An Unexpected Breather
Don't believe everything you read, snowflakes. I was not in Ethiopia adopting babies with Angelina Jolie.
It's nice to be somewhat mobile again. I was blasted over the weekend with an unexpected bug I'm still trying to shake off and ended up in bed for three days. In a way, it was a much-needed forced rest from the craziness of everything, which has ramped up of late. Thanks to everyone who's been e.mailing; I've got a nice big hole to dig out of, so please be patient!
You'll notice that this is being posted at Roman Noon, and that's because the Curia needs some kind of midday excitement with B16 being out of town and all.... Well, he's getting some excitement ready for you lot while at Les Combes... more on that soon.
The last couple days have been noteworthy, and I'll be working to get it all up and out as things get back up to speed. But I do have to start with something which has had me speechless since I first saw it. We're almost at the point where pro-birth protestors and the good folks from PETA are indistinguishable.
Fresh off their first publicity stunt -- where they miraculously saved unborn babies by screaming at new LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on his inauguration day -- the "you can't be Catholic and pro-abortion" showcase has taken the Tribunal on the road... to Leon Panetta's house.
Try not to laugh. I'm not making this up.
Leon Panetta is not the easiest name in the book to remember. He was Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff in the '90s and now primarily does think-tank work. But he still earned a place on the radar screen of lacking opportunists who mouth off such blather as this:
All human life, pander-bear? Wait, wait... Leon Panetta's on the National Lay Review Board for the Protection of Children. Hmmm...
I have a question here, given this insipid values scheme that the loud right is trying to dump on us: Since when did working to root sex abuse out of the church become an offense against the sanctity of human life? I'm really curious to hear the spin on this one.
Make all the hay you want about "you can't be Catholic and pro-abortion" -- then, for the millionth time, what about Cardinal Law? White glove treatment for him? Anti-abortion as anyone, he was, when the Klieg lights were on... but great champion of the sanctity of all human life?
Think about it: If a bishop ever wrote to an abortionist what Law wrote to his abusive priests, you would be hog wild. Forever. But that doesn't matter, because all that needs be done is to get the babies born, and then you see your work as being "done." Tax policy, education, health insurance, welfare -- it all doesn't matter, because they've been born. And Bernie Law -- whose victims had to live with the damage done to them by the Church, while he went around preening about the evils of abortion and, um, abortion -- is still treated with full deference by the people who want to excommunicate everyone else and keep the victims silenced.
What an empty culture of life that is. Talk about low-hanging fruit.
And what's more is this from the life of John Paul, who these self-same publicity-mongers see as their example: the late Pope enjoyed ties with the Socialist mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, who is avidly pro-choice. (I've never seen anyone who is, as the bullhorns say, "pro-abortion," as if Planned Parenthood was the circus or something.) Veltroni even received communion from John Paul's own hand. Now if communion is the sign of one's Catholicity, and the Pope should know these things, do you people seek to go screaming and protesting at The Tomb?
Now I'd pay to see that -- if only for my own amusement. But if you're going to be consistent, be consistent, right?
Believe me, I really do have a place in my heart for genuinely pro-life people (as opposed to people who are just anti-abortion -- and racist, bigoted and on their sixth marriage). I write all this because I hate it when the good people here in Philly and elsewhere who wake up before dawn on Saturday mornings twice a month and take an hour's bus ride to get to St John the Evangelist and do the march in peace, come snow or blistering humidity, have their cred completely co-opted by a bunch of clueless loudmouths seeking to get their name in the papers by pulling ostentatious media events a la PETA. That lack of dignity and sophistication makes all our good, humble, committed pro-life people look bad, and as it has the effect not of serving the cause but undermining it, that is the greatest travesty of all.
In sum, the church has been through enough in the area of counterproductive spectacles to have to deal with this lot. I guess it's the youthful idealist in me (however old I feel), but I'm really lookin' for some genuine witness.
Suffice it to say, I know not to find it in Leon Panetta's driveway.
And, by the way, if this post makes it seem that the antibiotics have gotten to me, please let me know.
