The Right to Food

An analogy:

In related news, the US Supreme Court has ruled 6-2 against the right of those who commit "reckless" (as opposed to pre-meditated, or as opposed to intentional?) acts of domestic violence from owning firearms. On the face of it, this seems like a good and common-sense ruling. One wonders if these restrictions ever sunset (and also, why Justice Sotomayer, a reliable liberal, dissented). Does a profound and even violent misjudgment which occurred once in one's younger years mean that one forfeits one's rights for life? In some cases, the answer is yes--but others may or may not be as clear-cut*.

I do in general favor restrictions against granting violent criminals the ability to obtain firearms. On the other hand, I've also noticed that "violent criminal" is not necessarily the same thing as, say, being on the no-fly list, or being convicted of a felony. Intentionally hitting one's domestic partner almost certainly qualifies, provided that there is no mitigating circumstance.


*Example of the latter: the kangaroo "courts" set up on campuses (and via social media) the world over which exist to destroy the reputations (and lives) of men who have been accused of sexual assault, no matter how fraudulent and libelous the accusation.

CMP's Editing

The Alliance Defending Freedom has a post about the "editing" of CMP's videos. Are the videos edited? Yes. Lots of stuff is cut from them. But "editing" is not the same as "doctoring". You can cut a lot of material without changing the meaning of the video. Editing is what CMP has done. Doctoring is what Planned Parenthood does with its abortion services statistics (though not to its patients).

The Media Lies--American National Catholic Church Edition

They lie. All. The. Time. But these days they seem to be going out of their way to tell lies about the Catholic Church. Specifically, I suspect that soon we will hear about every single "American National Catholic Church" in the US. I suspect this for the simple reason that these churches are actually completely independent from and not in communion with Rome, and hence much more progressive than the "Roman" Catholic Church (the one true Catholic Church, albeit only one rite within the Church). I suspect they will do this in an effort to "encourage" the Catholic Church to change her teachings to conform more with the secular zeitgeist--she won't.

Here, for example, is an article from a year or so ago titled "Meet the Catholic priest who performs same-sex unions." The mention at some point in the body text that he is a part of the American Catholic Church--but not that the American National Catholic Church a relatively small and unknown communion of churches--is not in any way affiliated with the actual Catholic Church (e.g. in communion with Rome). Nor, for that matter, is it affiliated with any of the various Anglican Churches which incorporate "Catholic" into their names, including some episcopal churches; I suspect we may be hearing some reports of the more progressive among these, too.

Oh, but it gets worse:

He answers to his congregation, and he doesn't hide who he is.

"I was born and raised Roman Catholic," he said. "I went to the seminary to study for the priesthood. And I'm a gay priest."

He felt the call to the collar from the second grade.

"Friends used to call me Father Phil when I was in second grade," he said.

Father Phil said Catholic churches aren't usually welcoming to the people who sit in this sanctuary. Here they are home and so is he.

Note the deliberate bait-and-switch here. He was born and raised Roman Catholic. He felt called to the priesthood from an early age. Nowhere is it stated clearly that he left the (Roman) Catholic Church in order to become a priest of the American Catholic Church. Also, there are a few swipes at the actual Catholic Church and the fact that a) our priests and bishops are not just accountable to their congregants (though they ave a duty to teach their parishioners the Faith), and b) that "Catholic churches aren't usually welcoming to the people."

And all of this is without addressing the rather flagrant job of misleading in the embedded video. "Church teachings don't usually allow Catholic priests to perform same sex unions, but one Catholic priest in St. Louis has done several of them." The video goes on to say that all Catholic Churches in St Louis impose ashes on their parishioners' foreheads (while superimposed over an image of the American Catholic priest doing just that).

Then in the interview, they make him sound like just another Catholic priest at just another Catholic parish: "We're very Catholic in essence!... We celebrate the same seven sacraments!...Where we change in is that practical way in which we embrace our Catholic faith." He then goes on to recite a large part of the progressivist laundry list: married priests, women priests, open acceptance of gay and lesbian unions... They mention that he disagrees with Rome, but not that his Church is not in communion with Rome. They also highlight that he went to seminary as a Roman Catholic. Yeah, nothing misleading here. No lies or propaganda in this article.

For that mater, no lies are being told by the American National Catholic Church (and won't be told about various Anglican Churches which call themselves "Catholic") in their choice of name. I am reminded of what was one of the most popular Biblical passags during the Counter-Reformation, and which should become more well known as a warning against today:

"And what I do I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds" (2 Corinthians 11:12-15).

The devil is the father of all lies. The media, even this independent (schismatic, frankly heretical) "Catholic" church, are just more tools he uses to do his dirty work.


---

Update: I'm sure there are some Roman Catholic clergy who would happily go along with this too. Not all of our clergy is good and faithful, and so neither are many Catholic parishioners. It's bad enough when the media harps on this incessantly; it's worse when the find small and obscure schisms like this one and then pretend that they are genuine Catholics, as if to deliberately sow disunity within the Catholic Church.

