law Student a “slut” because she advocates mandatory contraceptive coverage. What has that to do with contemporary American Catholicism?  Well, plenty actually. Whethr or not we like it, Rush Limbaugh has joined our team, climbed on our bus, and maybe we need to relook at what we are standing for.     

      Of course the whole situation arose in response and consequence to the American Bishops opposing mandatory coverage for contraceptives as part of the Health Care legislation.  Had the bishops limited their argument to exempting Catholic institutions from having to provide coverage for those procedures to which Catholics—on moral grounds—object,  the bishops may have had an argument, By broadening their attack on Health Care to argue that any employer should be exempted from having to provide coverage, however, the Church has lost in the court of public opinion where 83% of Democrats, 62% of Independents, and even 42% of Republicans (a minority of Republicans but a remarkably high minority given this having become a partisan issue) believe that all employers (including Catholic Institutions) should have to provide contraceptives coverage.   In a clumsy attempt to define this as a battle for religious liberty (which is one facet of the conundrum) the Republican controlled House of Representatives convoked a hearing led by Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Darrell Issa (R.CA) and invited a panel of religious leaders to testify.  At the same time Issa refused to accept the credentials of Democratic witness, Sandra Fluke, claiming that she was “unqualified.”  (The excuse was later defended by claiming that her name was submitted “too late” to the panel.)   Just to make sure that injury was not unaccompanied by insult, Representative Issa referred to Ms. Fluke as “a college student.”  Sandra Fluke is, in fact, a Third Year Georgetown University Law Student where she leads the “Law Students for Reproductive Justice.”  Ms. Fluke had done her undergraduate degree at Cornell and before going to Law School she had worked for five years at “Sanctuary for Families,” a non-profit agency that assists victims of domestic violence.  Seeing tapes of her she is extremely articulate, certainly far more articulate than Mr. Limbaugh.  In fact, she is far more articulate than most bishops.   And she is certainly as qualified—if not more so—to speak to the issue of women’s concerns about Reproductive Justice as well as the legal repercussions for women and families of the failure to provide contraceptive coverage as was the all-male panel of bishops, seminary professors, rabbis, and imams.  Note: The all-male panel.  This was the problem.  What were the Republicans thinking when they convoked an all male panel for this issue?  And what was Bridgeport CT Bishop William Lori thinking when he agreed to sit on it.  S-T-U-P-I-D!!!  Was Bishop Lori so struck by the glamor of a national spotlight (a “protégé” <and the quotes are deliberate> of the late Cardinal James Hickey of Washington, Lori is a “climber” <here the quotes are used to denote a colloquialism> of the first degree) that he had no foresight on how this would make the Church look.  The hearing had no sooner begun and the good Bishop prattling away comparing making the Church pay for contraceptives to requiring a Kosher Deli to carry pork, when a Democrat member of the panel, Carolyn Maloney (D. NY) interrupted and asked the fatal question: “Where are the women?”  What a disaster!!!  When will our leadership (aka the Bishops) realize that they need to step out of the spotlight and put lay people—and in this case, women—there as the spokespersons?  If the American Church survives the incompetence of its episcopal leadership it will be only by the grace of God.  Let us hope that God doesn’t become so disgusted with their abysmal leadership that He doesn’t abanon them to their own ineptitude. Their narrow provincialism is  making it increasingly embarrassing to be Catholic.  And now, Rush Limbaugh weighs in adding ballast to their arguments.  This is the last thing we need to have happen.  I have always found a tone of anti-Catholicism in Limbaugh—I think he knows how dangerous the papal magisterium is to his conservative (read neo-nazi) stand on immigration, social justice, human dignity etc) and is no admirer of the Catholic Church.  What a wonderful way to rob it of whatever shreds of credibility it has remaining but to come to its side in attacking a bright and articulate Law Student.  Geez, what hole will we dig to fall into next? 

      Before his 1996 death from pancreatic cancer, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago had proposed a “Catholic Common Ground Initiative” to open dialogue with those who find themselves at odds with magisterial positions so that we might find the common ground on which we can build consensus. He was viciously attacked by such pillars of self-righteous authoritarianism as Cardinal Bernard Law (whose moral fiber became clear in the sex-abuse cover up scandals) and the omni-phobic Cardinal James Hickey (whose one-time secretary is the same William Lori who was testifying to this Congressional panel). 

      This current debacle only bears witness to the wisdom of Bernardin’s call.  If the Church is not to lose all credibility we need to sit down to open dialogue with a number of groups in our society, foremost among them women.  The bishops need to hear the needs and concerns of women.  Yes the Church has its moral teachings.  We are not disputing that.  But women have legitimate concerns to which we need to be sensitized.  Certainly not all women would agree with “the feminist agenda” nor allow that “radical feminists” speak for them, but our basic ignorance, as a Church, of the needs and concerns of the vast majority of women (not just Limbaugh’s “feminazis,” but of all women and especially of minority women) makes it impossible for us to bear effective witness of the Gospel to them in today’s societies.  Maybe the bishops need to invite Sandra Fluke and listen to her—I am not saying agree, I am saying listen—voice telling them what she does know better than them.  Maybe if the clergy began listening to the faithful, really listening, they would find that the Holy Spirit sings in more than one choir.  And maybe the Church might begin to regain its credibility before it brings down the entire building on itself in one huge act of self-destruction.  But then again, if the bishops are afraid of Elizabeth Johnson, Joan Chittester, and Sandra Schnieders—all nuns in their seventies—they certainly won’t want to be in the same room as a bright and articulate law student who is just over 30.