-30-
It's nice to be somewhat mobile again. I was blasted over the weekend with an unexpected bug I'm still trying to shake off and ended up in bed for three days. In a way, it was a much-needed forced rest from the craziness of everything, which has ramped up of late. Thanks to everyone who's been e.mailing; I've got a nice big hole to dig out of, so please be patient!
You'll notice that this is being posted at Roman Noon, and that's because the Curia needs some kind of midday excitement with B16 being out of town and all.... Well, he's getting some excitement ready for you lot while at Les Combes... more on that soon.
The last couple days have been noteworthy, and I'll be working to get it all up and out as things get back up to speed. But I do have to start with something which has had me speechless since I first saw it. We're almost at the point where pro-birth protestors and the good folks from PETA are indistinguishable.
Fresh off their first publicity stunt -- where they miraculously saved unborn babies by screaming at new LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on his inauguration day -- the "you can't be Catholic and pro-abortion" showcase has taken the Tribunal on the road... to Leon Panetta's house.
Try not to laugh. I'm not making this up.
Leon Panetta is not the easiest name in the book to remember. He was Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff in the '90s and now primarily does think-tank work. But he still earned a place on the radar screen of lacking opportunists who mouth off such blather as this:
"It is a travesty that a man who so openly disregards the sanctity of all human life should be permitted to receive Holy Communion and to play such a prominent role in the bishops' work"
All human life, pander-bear? Wait, wait... Leon Panetta's on the National Lay Review Board for the Protection of Children. Hmmm...
I have a question here, given this insipid values scheme that the loud right is trying to dump on us: Since when did working to root sex abuse out of the church become an offense against the sanctity of human life? I'm really curious to hear the spin on this one.
Make all the hay you want about "you can't be Catholic and pro-abortion" -- then, for the millionth time, what about Cardinal Law? White glove treatment for him? Anti-abortion as anyone, he was, when the Klieg lights were on... but great champion of the sanctity of all human life?
Think about it: If a bishop ever wrote to an abortionist what Law wrote to his abusive priests, you would be hog wild. Forever. But that doesn't matter, because all that needs be done is to get the babies born, and then you see your work as being "done." Tax policy, education, health insurance, welfare -- it all doesn't matter, because they've been born. And Bernie Law -- whose victims had to live with the damage done to them by the Church, while he went around preening about the evils of abortion and, um, abortion -- is still treated with full deference by the people who want to excommunicate everyone else and keep the victims silenced.
What an empty culture of life that is. Talk about low-hanging fruit.
And what's more is this from the life of John Paul, who these self-same publicity-mongers see as their example: the late Pope enjoyed ties with the Socialist mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, who is avidly pro-choice. (I've never seen anyone who is, as the bullhorns say, "pro-abortion," as if Planned Parenthood was the circus or something.) Veltroni even received communion from John Paul's own hand. Now if communion is the sign of one's Catholicity, and the Pope should know these things, do you people seek to go screaming and protesting at The Tomb?
Now I'd pay to see that -- if only for my own amusement. But if you're going to be consistent, be consistent, right?
Believe me, I really do have a place in my heart for genuinely pro-life people (as opposed to people who are just anti-abortion -- and racist, bigoted and on their sixth marriage). I write all this because I hate it when the good people here in Philly and elsewhere who wake up before dawn on Saturday mornings twice a month and take an hour's bus ride to get to St John the Evangelist and do the march in peace, come snow or blistering humidity, have their cred completely co-opted by a bunch of clueless loudmouths seeking to get their name in the papers by pulling ostentatious media events a la PETA. That lack of dignity and sophistication makes all our good, humble, committed pro-life people look bad, and as it has the effect not of serving the cause but undermining it, that is the greatest travesty of all.
In sum, the church has been through enough in the area of counterproductive spectacles to have to deal with this lot. I guess it's the youthful idealist in me (however old I feel), but I'm really lookin' for some genuine witness.
Suffice it to say, I know not to find it in Leon Panetta's driveway.
And, by the way, if this post makes it seem that the antibiotics have gotten to me, please let me know.
-30-
posted by Rocco Palmo at 06:35
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