The Media Sure Does a Good Job...

...of using facts to obscure the truth. Headline: "Woman outside Planned Parenthood says flaming object was thrown at her." The headline reports some facts, while obscuring what was actually happening. The headline, as read by the casual observer, the low-information viewer (a substantial number of people reading the headline) will be interpreted to mean that some anti-abortion protester has thrown a flaming object (incendiary device? it was a Molotov cocktail) at a random woman who was approaching Planned Parenthood to use its "services."

But that's not actually what happened. Instead, it was a hit-and-run incident in which somebody threw this Molotov Cocktail at a group of peaceful protesters, a group who was praying in front of the Planned Parenthood, praying for an end to that evil organization. This group was with Central Texas Coalition for Life--I know a few people who are involved with that organization--and was almost certainly marked as such. So, in actuality, this was an example of pro-abortion violence against a peaceful pro-life protests--such things are actually quite common and at times even deadly--and not of anti-abortion violence against a pro-abortion victim (such occurrences are rare but typically receive saturation coverage).

There is a saying that God can write straight with crooked lines. Our media seems to strive to do the opposite feat, which is writing crookedly with straight lines.

Today's Contrived Dudgeon

Two years ago, St. Mary's Cathedral in Sodom-by-the-Sea installed a sprinkler system to keep its doorways clean and clear of such things as refuse, feces, and needles which were being regularly left in and near the doorways of the Cathedral by the local homeless population. In doing so, they were following the lead of many others in the city's financial district. So why is this of interest today?

Because most people a) don't know this about Sodom-by-the-Sea, b) don't read much more than the headline and first paragraph or two of most news articles, and (most importantly) c) because there is a bit of a publicity battle being waged against his Excellency the Lion-hearted archbishop. This publicity battle is being waged (ostensibly) because the good archbishop said some truthful things about homosexual acts, and is asking those who are employed in positions of authority in his see to refrain from publicly promoting such things as as sodomy (and adultery, fornication, masturbation, pornography, and a host of other sexual sins, etc).

Therefore, anything which can be found to hurt his excellency's image, must be found, dug up, and trotted out on parade before the public. This must be done, even if a retraction must later be reprinted--because who ever notices (let alone reads) those, anyway? And why give the diocese benefit of the doubt in this policy--why hesitate to consider that there just may be some innocuous explanation--in short, why do the work of actually reporting, when the existence of the thing can be used to attack Archbishop Cordileone, or to paint him in an unfavorable light? For that matter, why bother to find out whether the archbishop had anything at all to do with this decision, when you can just assume that he did?

Meanwhile, the archdiocese gives some pretty valid reasons for the sprinklers' installation--and now will be removing it, thanks to the "optics":

This sprinkler system in alcoves near our back doorways was installed approximately two years ago, after learning from city resources that this kind of system was being commonly used in the Financial District, as a safety, security and cleanliness measure to avoid the situation where needles, feces and other dangerous items were regularly being left in these hidden doorways. The problem was particularly dangerous because students and elderly people regularly pass these locations on their way to school and mass every day. When the system was installed,after other ideas were tried and failed, the people who were regularly sleeping in those doorways were informed in advance that the sprinklers were being installed. The idea was not to remove those persons, but to encourage them to relocate to other areas of the Cathedral, which are protected and safer. The purpose was to make the Cathedral grounds as well as the homeless people who happen to be on those grounds safer. We are sorry that our intentions have been misunderstood and recognize that the method used was ill-conceived. It actually has had the opposite effect from what it was intended to do, and for this we are very sorry. We have also now learned that the system in the first place required a permit and may violate San Francisco water-use laws, and the work to remove this system has already started, and will be completed by the end of the day.

My thought is that if anyone is injured or endangered by stepping on (say) a discarded needle or made ill from contact with human feces as a result of the removal of this system, that is on the hands of these media piranhas.

Intellectual Rape

Where to begin? The more information which is coming out of this UVA rape scandal thing, the more it looks like the Rolling Stone's article about the incident was fabricated. Because narrative trumps truth or something. Sadly, the Rolling Stone isn't the only one guilty of this among media outlets (mainstream or otherwise). Those that don't just makeup "the facts" as they go along tend to be, um, creative in their interpretations, shall we say? And thy are often inaccurate (and outright biased and lazy) in their reporting to boot:

It’s absolutely true that we don’t have a wave of outright fabrication-out-of-whole-cloth. But what we have is much worse. We have a tsunami of inaccuracy that is generally tolerated, embraced and even celebrated so long as it serves the right political and cultural goals. 

Yes, the latest shocking revelations about Sabrina Rubin Erdely and Rolling Stone’s journalism are stunning. They really, really messed up. Even more than we previously realized. They should receive every bit of opprobrium coming their way. But they should not be the scapegoat for a problem that is riddled throughout journalism....

