Three Dialogues

On Truth
-  It's the truth.
-  No, it's your truth.
-  When people say that, what they mean is that it isn't their truth.
-  Okay then, it's not my truth.
-  Your truth doesn't exist.
-  Well, yours doesn't either.
-  Correct.

On Doubt
-  I am observant.
-  No you're not, you're not devout.
-  Are they opposites?
-  That's not what I said.
-  Is that what you meant?
-  Perhaps.

On Faith 
-  Perhaps.
-

Catholicism and Human Dignity

A Jesuit priest urges his fellow Catholics to celebrate the repeal of DADT, since it "says nothing about gay marriage (nor would it have been approved by lawmakers if it had), since it does not contradict church teaching on that matter, and since it takes a strong stance against 'unjust discrimination' against gays and lesbians, as the Catechism encourages[.]"

Very welcome words.  While the author is absolutely right about the spirit and the letter of the Catechism, he is distressingly at odds with the thinking of the Church grandées.  While the Catechism says that gays "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity," the Church itself shows little of any of this to gays.

Indeed, the Church's recent decision that gays - and even those who "support homosexual culture" without themselves being gay - should not be permitted to become priests is the ecclesiastical equivalent of DADT.  Actually, it's worse the DADT, and more akin to the outright ban that DADT replaced.  Aside from the unequivocal ban, the Church's proclamation states that, "if a candidate practices homosexuality, or presents deep-seated homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director as well as his confessor have the duty to dissuade him in conscience from proceeding towards ordination."

Critics "have long objected that gay seminarians might feel they have no choice but to lie about their sexual orientation," and there can be no doubt that the consequence of the Church's hostile approach is to force devout gay Catholics who wish to join the priesthood to face an Inquisition if they pursue that dream.  Shrugging off the blame for the witchhunt they themselves create, the Church's lawgivers state, with sublime callousness, that "[i]t would be gravely dishonest for a candidate to hide his own homosexuality[.]"

More roadblocks, more unseemly inquiry, more humiliation, more degradation.  Do ask, do tell - and then reject.

Anglican Church - woo me.

Christine O'Donnell's Flag

Ha!

HT: JMG.

Department of "The Root of All Evil"

So, what are the gays being blamed for now? Why, global warming and human trafficking, natch! (HT: JMG.)

Sheesh. What won't the gays be blamed for? Well, at least they can't blame us for hurricanes - whoops, spoke too soon there. Well then, surely not for terrorist attacks - whoops again. Well, they would never say that people with HIV/AIDS got what they deserved - argh, wrong again (those who say this then run for the Senate from Delaware).

Okay, let's try one last time. To my knowledge, gays have never been blamed for the death of Jesus. In the long history of nutjob accusations against gays, this is one bomb that's never been thrown. Whew.

It's no surprise, though. We all know who is really responsible for the death of Jesus, anyway. You know - those scheming evilmongers who engage in ungodly work and who are up to their armpits in the blood of Christian babies. That's right. The abortionists. Get 'em, Glenn Beck!

Christine O'Donnell: There's More Evidence for Creationism Than for Evolution

Wha-wha-what?!?

Yes, this is what she argued - if you understand the word "argued" to mean "dreamt up" - back in 1996. Her evidence? Yeah, the Bible. Q.E.D., Christine.

What with this, and a forthcoming conference of those who believe that the world is really flat, there has been entirely too much medievalism of late.

Which is ironic, because if we were consistently medieval in our outlook, O'Donnell would of course be burned as a witch.

Gah

Well, here's one movie I won't be seeing.

PR Headache of the Day

I'd hate to work at the Vatican and face questions about this bit of tripe:

Anyway, we all know that the center of the universe isn't the Earth. It's me.

HT: TDW.

Pastor Terry Jones Calls Off "Burn a Koran" Day

Well, he clearly lacks the courage of his convictions. I propose an alternative: "Burn a Moron" Day. First on the fire:

Those chops'll catch like kindling!

I joke - in seriousness, it is never a failure of courage when one chooses to do the right thing. Congrats, Pastor Jones, on doing the right thing. Now let's never hear from you again.

UPDATE: The Guardian has a short but insightful article on Pastor Jones' past in Germany.

Just sitting there, you were ‘disordered’.

In the London Review of Books, Colm Tóibín has an engaging article on the Catholic Church and gays - the love some of the latter have for the former, and the growing hatred the former has for the latter. The case of Ireland, which Tóibín, an Irishman, knows and describes particularly well, aptly demonstrates that the Church is now reaping the harvest from the seeds of dishonesty and oppression that it sowed, there and elsewhere, for centuries.

