Posted on 08/04/2010 10:48:12 AM PDT by NYer
Vanity Fair have sent me a preview of Christopher Hitchens’s very unpleasant piece about his cancer – unpleasant not just because Hitchens describes in detail the invasion of his body by a monstrous tumour, but also because it contains a despicable slur against the Pope. (And Henry Kissinger, but I don’t care about that.)
He writes: “Will I really not live long enough … to read – if not indeed write – the obituaries of elderly criminals like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger?”
This should scarcely need saying, but Pope Benedict XVI is not a criminal: neither Hitchens nor anyone else has produced evidence that he covered up the crimes of paedophile priests. On the contrary, he sought to tighten up canonical procedures against sex abusers. There were plenty of cover-ups; it’s just that the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith didn’t organise them and, indeed, fought battles with some of those prelates who did.
So this is a nasty piece of character assassination, sadly typical of a brilliant journalist who, once he’s made up his mind about somebody, shuts out information that might force him to tone down the savagery of his rhetoric. And it’s not rendered any less nasty by the fact that “Hitch” is – by his own account – probably dying. But it does make the whole thing desperately sad.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Quite like Alex Jones.
Typical reaction of the godless when they know they are dying and in terrible pain. They see the end of life as the end of existence because they have no hope. So rather than listening carefully to the ones who can point them to eternal life, they lash out against them as if it were they that caused their dying. The believers gets sick and die too. But they are able to be gracious because they know their lord is gracious.
He’s a homosexual. His irrational hatred of the Pope shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
Well, probably not literally, but I don’t think he’s mellowed toward her too much.
And this differs from some FR posters how?
You’re on!
Bitter to the bitter end. Sad, really (but perhaps not hopeless).
I HATE reading almost any story about a person suffering from cancer. Please get well, Mr. Hitchens, I know you mock the phraseology, but be strong, FIGHT this and WIN your battle. I care not a whit about your opinions or politics at this moment— my enemy is cancer and I want to see it utterly destroyed.
I feel creepily contaminated for having typed that.
As sure as I'm alive, Teresa is enfolded in the peace and love of Almighty God right now, praying for the eternal salvation of Christopher Hitchens. So paradoxically, he was fortunate to have foully slandered this particular Servant of God, as it practically guarantees that she's interceding for him as we speak.
Sad that hatred is still driving him, even in the face of death.
While on his deathbed, what would Christopher Hitchen reaction be if he looked up a saw Pope Benedict XVI administering the last rites while trying to comfort Mr Hitchens pain in his hour of need???
Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr. (born November 8, 1927), nicknamed Si Newhouse, is the chairman and CEO of Advance Publications, which, among other interests, owns Condé Nast Publications, publisher of many marquee brands in the world of magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Portfolio. He is the son of Samuel Irving Newhouse, Sr., founder of Advance Publications. His grandson, S.I. Newhouse IV, appeared in the documentary Born Rich.
Newhouse attended the Horace Mann School in New York City. He has an estimated net worth of $4 billion, and he was ranked the 132nd Richest American by Forbes Magazine in 2009.[1]
Write him a letter if you wish ...
Hitchens is as dumb as a brick.
"Popery"???
Pathetic.
May God have mercy on such folk.
Did Hitchens actually say that God is dead?
Not respecting the pope isn’t anti-God. Non-Catholic Christians also see the pope for what he is, i.e., just a guy.
I'm not sending you volumes of scattershot information now, but be aware that I am praying for you, and that I also desire your prayers.
Ironically, it wasn't Popery, but Hitchens own brand of liberalism that caused so much pain to victims of sexual abuse. Thankfully, there wasn't that much, media reportage to the contrary, though ANY sexual abuse at the hands of ANY priest is an abomination before God.
These priest abusers decided that their consciences were king, and convinced themselves that what they were doing wasn't wrong at all, and THAT was the fruit of modernism, in the Church. Now, I know that buggery has taken place in the Church for centuries, as it has in many institutions, but the push in the last 40 years from liberals to 'modernize' the Catholic Church seemed to encourage it in a small percentage of priests.
Bellicose atheists are a dime a dozen. They wither like the grass of the field. There is no joy or contentment in an angry life spent in stamping one’s feet and spitting in the eternal ocean that is God. The awareness of mortality is one of the punishments for atheism.
Christopher Hitchens is indeed an unusual character. He’s a 61 year old atheist-socialist. I suppose he’s famous because of his outspoken atheism, but he’s not particularly good even at that, picking Mother Theresa as one of the targets of his invective.
His recommendations and denunciations should be of no concern to Christians of any stripe. Those who would attempt to bolster their case with his ideas haven’t spent enough time considering whether they want to be on Hitchens’ side in any debate.
I’m sorry he has cancer. If it takes his life, he’ll discover shortly thereafter his mistakes about the reality of God.
See #39.
You only injure your credibility by connecting it in any way to Hitchens.
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