But Rolling Stone’s gang rape story was published in an environment of credulity regarding that statistic [that 1 in 5 women on college campuses are sexually assaulted--more on that in a moment] and everything it suggests. It is likely true that college campuses are some of the most sexually confusing environments young men and women can find themselves in. It is of course true that any rape or attempted rape should be dealt with severely. It’s true that the way we handle sexual assault on campuses couldn’t be more messed up. But good policies are not aided by really bad numbers. And the Rolling Stone article was advocacy journalism designed to get policies changed. Yes, Erdely and Rolling Stone made some major journalistic malpractices. But so did a lot of other media outlets who parroted this claim without any of the skepticism they should have applied. 

It's hard enough to determine what is really going on when information is withheld (or cut), but matters are only exacerbated when the reporting is deliberately biased as it so often is.

The various little "ism" ideologies (racism in favor of one or another non-white group, gay liberation-ism, and perhaps especially feminism) don't really care about things like "facts" or "truth" or "reality": what matters is "narrative," and getting what they want when they want it and from whom they want it, the lives and safety and rights and livelihoods of others be damned:

Where most of us are primarily concerned with whether a given claim is correct, others seem more attentive to how we react to that claim in the first place. Did you ask questions about Jackie’s story as it was reported? If so, you must hate women, work for the patriarchy, or hope to prove that nobody is ever raped. Did you believe Jackie uncritically and with a full-throated roar? Excellent, then you must be a good person who wants to help women, move the country forward, and do something concrete about the issue of sexual assault. It’s really that simple, my dear. 

Amazingly, these presumptions tend to remain intact through thick and thin. In consequence, a person who incorrectly judged the veracity of Rolling Stone’s story can remain on the side of the angels, while a person who was correct to doubt the account is dismissed as a devil who just got lucky. Sure, the zetetics might have been right in a technical, factual, reality-based sense. But that they tried to investigate the matter in the first instance tells us something terrible about their character. And yes, the story may have been completely and utterly wrong. But at least its advocates took a stand for something nice. Did you? Wait, you’re not a rapist, are you? 

....As Slate’s Hanna Rosin noted last night, we are now at a tipping point of sorts. The Washington Post’s latest deep-dive, Rosin writes, “strongly implies, without outright saying so, that the gang rape at the center of Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s article might be fabricated.” Indeed so. And should we subsequently learn that the Post’s implication was warranted, this will mean that Sabrina Erdely and her source have conspired a) to mislead millions of people on a matter of basic fact; b) to potentially damage the reputations of the men they accused; c) to cast a trio of Jackie’s friends as amoral, vain, criminally negligible monsters; and d) to libel the fraternity that is implicated, as well as the University of Virginia writ large.

In the case of this Rolling Stone article, as with the phony "1 in 5 college women are raped/sexually assaulted" statistic (it's actually more like 6 in 1000, according to the DOJ's actual statistics), the point is not to present actual facts, and certainly not with abundance, so that others can form their own opinions (let alone make sound judgments about what is actually happening). Rather, the point is to drive home the narrative, to force this particular worldview and all its ugly consequences down our throats. The people who do this are complete tools. They are tools of the movement, tools of the feminist/black panthers/gay power grab, tools which are helping to cause the downfall of our civilization.

On Ferguson

People keep asking me what I think about the whole Ferguson debacle. Honestly, I try not to, because the situation is too depressing. With that said, I don't have all the information, and am just no interested enough to pour through the evidence and court documents. From what I have read, it seems likely that Michael Brown's death at the hands of office Darren Wilson was in fact a justifiable homicide, that it was in self-defense.

Brown seems like a bully, and while this isn't the end I wish upon bullies in general, it does seem like an almost inevitable end for the thug that he apparently was. Nothing that I have seen suggests that this guy was a "good kid" who just had a bad day. I'm sure his family and friends see things differently, but then again, his own stepfather is doing his best to incite violence, so there's that. On the other hand, there is something to be said about the militarization of our police, and this wouldn't be the first time that a police office caused a wrongful death and then got off scott-free. Still, most the evidence (and accounts) which I have seen suggest that in this case, the office was justified.

I can state that there is a wrong way to handle this. That seems to be the exact thing which his "community" is doing. Let me be blunt: this "community" seems to be largely the black community of St. Louis and beyond which is stupid and or gullible enough to to believe that this incident involves some sort of racism. Anybody idiotic enough to believe liars like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, or for that matter President Obama, and foolish enough to resort to violence and vandalism and robbery and riots and arson as a response to a non-indictment charge is probably doing more to further racism than any men in white hoods could ever hope to have come pass.

