Editorial: The Verbal Lynching of Deal Hudson Must End

Catholic Online ^ | 8/08/08 | Deacon Keith Fournier

[tcg]

I have addressed this campaign of verbal lynching before in an article I wrote on July 18, 2008 entitled “In Defense of Deal Hudson”. In that piece I expressed my deep disappointment at the tactics of a group called “Catholics United” who sent out an E- mail Blast dragging back into the public eye a 14 year old incident involving then Professor Deal Hudson and one of his female students. I was shocked that Catholics would do such a thing In fact; my main concern was that it had serious theological implications. This incident was the subject of not only public repentance but occurred before Dr. Hudson came into the full communion of the Catholic Church. It was the subject of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Sadly, the effort to destroy Deal Hudson and hurt his family still persists and is getting uglier. It is an example of what is called the "politics of personal destruction" by some. The story is being recycled on the blogosphere and has resulted in several recent news articles. It even merited a spot on the ever rapacious “Huffington Post”. If that were all that was involved I might have simply republished my older piece and would not have taken the time to write this one. I would have chocked it up to partisan politics of the worst kind.

[tcg]

The perpetrators of this campaign of verbal public lynching against Deal Hudson are trying to destroy the messenger because they cannot deflect the discussion away from the content of the message.

[Tax-chick]

I couldn’t find the rest of the article at the site. But oh well. I didn’t know this was still going on. Very tacky.

[tcg]

It is there, http://www.catholic.org

[Tax-chick]

Okay, I see. The article that followed the headline took so long to get to anything that had to do with Deal Hudson that I thought it was a totally different article. And I’m still not clear on whom the author is chastising. The Barack Obama campaign? Duh! Or somebody else?

[SuziQ]

Just click on the headline, and it is a link. The article starts off with a discussion of Obama’s abortion position. The part about Deal Hudson is actually on page 3 of the article. Interesting that SNAP is involved. It suggests to me that they were ALWAYS about more than just the abuse by priests.

[SuziQ]

He’s chastising those who consider themselves Catholics, but are dragging up this old attack against Deal, simply because Deal is opposing Obama on his abortion stance. These Catholics have to find something with which to change the subject, because they KNOW they’re wrong in their support for Obama, because he is unashamedly and unequivocally in support of abortion, for any reason, at any time, and paid for by the taxpayers.

[Tax-chick]

Thanks, that’s helpful!

[SuziQ]

You’re welcome. The Deacon is also putting a challenge out there for Obama. If his supporters are making personal attacks on someone, simply because of his true statements of Obama’s positions, then Obama needs to tell them to stop, since he’s supposed to be for ‘change’ and ‘a new tone’ and all. Of course, Obama won’t do it, because that would call attention to his TRUE stand on abortion, and he’d rather that Catholics not dwell on that, in favor of his support for all the other ‘Social Justice Issues’ popular with many Catholics.