A priest in the North Korean totalitarian state acts as a marionette for the tubby little third generation dictator Kim Il Birdbrain and that becomes the platform for Jonescu's attack on the Roman Catholic Church since Mr. Jonescu apparently regards Adam Smith or maybe even Ayn Rand as the authors of his personal scriptures rather than Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James, and Peter, tyo say nothing of the Old Testament.
The late and unlamented Fr. Robert Drinan, S. J., and Fr. Charles Curran and a handful of others were advocates of abortion but, I trust, Mr. Jonescu does not imagine that the fact that they were not silenced and defrocked and excommunicated or even burned at the stake as in those dear dead days of yore (as I would have preferred) does not make the Roman Catholic Church in the United States pro-abortion. Fr. Drinan, after many years of scandal producing behavior as Barney Frank's predecessor in Congress, was ordered by John Paul II to his face to leave Congress (which he did) and Curran was stripped of his status as theologian.
Pope Francis (not my favorite contemporary pope but pope nonetheless) lived his entire adult life in Argentina where the choices in politics seem to be essentially between Peronist fascists such as Juan and Evita OTOH and faux Peronist Marxists and social revolutionaries against human nature like the Kirchners OTO. Understandably, given the choices available, then Father,Bishop, Archbishop, Cardinal Bergoglio, tended toward the imperfect fascist model rather than toward the utterly unacceptable Kirchner model. Try to remember that he is, despite MSM sensationalism to the contrary, a RELIGIOUS leader and not a politician and it shows.
Both of those choices are quite unacceptable to normal American conservatives of a free market persuasion but Marxism and Marxism-Leninism and Maoism and Ho Chi Minhism and Kim Il Birdbrainism are MORE unacceptable and, indeed, totally unacceptable (despite one North Korean priest's idiot imaginings and substitute of "nationalism" vis-a-vis South Korea's often admirable alternative.
That there are child-molesting individual priests (certainly a grave evil) does not make the Roman Catholic Church a church devoted to child molesting any more than the idiot North Korean priest's ravings define Catholicism in North Korea much less anywhere else.
Would more stringent discipline of wayward priests serve the Roman Catholic Church well? No doubt! Catholic leaders and even popes are fallen human beings and probably do a better job at their jobs than would Mr. Jonescu and or anyone sharing his profile as intellectual at large with few real responsibilities in life.
Oh, and conveniently, Mr. Jonescu warns us NOT to rely on soon to be Saint John Paul the Great as a counterexample justifying support of the Roman Catholic Church as an enemy of Marxism just as Ronald Reagan should not be an excuse for supporting the GOP or Margaret Thatcher ought not justify support for the Tory Party in Great Britain.
Mr. Jonescu should be reminded that Saint John Paul, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher are, each in his or her own sphere, the ideal (however imperfect) of what a pope, a president or a prime minister might be. They are the each standards against whom all successors are judged and those successors are likely, in the foreseeable future to fail against such respective standards.
Mr. Jonescu is just another (apparently) fallen away cradle Catholic, favoring his own inner fallacies rather than the accumulated wisdom and teaching magisterium of the Church in which he was privileged to be baptized. That is also the Church which Friedrich von Hayek, Russell Kirk and Frank Meyer entered as death drew near. I believe but am not sure that it was also the Church of Ludwig von Mises.
Mr. Jonescu seems to fancy himself an "American Thinker" by association with that publication but, if the cited article is any evidence, we will wait in vain for him to attain the stature of von Mises, von Hayek or Frank Meyer. If that seems unfair to Mr. Jonescu, that would be because I am applying his own standard to Mr. Jonescu.
It was my understanding that the priests in question were South Korean. That was at least the implication, and if this is not the case the author should be ashamed of himself.
Thank you, Black Elk
When it's time for a little anti-Catholic red meat, though, the editors at AT don't seem to see any reason to not use a broad brush nor do the commentors on FR seem to mind joining hands with those who claim Jesus Christ is a fraud and all Christians, not just Catholic Christians, are drooling idiots taken in by the scam of Christianity.
I guess people who have sucked down revisionist history to the point they've never even heard of the violence and murder that Pinkerton's were guilty of while in the employ of poor little non-Capitalists like Dale Carnegie or what Baldwin-Felts was up to in Logan County W Va have also sucked down the current media machine command to go after the Catholic Church every way possible for opposing King Barry and not to let little things like the truth get in their way.
At least while folks who call themselves Conservative and Christian are solidly in the Obama camp when it comes to attacking Catholics and working hand in glove with anti-Christ cultists a good many folks who call themselves Liberal and Whatever who have long been blind enough to support Barry are waking up. With more people awake we may finally end up with folks who do more than complain and encourage infighting in their own ranks pushing back against Barry.
I'm sure the Chicago fascist crowd will finish running through the propaganda they used to spread the Klan in the twenties pretty soon, though, and we will then no doubt be entertained with articles rehashing the various dark conspiracies that were spread so effectively in Europe during the thirties.
At some point, all those conspiracy theories tie the evil Jooooz to the evil Papists and I'll be interested in seeing who thinks slanders and lies about Jews is acceptable religion forum fare the same way slanders and lies about Catholics are.