It's absurd to think that this helps anybody. It's insane to believe that this is the right reaction at any level. The fact that very few of the victims of this violence have any connection to the original case--other than living in the same city--makes it all the more random and pointless. This is not to say that targeted violence against Officer Wilson and his family--as might be suggested by, say, the New York Times (who apparently published his wife's name and the street they lived on) is any better. Still, there is some insanity to the fact that, among other thing, the church which Micheal Brown's family attends was burned down during this rioting.

It is nice, however, to see that a few members of the black community have the right basic attitude concerning this, even if they still voice a little of the "us (blacks) vs. them (everybody else)" chip-on-the-shoulder which is so detrimental to real community-building.

As a final thought, I think that Carl Olson is essentially correct: "Men without roots turn into looters; men without purpose turn into predators."

To Nobody's Surprise

A few things which ought to surprise nobody:

First, there is the New York Times' coverage of Sen. Mary Landrieu's great  and beneficent leadership the Keystone pipeline's rejection by the senate. They wrote two stories before the vote, one which would praise her for successfully getting the pipeline approved, and one which would praise her in the event that the bill failed. The first praises her leadership and tenacity which enabled her to get things done, the second her leadership and tenacity to fight the good fight even against insurmountable odds. No, really. Landrieu is the current (Democratic) senator from Louisiana, and is facing a probable loss in the run-off elections to the Republican challenger.

Second, there is a recent sex-ed conference for middle-school and high-school kids which took place in Oregon:

"Even the mainstream media is jumping on the news that children being sent by schools to a sexuality conference in Oregon encourages all kinds of obscene sexual behavior, taking meth-amphetamines, simulated sex acts and even instructions on how to have sex over the internet... 

Diller says she came away from the conference deeply scarred. “I monitor Planned Parenthood sex education on a regular basis and I have seen some unbelievably horrifying situations that young people are put in because of the abortion giant’s fixation with sexualizing children, but never have I seen so many adults work so hard to defile young people than at this conference,” she said. 

She also said that she grieves for the students “who spent two long days with adults who relentlessly threw the most vile, deceptive, sexually soaked garbage in their faces in an apparently successful attempt to numb them to sin, to turn them against Christianity, and to tempt them with the embrace of debauchery in some of its most vile apparitions.”"

In addition to encouraging these kids to engage in all sorts of "obscene sexual behavior," this conference is encouraging the taking of meth-amphetamines? This seems like an outrage, a shock, a horror: but it would not really surprise me if true. Horrifying, yes, but surprising, no.

Fat Country

Bloomberg reports that a study in The Lancet has us as (statistically) among the fattest nations:

"About 2.1 billion people, or almost one-third of the world’s population, were obese or overweight last year, researchers estimated after examining data from 183 countries... The heaviest country was the U.S., accounting for about 13 percent of the world’s obese people."

By my math, that means that the, ahem, vast majority (~4/5) of Americans are obese. Of course, there's also a few sleights of hand here:

• The 2.1 billion number is the number of people who are either obese or overweight
• The 13% number is the American share of obese people
• Buried further down in the Bloomberg article is the fact that of the 2.1 billion figure reported above, only 671 million are obese (and thus, 87 million or roughly 1 in 4 Americans are obese)

But wait, there's more! The device used to measure all of this is... the body mass index. Input your height and your weight, and this device will till you whether you are underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese. Hint number one: all women who are beyond the second trimester will be marked as overweight or obese. Ditto for postpartum women (at least for the first few months). Yikes.

And if you happen to be big-boned or a heavily-muscled man, odds are that you're at least overweight. And, I notice that if I put in my height and weight from my junior year of high school--during which time I was still considered to be somewhat of a beanpole--I still end up in the "normal weight" category, albeit at the lower end of it.

But, of course, such studies are useful for banning large fountain drinks and pushing for "healthier" meals at school, both points found in favor of those who are rich and powerful. Therefor, they will continue to receive funding, and so the march of SCIENCE! continues.

Maureen Dowd

The great progressive fear (and thus, the insult which they optimistically turn against their opponents) is of being on the wrong side of history. I forget who coined the phrase "the dustbin of history," but might I suggest that I'd rather end there than be the kind of useful idiot who is ultimately unfit to even be placed among the refuse.

In related news, Pope John Paul the Great will soon be a canonized saint. Somehow, these are the kinds of people who refuse to remain in the dustbin now matter how hard others try to put them there.

Bias? What Bias?

I've heard it said that reality has a liberal/progressive/Leftist bias. If anything, the opposite is true, though in any given election the general public may lean left. What certainly does have a liberal or progressive slant is the mainstream media:

The Congressional Budget Office estimated on Tuesday that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the number of full-time workers by 2.5 million over the next decade. That is mostly a good thing, a liberating result of the law.

The paper (or channel) which reports that it's a good thing that 2.5 million more people will lose their jobs as a result of the pet policy of the Beloved Leader is not acting as an unbiased news agency, but rather as a cheerleader. This is not "some jobs are disappearing/going over seas as new jobs come in to replace them," but rather just "jobs will be lost in an already down economy, and that's a good thing because we cannot make the One look bad." Jobs are lost, and so people make the best of a bad situation, but the papers will make the job loss seem like the good situation and ignore that the people who are making the best of it would (mostly) rather be employed.  They might as well write "The chocolate rations have been increased from thirty grams to twenty five grams!"

