Posted on 10/27/2010 8:46:24 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
“Fr James Martin SJ,” the editor reported yesterday in his Morning Catholic must-reads, “says that ‘web-based McCarthyism’ is on the rise in the Catholic blogosphere.” What he means by web-based McCarthyism is what John L Allen (of the National Catholic Reporter) calls the “Catholic Taliban”.
Allen’s explanation of this term was recently spelled out to an audience at the University of Texas. It was necessary, Allen said, to strike “a balance between two extremes”. This is how he described these extremes:
“On the one extreme lies what my friend and colleague George Weigel correctly terms ‘Catholicism Lite’, meaning a watered-down, sold-out form of secularised religiosity, Catholic in name only. On the other is what I call ‘Taliban Catholicism’, meaning a distorted, angry form of the faith that knows only how to excoriate, condemn, and smash the TV sets of the modern world.Some in the audience chuckled, but others weren’t so amused. One younger faculty member rose during the Q&A period to offer a thoughtful, and heartfelt, challenge:
“To say things with clarity is not to be the Catholic Taliban,” she said, adding that she found the phrase “profoundly offensive”.
“There are no suicide bombers in the Catholic Church,” she said, “but we have had an epidemic of Catholicism Lite for the last 30 years.” Younger Catholics, she insisted, should not be dismissed as fanatics simply because they seek “fidelity and clarity.”
Her remarks were met with applause, suggesting she had struck a chord…”
Well, quite. But it’s pretty clear that orthodox Catholic bloggers are coming under fire, on both sides of the Atlantic: remember the Tablet’s attack on Fr Finigan’s splendid – and massively successful – blog, the Hermeneutic of Continuity? The interesting thing is that one of the chief grounds for attacking these blogs is that they allegedly use extreme language: and this from critics who talk about McCarthyism and the Catholic Taliban.
This controversy was reported recently by the ultra-liberal New York Times, which is, of course, all in favour of Catholicism Lite. The paper went for the “McCarthyism” line, with the headline “Catholic Bloggers Aim to Purge Dissenters”. “Pressure is on”, claimed the writer, “to change the Roman Catholic Church in America, but it’s not coming from the usual liberal suspects. A new breed of theological conservatives has taken to blogs and YouTube to say the church isn’t Catholic enough. Enraged by dissent that they believe has gone unchecked for decades, and unafraid to say so in the starkest language, these activists are naming names and unsettling the church.” [my italics]
Singled out for special attention was RealCatholicTV.com, which, accused the paper, is “hunting for ‘traitorous’ nuns, priests or bishops throughout the American Church”. “We’re no more engaged in a witch hunt than a doctor excising a cancer is engaged in a witch hunt,” said Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com and St Michael’s Media. “We’re just shining a spotlight on people who are Catholics who do not live the faith.”
Well, that makes them sound like a pretty over the top bunch, so I thought I’d better have a look at these people, who when you get on to their website (you have to register, but it’s free) turn out to offer not a blog but a daily TV-style news bulletin. I had a look at yesterday’s bulletin, which was a sober, straight report of the following five news items, with no condemnation of anyone:
1) The story, also reported in Morning Catholic must-reads on this home page yesterday: the editor’s words were “Catholics in the Swiss city of Lucerne have created controversy after they distributed 3,000 condoms as part of an anti-Aids campaign”.
2) A bishop has discontinued a regular Mass celebrated for the last 15 years for homosexuals in San Antonio, Texas (which sounds just like the Soho Masses here), on the grounds that it was “sending conflicting messages about Catholic teaching”.
3) A Mgr Scully has died celebrating Mass; his bishop said it was how he would have wanted to go. This elicited the bulletin’s only comment: “God rest his soul.”
4) The conversion of Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, Lauren Booth, to Islam.
5) An attempt by a 16-year-old girl’s parents to force her to have an abortion was foiled after the girl got a court order, with the support of the child’s father, who also “did not want the baby killed”.
And that was it. Moderate in tone, simple, factual. Michael Voris certainly wants to expose people he thinks are disloyal to the Church, who he thinks “are hijacking the Church for their own ends”. Well: and why not? We know they exist, these people. You may think the tone of this quotation sounds a bit paranoid: but maybe there’s something to be paranoid about.
