Attacks on the Beatification of John Paul II begin
Timothy Birdnow
Not sure why I expect journalists to be fair, or even accurate; something in my DNA expects at least nominal effort in those directions, and I am eternally disappointed. One thing I DO expect, and have every right to expect, is for a journalist writing on a specific topic to be at least marginally acquainted with said topic. It amazes me how ignorant they can be.
For example...
There was a piece in the L.A. Times the other day, a piece in the Religion section by a writer who specializes in writing about religion (as opposed to practicing it). Call me old fashioned, but I think that a guy who writes about religion should, oh, I don't know, actually know something about religion. This guy clearly didn't; he is like the old saw "I'm not a doctor but I play one on t.v.".
In this case it's a certain Timothy Rutten writing about why the Catholic Church shouldn't declare Karol Wojtyla, aka The Blessed Pope John Paul II the Great, a saint.
Now, he's entitled to hold whatever opinion he likes, and is equally entitled to ruminate in whatever fashion he likes, but he really should withold that opinion if he doesn't understand what it is the Catholic Church says, and is saying. Case in point:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0504-rutten-20110504,0,963466.column
"In the Catholic tradition, saints are people whose demonstration of "heroic virtue" makes them worthy of emulation and veneration throughout the universal church"
End excerpt.
Clearly, he does not understand Catholicism; the Church does not make a saint, rather, God makes a saint and the Church finds evidence thereof. Being a saint means being in Heaven with God, not being given a fancy title. The thief crucified with Jesus (St. Dismas) is a saint, not because he was a good guy but because Jesus promised him a reprieve. Sainthood is conferred after an investigation that suggests a person is in Heaven. There are miracles required, for instance. Mr. Rutten seems to be blissfully unaware of that.
He continues;
"Equally troubling are continuing attempts to bring the church's theologians and more outspoken bishops to heel, an effort that began under John Paul II with the repression of Latin America's leading liberation theologians. Many Catholics worry about a Vatican that fires an Australian bishop for speaking in favor of ordaining women and married men, but declines to act against a Belgian prelate who unapologetically admits to molesting young boys. Many are troubled too by the U.S. Catholic bishops — all conservatives appointed by the last two popes — who attempt to force theologians to resume the old practice of submitting their work to the local prelate for approval before publication."
I hate to burst his bubble, but the Church is heirarchical, and the Pontiff is the final word. If liberal theologians are outside of Church teachings, they are the ones who must move, not the Church. This is a fundamental duty of the Pope, and those who do not like it are free to go elsewhere; nobody is forcing them to remain Catholic. We do not currently have an Inquisition with police power.
As to the pedophilia scandal; yes, it was terrible, and it was first and foremost the obligation of the local Bishops to stop it. I find it enormously hypocritical that liberal would-be reformers of the church pile on the Pontiff here when they are the ones who have demanded autonomy for local Bishops when they defy Papal teaching, but then insist the Pope should have been able to stop what was happening. So which is it? A strong, imperial Papacy or a weak, federated system? People like Mr. Rutten want to have their cake and it it, too.
And these are the self-same "reformers" who have labored against the "stuffy" notions of sexual purity and chastity. If one picks the lock on the front door and throws it open, what is to be expected? Leave the door standing open and eventually burglars come in. Liberals have been picking the sexual lock for the better part of a century, and now those burglars are robbing the house of God. If more emphasis had been placed on hell and damnation and less on easy forgiveness and liberation perhaps many of those acts of molestation would not have ocurred.
It should be pointed out that the number of molestations that ocurred in Catholic schools amount to less than those occuring in public schools. In New York City, for example, the comparable rate of abuse is 10 to 1; lay teachers are sodomizing at a prodigious rate there. http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/03/the-medias-sex-abuse-double-standard/
Does that excuse the culpability of the Catholic church? Of course not, but it does put things in perspective. The Catholic Church is a huge organization; 1.31 billion souls were members as of 2006. There were 45,713 priests in the U.S. alone in 2001, and 406,411 worldwide. There were 801,185 nuns worldwide in 2001, and 73,316 in the U.S. in 2003. You are going to have criminals, perverts, misanthropes in any such large pool of people. Does this excuse the Church? No, but it puts it into context. And one must ask, how many private corporations or other organizations would have handled this differently? No large organization would ballyhoo the problem. It was only sensible that there should be a certain discretion. Better to deal with the problem quietly rather than with great public fanfare.
Did the Clinton Administration make a public display of Bill's sexual escapades? No; only when there was no other choice. If the President of the United States, America's chief law enforcement officer, used his position to get a girl to service him...
Again, this is not excusing, but putting it into context. Liberals in the Church will use this issue as a billyclub to beat the conservatives as long as they can. And it wasn't the conservatives who caused this problem; liberals in the Church wormed their way into the seminaries in the 1960's, creating a swinging homosexual/pedophile culture there, chasing away the Godly men who sought to serve for the unGodly. Liberal theologians labored to "update" Church teachings and practices on sexuality, and what was the result? This can hardly be blamed on John Paul II.
So Mr. Rutten not only missed the mark, he missed it with purpose. It should be pointed out that many are the saints who were rejected in their own time, and some of them were even considered sinners or strange. Look at Joan of Arc; a chick who dressed in men's clothing and was burned at the stake. There is absolutely nothing controversial about John Paul's beatification.
Except to a liberal. Liberals seek to exchange a corruptible image of social progress and physical charity for the incorruptible God, and the salvation of souls is a waste of time to them. Theirs is a social gospel, a gospel for this world that ignores the next. There is real hatred in them for those who seek to rescue people for eternity. John Paul II did that.