Yellow Journalism by Green Journalists

Student papers aren't necessarily professionally done, even if many of the folks working on them today are tomorrow's journalists. Here is one example of an article which has managed to anger (or disappoint, or depress)...basically everybody who reads it.

The pro-life folks are frustrated, because the thing is covering a small counter-protest in response to the Rally for Life in Austin. The pro-life rally's attendance is usually numbered in the thousands or even tens of thousands (ok, usually around 10,000). The opposition's counter-protest typically turns out in the hundreds (if that). This year there were supposedly more counter-protesters than usually, which means a few hundred: so I was told by several different friends and acquaintances who attended the Rally (I did not, as I had to work that day).

The entire article, however, mentions only the counter-protest. There isn't even a hint that it is in response to the much larger Rally for Life, and not a single suggestion that there were any pro-lifers anywhere. One would think there is a actually pointed silence towards the pro-life movement at work, a cover-up by the opposition.

Screenshot: Disqus apparently didn't get the memo about the headline.

The other side, for its part, was worked into a frenzy by the headline, which was a little too accurate for their comfort. The headline on the print edition reads--and online it originally read--"Pro-abortion rally draws support from political candidates." The headline has since been changed to the less accurate but more politically correct (and less accusatory) "Abortion rights rally draws support from political candidates." This was because virtually every pro-abortion commenter took the the site's Disqus system to complain/lie that there are no pro-abortion people, a claim which is disingenuous at best.

Surely there may be a few people who honestly believe that they are and can be what Mario Cuomo claimed to be--personally against abortion, but politically pro-choice. His son has put the lie to that statement and voiced the much more prevalent view from the Left that pro-lifers aren't welcome. Commenter Charles Findlay puts it well when he writes, "What's the 'choice'?...spell it out in all its ugly forms." You can either be for abortion or against it: all shades of gray ultimately fall on one side or the other, and while posing some legitimate practical challenges to a pro-life society they are generally used more to obfuscate the problem than to honestly seek its solutions.

As for the media's covereage in general and the Daily Texan's in particular, my acquaintance put it nicely with his rhetorical question, " Is the Daily Texan in the business of teaching and promoting Yellow Journalism to students?"

Seven Quick Takes Friday (vol. 4): A Round-Up of Reactions

Maybe not a full round-up, but some reactions to the Pope's interview, which can be read in form approved by the Holy Father here. Erm, I agree with the other guy that what the pope is saying and what he's being reported as saying by the media are two entirely separate things, that the media's interpretation of the interview (and of what it means) are flat-out wrong, whether through their imbecilic ignorance or through their deliberate malice. Anyhow, here are a few reactions from around the web.

1. Father Z has an instant reaction and a fisking reaction, both worth reading:
   

   Through interviews – and the coverage of interviews – a “virtual Francis” is being created. An interview, by its nature, can only go so far. Short questions and short responses only go so deep. 

   We have to make sure that, with all the media attention, with all these interviews, that the “virtual Francis” is not stronger than the real Francis. 

   That is exactly what Benedict XVI – in his last days as Pope – said and warned about how the Second Vatican Council was interpreted. The media and others created a virtual Council.  Remember that? There is a Council of the Media and a Council of the Fathers. 

   Week by week a Francis of the Media is being crafted. 

2. Father Longenecker also has a reflection up, noting that some of what the pope is saying will be lost in translation simply because of the difference between the culture of Latin America (very Catholic culturally, perhaps a bit too clerical) as opposed to America and Europe (libearl Protestant/Post-Christian/anti-clerical).
3. Catholic vote notes that Pope Benedict said in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est pretty much the same thing as Pope Francis is saying in the interview. Also, this: "To read [the Pope's remarks] and say that the Pope wants to be accepting of abortion and contraception and gay marriage is like reading the story of Jesus and the Woman at the Well and say it shows how accepting Jesus is of adultery."
4. LifeNews read the same interview as all the mainstream outlets, yet it managed to come to pretty much the exact opposite conclusion. Might this have something to do with the fact taht there are actual serious and sincere Catholics on the staff of LifeNews, a thing which appears to be lacking among mainstream journalists?
5. Marcel Lejeune has posted a set of of seven things about the Pope which rub Certain Catholics (conservative, tradition-loving, orthodox, faithful) the wrong way, and then explains why each shouldn't. Eh, it's not a bad assessment, save that the part about being "pro-immigrant" lends itself to politically supporting amnesty (under any name) and other foolhardy endeavors which will create more problems than they solve.
6. The pope's interview comes as a bit of a communications blindside for the bishops, which will almost certainly result in a great number of Americans erroneously believing that he just overturned 2000 years of Church teaching on homosexuality, abortion, and contraception.
7. Finally, there is the reaction from the New Liturgical Movement, which is straightforward and thoughtful:
   

   Nothing in the Pope's words undo any Catholic teaching. What's more, he intends no change whatsoever. What he is bringing to these hot-button issues is a humane clarity that reflects an aspect of Catholicism that is frequently overlooked in the world at large. It is the most common perception in the world today that Catholicism is nothing more than a strict set of life rules and the Church herself operates as the more judge and inquisitor not only over its members but over the society at large.... 