The suggestion that the Church's obsessive hostility to gays is rooted in deep-seated sexual repression - a suggestion made in the book by Angelo Quatrocchi, reviewed by Tóibín in the article - is certainly not new. It is one of those banal truisms that never become less banal even as they are shown to be less true than previously thought. Quatrocchi seeks to make great hay from it; parodically protesting too much, he titled his book The Pope Is Not Gay! and speculates therein that the Pope may be gay.

Tóibín, for his part, makes some effort not to take Quatrocchi's suggestion for more than it is worth. Nevertheless, he gives more credence than I would to the notion that the Pope's close personal relationship with his comely personal secretary, along with other indicia, at least suggest that the Holy Father may be, in Quatrocchi's phrase, "the most repressed, imploded gay in the world."

I see no real reason to believe such a thing, much less to be convinced of it. Suggestions like these always seem to have the same aim that Lyndon Johnson had when he floated the notion that a political opponent had sex with pigs: "make him deny it." But believing it is different from suspecting it, and in this sense, Tóibín makes a very lucid connection between the child abuse scandal and the nominally unrelated speculation on the Pope's sexuality. Tóibín notes that, as the Church has systematically destroyed its own credibility by coddling sexual predators, it has inadvertently allowed doubt and suspicion to cast shadows where once they would never have fallen. This is always the consequence of a loss of credibility, and the fight to restore it is always fought on many or indeed all fronts. So now the Pope, that arch-scourge of gays, finds his own sexuality questioned, and however specious that speculation is, it cannot be dismissed summarily. He is reaping what he sowed.

To Those Catholics Who Fulminate Against the Building of a Mosque Near the World Trade Center Site

Read, remember, and deal.

PS - I have decided that any post about September 11 will now be tagged as (among other things) "history." Because by now, that's what it is.

Remains of St. John the Baptist Found, Apparently

In Bulgaria, no less. I'd like to know how they can be so sure.

Palin Knows Shit About [Blank]

Sarah Palin has received a certain amount of flak recently for using the word "refudiate," a mangling of the words "refute" and "repudiate."

Though I am a language maven, I'm not put out by this. Rather, I'm put out by the context in which she has most recently used this neologism. She is asking for "peaceful Muslims" (the adjective is an insult to Muslims) to "refudiate" the planned construction of a mosque not far from the World Trade Center site in Manhattan. I have commented on this view before, and found it wanting.

For this reason, I hereby declare that Palin knows shit about religious freedom, equal protection, and anti-bigotry. Raise your hand if you're surprised. No one? Bueller?

Vatican Reforms Canon Laws Concerning Abusive Priests

Here's an interesting article from The Irish Times on the matter. The main revisions:

• In "clear" cases, bishops may now defrock priests by decree alone, without having to resort to canon trial.
• Acquisition, possession, or distribution of child pornography will be treated in the same manner as direct abuse.
• The statute of limitations is extended from ten to twenty years after the victim's 18th birthday.
• All cases of abuse of a mentally handicapped person will be treated as cases of abuse of a minor, regardless of the victim's age.

The pattern of the Church is this: when your back is against the wall, take a good first step, then take no more. These reforms are good and welcome, but they are simply not enough. For instance, why is there a statute of limitations at all on abuse cases? And why doesn't canon law require bishops to report suspected cases of abuse to the civil authorities, who alone can dole out real punishment?

Crazy Protestants Doing Crazy Protestant Things

We Catholics find ourselves on the defensive a lot these days. But it's nice that we can at least look down on these yokels.

I Wish It Weren't So

...but it is.

Let's Go Over This Again

On September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked by a bunch of radical, cave-dwelling knuckledraggers. The United States was not (note the emphasis, but what the hell, let's say it again - not) attacked by an entire friggin' religion. Are we clear on that?

It would seem not. A plan to build a fifteen-story mosque and Islamic community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site met with rancorous opposition before being approved by a Manhattan community board.

Kudos to the board members who resisted the bobblehead army before them.

"Led to Righteousness Through the Sleeper Hold"

Uh....

Drawing Mohammed

I'm in knots over the tetchiness of Islamic extremists regarding cartoons of Muhammad, and outraged that cartoonists in Western, secular democracies have been bullied and threatened for making such depictions. But "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" seems like the low road here. It has apparently engendered some flak.

Surely there's a way to make this unimpeachable point - that freedom of speech plainly encompasses the right to draw Muhammad - without being so needlessly insulting. Besides, it's hard to think of a single person who's mind will be changed by this; rather, positions will harden as a result of needless provocation and offense. In other words: this hurts, it doesn't help.

I'm Gobsmacked

Political Wire reports that, in Alabama, belief in evolution is now a political liability.