Again the NCR passes the Democratic Turing test. If an article was read to you where the source could be a Democratic Party operative or the NCR you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. They have called those who have opposed Catholic Charities from honoring Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino extremists. His overt support of abortion – the murdering of the innocent- can be excused because.<\/p>\n
For Menino is also, apparently, an outstanding (and increasingly rare these days) advocate for the poor and the downtrodden.<\/p>\n
Sorry no Kewpie doll as a reward for this one. You can not be an advocate for the poor and downtrodden when you advocate the murder of the most poor and downtrodden. This is almost a "but the trains run on time" argument. Everybody even those who advocate the most insidious evils have redeeming qualities. But this does not give a blank pass to any evil they might advocate. Both praise the good and denounce the evil.<\/p>\n
In the end, Catholic Charities, headed by Fr. J. Bryan Hehir, stood firm and honored Menino. On the matter of adoptions by gay couples, Hehir explained that Catholic Charities, a faith-based organization that uses government money, must abide by state laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley stayed away from the dinner, basing his decision on a policy of the U.S. bishops prohibiting Catholic organizations from honoring those in public life who oppose church teaching. Of course, as we all know from other matters, bishops are autonomous and can interpret and apply such directives as they see fit — or simply ignore them.<\/p>\n
Yes every time you dissent you are standing firm, but if you stand with the Church you are an extremist with a flock mentality. It is rather strange that they accept the argument that Catholic Charities must abide by state law then a paragraph later talk against the death penalty. So I guess if a state law says that you must violate Church teaching and a somewhat recent document by the CDF<\/a> that is okay, but if a state law approves the death penalty then this must be opposed. I guess it is too much though to expect any kid of consistency from the NCReporter. To be consistent you have to be faithful to the Church. Dissent from truth obviously causes problems with consistency.<\/p>\n If this were merely a little Boston politics, it would be easy to overlook. It is, however, indicative of the kind of befuddled approach to the public arena that has become the Catholic hallmark in too many places.<\/p>\n Church leaders are being pushed and bullied by bands of extreme zealots who may refer to themselves as “authentic” Catholics but who have no bona fides beyond their small circles of discontent. One Boston area extremist who fomented opposition to the Catholic Charities dinner had this to say about Hehir on her Web site: “This man is pure unadulterated evil. He literally sends shivers up my spine. … If he and his cronies think we’re going to tolerate he [sic] and the archbishops’ material cooperation in abortions — we’ll chase them out of town faster than you can say Voice of the Faithful.”<\/p>\n Of course the one (unaccredited) example they provide of the extreme zealot is one that is pretty much ignored by Catholic bloggers<\/a> and has made a habit of attacking other Catholic bloggers. Sure you can find fanatics in any bunch, but to use one that is pretty much discredited by Catholics who also opposed Catholic Charities for the invite is the typical tactic of the NCReporter.<\/p>\n We can become the absolutists, the literalists who keep cutting off limbs and poking out eyes to fend off that which we find disagreeable. Or we can rediscover the robustness of true Catholicism. We can recognize that politics is not religion. We can rejoin the fray, making our points by persuasion and example, not by ultimatums, sulking and walking away. [Source<\/a>]<\/p>\n Of course if Catholic Charities has invited Arnold Swartzenegger or other pro-death penalties type they would have promoted a walk out. At least once we would have something to agree on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Again the NCR passes the Democratic Turing test. If an article was read to you where the source could be a Democratic Party operative or the NCR you would be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}