   Pope Francis is next in line. With renewed clarity about doctrine, morals, and liturgy having taken place, and having inherited this template, he is interested in adding a crucial and critical pastoral and evangelistic element that he perceives to be lacking. His contribution is additive, not corrective. And what he has said is clearly true and introduces an element that has always been present but has too often been ignored by the press and the world. Further -- and this should not be forgotten -- he is speaking not as an infallible guide to all things but only as the pastor.

     Very well put.

Bonus: More reactions will come in, I'm sure, but this is already a lot for now. Also, this image from Catholic Memes:

Seven quick Takes Friday is hosted by Jennifer Fulwiler.

What Did the Pope Really Say?

With apologies to Fr John Zuhlsdorf (whose excellent blog can only accomplish so much [1]), if I had a lot more spare time (and if I read Italian fluently), I would probably make a knock-off of his blog which focused exclusively on the Media's coverage of the pope. Specifically, I would probably have a daily article similar to this piece on the Nicene Guys' site detailing that day's biggest media botching of the pope's latest interview/open letter/homily/Weekly Address.

This time around, we have the interview (a papal-approved version of which is in America Magazine), and then the New York Times' version of what was said in the interview [2]. Notice the early bait-and-switch in the NYT ("Hell's Handbook") version: the pope says that pastorally, the Church should not just focus on abortion/homosexuality/contraception as being so incompatible with the Church that she cannot welcome a person who commits those sins; the NYT spins this into saying that the Church preaches against these too much (when was the last homily you heard which focused on any of these things?); and then goes after the bishops for holding political campaigns against these things.

Here is the relevant section of the Pope's interview, with some of my emphases:

the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.... [ellipsis in original] And you have to start from the ground up.

“The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all. The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much of a rigorist or too lax. Neither is merciful, because neither of them really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands so that he leaves it to the commandment. The loose minister washes his hands by simply saying, ‘This is not a sin’ or something like that. In pastoral ministry we must accompany people, and we must heal their wounds....

A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing. 

“This is also the great benefit of confession as a sacrament: evaluating case by case and discerning what is the best thing to do for a person who seeks God and grace. The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better. I also consider the situation of a woman with a failed marriage in her past and who also had an abortion. Then this woman remarries, and she is now happy and has five children. That abortion in her past weighs heavily on her conscience and she sincerely regrets it. She would like to move forward in her Christian life. What is the confessor to do?

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

“The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.

“I say this also thinking about the preaching and content of our preaching. A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep and sure than this proclamation. Then you have to do catechesis. Then you can draw even a moral consequence. But the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives. Today sometimes it seems that the opposite order is prevailing. The homily is the touchstone to measure the pastor’s proximity and ability to meet his people, because those who preach must recognize the heart of their community and must be able to see where the desire for God is lively and ardent. The message of the Gospel, therefore, is not to be reduced to some aspects that, although relevant, on their own do not show the heart of the message of Jesus Christ.”

And here is how the NYT reports it:

Pope Francis, in the first extensive interview of his six-month-old papacy, said that the Roman Catholic church had grown “obsessed” with preaching about abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that he has chosen not to speak of those issues despite recriminations from some critics...

“It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” the pope told the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a fellow Jesuit and editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal whose content is routinely approved by the Vatican. “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.  

“We have to find a new balance,” the pope continued, “otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel.”...

The new pope’s words are likely to have repercussions in a church whose bishops and priests in many countries, including the United States, often appeared to make combating abortion, gay marriage and contraception their top public policy priorities. These teachings are “clear” to him as “a son of the church,” he said, but they have to be taught in a larger context. “The proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives.” 

 Notice the subtle shifts here, the things which are left out, the things which are ignored. The pope is speaking as a pastor, noting that yes, abortion, homosexuality, and contraception are all evil. They are all sins, and noting that those who deny this are in fact not being merciful, either. There is a danger of being too rigorous, which is that too rigorous (frankly, focusing on the sin without pastoral care or tact) tends to drive people away. This is unfortunate, and to be blunt it is every bit as much a problem with the person who turns away from the Church and frankly from Truth as it is with the confessor (or preacher) who presents this truth tactlessly or carelessly.