How dare he!
Not sure why I expect journalists to be fair, or even accurate; something in my DNA expects at least nominal effort in those directions, and I am eternally disappointed. One thing I DO expect, and have every right to expect, is for a journalist writing on a specific topic to be at least marginally acquainted with said topic. It amazes me how ignorant they can be.
For example...
There was a piece in the L.A. Times the other day, a piece in the Religion section by a writer who specializes in writing about religion (as opposed to practicing it). Call me old fashioned, but I think that a guy who writes about religion should, oh, I don't know, actually know something about religion. This guy clearly didn't; he is like the old saw "I'm not a doctor but I play one on t.v.".
In this case it's a certain Timothy Rutten writing about why the Catholic Church shouldn't declare Karol Wojtyla, aka The Blessed Pope John Paul II the Great, a saint.
Now, he's entitled to hold whatever opinion he likes, and is equally entitled to ruminate in whatever fashion he likes, but he really should withold that opinion if he doesn't understand what it is the Catholic Church says, and is saying. Case in point:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0504-rutten-20110504,0,963466.column
"In the Catholic tradition, saints are people whose demonstration of "heroic virtue" makes them worthy of emulation and veneration throughout the universal church"
End excerpt.
Clearly, he does not understand Catholicism; the Church does not make a saint, rather, God makes a saint and the Church finds evidence thereof. Being a saint means being in Heaven with God, not being given a fancy title. The thief crucified with Jesus (St. Dismas) is a saint, not because he was a good guy but because Jesus promised him a reprieve. Sainthood is conferred after an investigation that suggests a person is in Heaven. There are miracles required, for instance. Mr. Rutten seems to be blissfully unaware of that.
He continues;
"Equally troubling are continuing attempts to bring the church's theologians and more outspoken bishops to heel, an effort that began under John Paul II with the repression of Latin America's leading liberation theologians. Many Catholics worry about a Vatican that fires an Australian bishop for speaking in favor of ordaining women and married men, but declines to act against a Belgian prelate who unapologetically admits to molesting young boys. Many are troubled too by the U.S. Catholic bishops — all conservatives appointed by the last two popes — who attempt to force theologians to resume the old practice of submitting their work to the local prelate for approval before publication."
I hate to burst his bubble, but the Church is heirarchical, and the Pontiff is the final word. If liberal theologians are outside of Church teachings, they are the ones who must move, not the Church. This is a fundamental duty of the Pope, and those who do not like it are free to go elsewhere; nobody is forcing them to remain Catholic. We do not currently have an Inquisition with police power.
As to the pedophilia scandal; yes, it was terrible, and it was first and foremost the obligation of the local Bishops to stop it. I find it enormously hypocritical that liberal would-be reformers of the church pile on the Pontiff here when they are the ones who have demanded autonomy for local Bishops when they defy Papal teaching, but then insist the Pope should have been able to stop what was happening. So which is it? A strong, imperial Papacy or a weak, federated system? People like Mr. Rutten want to have their cake and it it, too.
And these are the self-same "reformers" who have labored against the "stuffy" notions of sexual purity and chastity. If one picks the lock on the front door and throws it open, what is to be expected? Leave the door standing open and eventually burglars come in. Liberals have been picking the sexual lock for the better part of a century, and now those burglars are robbing the house of God. If more emphasis had been placed on hell and damnation and less on easy forgiveness and liberation perhaps many of those acts of molestation would not have ocurred.
It should be pointed out that the number of molestations that ocurred in Catholic schools amount to less than those occuring in public schools. In New York City, for example, the comparable rate of abuse is 10 to 1; lay teachers are sodomizing at a prodigious rate there. http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/03/the-medias-sex-abuse-double-standard/
Does that excuse the culpability of the Catholic church? Of course not, but it does put things in perspective. The Catholic Church is a huge organization; 1.31 billion souls were members as of 2006. There were 45,713 priests in the U.S. alone in 2001, and 406,411 worldwide. There were 801,185 nuns worldwide in 2001, and 73,316 in the U.S. in 2003. You are going to have criminals, perverts, misanthropes in any such large pool of people. Does this excuse the Church? No, but it puts it into context. And one must ask, how many private corporations or other organizations would have handled this differently? No large organization would ballyhoo the problem. It was only sensible that there should be a certain discretion. Better to deal with the problem quietly rather than with great public fanfare.
Did the Clinton Administration make a public display of Bill's sexual escapades? No; only when there was no other choice. If the President of the United States, America's chief law enforcement officer, used his position to get a girl to service him...
Again, this is not excusing, but putting it into context. Liberals in the Church will use this issue as a billyclub to beat the conservatives as long as they can. And it wasn't the conservatives who caused this problem; liberals in the Church wormed their way into the seminaries in the 1960's, creating a swinging homosexual/pedophile culture there, chasing away the Godly men who sought to serve for the unGodly. Liberal theologians labored to "update" Church teachings and practices on sexuality, and what was the result? This can hardly be blamed on John Paul II.
So Mr. Rutten not only missed the mark, he missed it with purpose. It should be pointed out that many are the saints who were rejected in their own time, and some of them were even considered sinners or strange. Look at Joan of Arc; a chick who dressed in men's clothing and was burned at the stake. There is absolutely nothing controversial about John Paul's beatification.
Except to a liberal. Liberals seek to exchange a corruptible image of social progress and physical charity for the incorruptible God, and the salvation of souls is a waste of time to them. Theirs is a social gospel, a gospel for this world that ignores the next. There is real hatred in them for those who seek to rescue people for eternity. John Paul II did that.
How dare he!
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 4:53 AM
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