Allen’s explanation of this term was recently spelled out to an audience at the University of Texas. It was necessary, Allen said, to strike “a balance between two extremes”. This is how he described these extremes:
“On the one extreme lies what my friend and colleague George Weigel correctly terms ‘Catholicism Lite’, meaning a watered-down, sold-out form of secularised religiosity, Catholic in name only. On the other is what I call ‘Taliban Catholicism’, meaning a distorted, angry form of the faith that knows only how to excoriate, condemn, and smash the TV sets of the modern world........Singled out for special attention was RealCatholicTV.com, which, accused the paper, is “hunting for ‘traitorous’ nuns, priests or bishops throughout the American Church”. “We’re no more engaged in a witch hunt than a doctor excising a cancer is engaged in a witch hunt,” said Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com and St Michael’s Media. “We’re just shining a spotlight on people who are Catholics who do not live the faith.”
Exposing apostasy within the self-governed organized religion is not becoming a “taliban”.
This isn’t even kicking out “false followers”. This is appraising those serving within the church.
Here in the US, we could use a little “McCarthyism” today. As for the Church, I’d prefer going back to the 50’s. One problem today is converts want to run the church without understanding the church. It seems that they come to the Catholic Church and attempt to change it to what they left and weren’t happy with.
Bookmark.
Be hot or cold in the faith, just don't be lukewarm or as it's better know as "lite".
Uh........so let's see if I understand this correctly.
You sit Catholics in the pews and then subject them to loony liturgies, heretical homilies and lousy catechesis. You tell them that the Catholicism which their parents practiced is history and they need to "get with it". You force them to watch while priests break their vows, nuns throw away their religious habits and become ecologists and the Church is turned upside down.
Rinse and repeat as necessary for...........ohhhhhhhh........say about forty years!.
They then get to watch as their children lose their faith and entire dioceses are bankrupted by the antics of the lavender mafia.
Can you say "laity abuse"??
Now you mean to tell me that after all that, lay Catholics actually start to get angry???
Amazing!
Who would have thunk it!!
No, no, no, John..........this is not Taliban Catholicism. This is Vatican II Catholicism. You know that tired cliche which we've been hearing for the past 40-odd years about how Vatican II was all about getting the lay people "involved"??
Well it's happening. They are "getting involved". They're taking up arms against those who've been trying to destroy the Church. Dontcha love it??!! They're blogging and making their voices heard.
OK, so this isn't exactly what the liberals and radicals had in mind with their "spirit of Vatican II" shtick but hey,............it's all good, right?
I will have to keep that comment readily available the next time some aging priest berates me for being a stodgy "übertraddie" and inflexible
(Mind you, I am not an übertraddie by any means...)
**Well it’s happening. They are “getting involved”. They’re taking up arms against those who’ve been trying to destroy the Church. Dontcha love it??!! They’re blogging and making their voices heard.
OK, so this isn’t exactly what the liberals and radicals had in mind with their “spirit of Vatican II” shtick but hey,............it’s all good, right?**
Chuckle, chuckle. You nailed it! God bless!
SOMETIMES John Allen is good, but I think he forgot his meds here.
I call them protestants who don't have the courtesy to simply walk out of the Church.
I call them Catholic bishops.
The author is too historically ignorant to realize that to intelligent, informed people, “McCarthyism” is a compliment.
Not that the Left won’t fight tenaciously, to cling to one of the rotting foundational pillars supporting their edifice of propaganda.
I call them protestants who don't have the courtesy to simply walk out of the Church.I call them Catholic bishops.
Potato, potato; tomato, tomato. They may sound different but they look the same to me.
John Allen is an idiot. Normally, he’s a pretty good writer. But I’m afraid he blew it this time.
There’s a several private prophecies that point to stuff like this. We haven’t seen anything yet. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
If it pissed off a canting reprobate apostate of a Jesuit, I say good on them. We must be doing something right.
That sounds like a complement. McCarthy was one of the good guys.
Flaming liberals replaced by cagey faux-conservatives.
No, no, no, you don't understand. The people are empowered to take over priest jobs at the altar (especially women), demand their rights of contraception, and have freedom to vote pro-abortion. They are NOT to question the new spirit of Vatican II in any way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.