The NYT ignores this fact when it focused solely on its boo-group, the conservatives. We often run the danger of being to rigorous, but that danger is no worse than the danger of being too lax ("saying, 'This is not a sin,' or something like that"). That "This is not a sin" is exactly the message which the NYT is saying.

They also ignore that the whole part here is pastoral, since much of the focus is on the sacrament of confession. There are a few key things pre-supposed by this sacrament which are roundly ignored here:

1. That sin is a reality, and that we are do it
2. That homosexuality (meaning the acts and not just the disordered orientation [3]), abortion, and contraception specifically are among those things which are sinful
3. That confession requires an acknowledgement of the sin and repentance from it, meaning that the assumption is that the person in the confessional already knows that abortion, homosexual acts, and contraception are sins and is making a resolve to no commit them anymore
4. That the purpose of confession is to grant God's mercy and forgiveness through the absolution of sins.

 Most of the rest of the interview is stuff that not only the Pope but also the bishops, even the conservative ones, have pretty much always been saying. The whole concept of a seamless garment of life, for example, is not new to this papacy. The idea that there is some context to salvation is not something invented in the last few decades, let alone the last few years. It seems to me that the pope is here saying that the fundamental thing is the Gospel ("good news") of Jesus Christ and of our salvation--which, of course, implies that there is something (sin, damnation, hell) to be saved from--and that this should be the first thing upon which we focus. But notice that he does not stop there, despite the NYT's portrayal. To quote the pope again:

"A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep and sure than this proclamation. Then you have to do catechesis. Then you can draw even a moral consequence."

Notice that all three of these things are necessary for a good homily, and necessary in the order listed: first the good news, then the (theological/doctrinal) catechesis, then the moral consequences. Yet, to read the media's coverage of it, it somehow becomes a clarion call to ignore catechesis and morality [4].

As for the pope, he is not ignoring the realities of sin, but rather is choosing to focus on the beauty of sanctity and of the Church, on the goodness of God's love and mercy, and on the Truth of the Gospels. The morality flows from first being drawn to the beauty of the Gospels, and then to the Truth of the Faith. There's nothing wrong with that, save what the media attempts to corrupt.

---

[1] Father John Zuhlsdorf, plus Jimmy Akin, and the folks at the Get Religion blog could all dedicate their lives to this and still not be able to undo all the damage which the mainstream media has done. 

[2] To pick just one single media hack job. There will be more, and worse distortions (I'm probably looking at you, Slate, Huffington Post).

[3] Has everybody already forgotten about the whole "gay lobby" thing? Or the fact that the pope quite clearly calls it a thing from the devil:

Let’s not be naive: This is not a simple political fight; it is a destructive proposal to God’s plan. This is not a mere legislative proposal (that's just it’s form), but a move by the father of lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God. . . . Let’s look to St. Joseph, Mary, and the Child to ask fervently that they defend the Argentine family in this moment. . . .May they support, defend, and accompany us in this war of God.

How about his statements about the importance of the family, by which he rather clearly means the Traditional Family? Or the fact that in the first few months of his papacy, he mentioned the reality of the devil in more than a few of his early homilies/other addresses.

[4] Not to mention the NYT's rather pointed (and pointless) slight against those who like the Tridentine Mass.

Quick Links: On Bubbles and Bubble-Heads

You'd have to be in a pretty far left bubble to believe the Daily Kos' claim that the media is not liberal. Of course, it is the Daily Kos we're talking about here, but still. It's not just a matter of what stories the media does and does not report that shows their bias (although that is a part of it), but also of the slant they give to the things they do report. As David Warren noted in his relatively recent column for The Catholic Thing, that slant is becoming the story, in that where once we could infer the news from the stories reported by reading between the lines, there is no longer sufficient content in most "new stories" to do so. They function as pure propaganda, and it's mostly propaganda for the left.

Speaking of bubbles, a certain Slate writer (Amanda Marcotte, last seen making some rather arrogant--and frankly stupid--claims about pro-life men) has an article which is worthy of Screwtape's machinations. In it we find an argument as to why parents should condone their teens' shacking up in their own bedrooms. The reason I say it's worthy of Screwtape is because it poses a dilemma between pushing children into a hook-up culture through "sneaking around" and simply outright condoning their fornication in the context of providing them a place (their own bedroom) to fornicate safely with their current boy-friend or girlfriend. Does this latter approach teach monogamy? Yes, if one counts serial monogamy, and assuming that the teens in question don't decide to have a menage-a-trois. I smell a false dichotomy, but that would be par for the course for Slate and its ilk.

Chattanooga: Home of The Free

Well, not really, no. The press certainly isn't free, when a man gets fired for writing something as honest as this. Apparently even the two-bit local news can't stand to see The Won criticized.

Quick Link: How Bad Is the Media?

This bad. They're not even trying to be investigative journalists, or to report the facts; instead, they have a narrative, and they're sticking to it, and churning out whatever propaganda they can to further that narrative:

It would take a Special Kind of Idiot to think she was on-the-level. 

But the media is filled with exactly that sort of Special Kind of Idiots. And the mistake is on them, not her. 

Again: All they had to do was... ask a single question. 

Which the media didn't do. Why bother? We know the facts without asking about them.We know that Zimmerman protesters are "Racist & Proud;" what is the point of examining evidence about this closely? We know what the evidence would show, if we had any. 

"The media can't resist a good storyline" is of course their only failing, you know. 

By the way: The media routinely chides Breibart and the right generally for getting stories wrong. But I don't seem to notice the media itself ever confessing error and apologizing in cases of gross and stupid error like this. 

What I see them doing is burying stories, stealth-correcting, or just leaving the error to displace the truth (as happened with IRS Building Bomber Joseph Stack, an avowed communist whom the media still insists was a "Tea Partier" or at least had such leanings).

An, it's worth noting, the media mistook this woman holding a parody racist sign ("We're racist & we're proud!") as a Zimmerman supporter, despite that fact that this occurred at an anti-Zimmerman rally. So even with the narrative to advance, basic journalistic integrity, to say nothing of simple honesty, would have required the reporter in question to ask if the sign was serious and if the woman really was pro-Zimmerman before reporting that this was the case.

Media Priorities

I'm with Ace on this one. First of all, what's happening in Detroit may be what happens to the rest of the country under Obamacare if it's ever actually implemented. Second, it's funny how the media makes a "national conversation" out of the Zimmerman trial but ignores things which are arguably more relevant to the national (because they are actually systematic and endemic):

The media wants to talk a bunch about the Zimmerman case and have "national conversations" about lessons we need to learn from a 45-second confrontation involving two people. 

Notice they don't want to have national conversations about what lessons we can learn from 51 years of True Blue Democratic administration in Detroit.

Things like the slow decline to bankruptcy of Detroit under the union regs and Democrat policies (only to be told, in essence, to drop dead by the Obama White House), or like the similar bankruptcy of every other city in high-tax, high-spending blue-as-the-ocean California, are largely ignored by the media. They sometimes/often report that it happened (a rare case of actually reporting the news, though without any real investigative journalism involved), but it's for some reason never material for a "national conversation." Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to delay the full implementation of the employer mandate (though not the evil HHS contraceptive/abortifacient mandate) while working on finding a way to satisfy his special interests group (like the unions, which are suddenly against it), knowing full well that this is exactly the kind of thing that will turn American into one big Bankrupt California, or Detroit. And when the unemployment rate goes up permanently, I expect the crime rate to follow.

But yes, dear media and Dear Leader, please feel free to make this a national conversation about how we need to get rid of "stand your ground" laws and need more strict gun control, and about how self-defense is raciss.

Quick Quote: Monsignor Charles Pope on "The News"

Monsignor Pope doesn't like the mainstram media much, either.

The news does not really seem to be the news. Either it is advocacy journalism, or it is simply trying to peddle crisis and controversy or just showing how shallow and debased our culture has become. The result for me was too much anger, anxiety, and even a sort of bitterness for “them” i.e. the people on the other side. 

Yes, I was being played. And I didn’t like it. And most of the people who were trying to play me and sell increasingly insulting news do not share my faith and even feel free to ridicule what I find sacred, holy and valuable.

Life would be better if "the news" was presented without "the views." I mean, is it so much to ask for a reasonably honest attempt to just report the events, sort of what happened, when, where, how, and who?

Stand Your Ground

Whatever else one may think of the Zimmerman-Martin trials, it's worth noting two things that they really were not about:

1. Race
2. Stand your ground laws.

Martin happened to be black, and Zimmerman happened to be white (Hispanic), but this was tangential at best to this case. The folks like Je$$e Jack$on and Al $harpton (and for that matter, Barack Obama and Eric Holder) do the nation no favors by attempting to make it about race. I'm thinking that Zimmerman probably would have shot Martin had he been white or Hispanic or Asian rather than black. And, as it turns out, about a year before this whole incident Zimmerman himself had testified before against the the local police in defense of a homeless black man. So race really doesn't come into play here.

Second, there's the "Stand Your Ground" laws, which are in the media's crosshairs. However, that law was never mentioned in the trial, neither by defense nor prosecution (and believe me, the prosecution tried everything and anything it could think of, including the ridiculous--this is the one place where race actually did come into play during the trial). The Stand Your Ground laws are actually quite reasonable: they basically mean that a person who is attacked in a public (or private) place does not need to retreat before pulling a gun in self-defense.

Some states have the opposite kind of law; a sort of "you must attempt to retreat first" law, which in some cases has applied even to private property. This means that the law effectively states that during a home invasion, a person is required to attempt to gather himself and his family into the farthest reach of the house before he can legally pull a gun and start shooting. That seems to me to be a bit of overkill in the opposite direction, and it gives an immediate tactical advantage to any criminal who attempts a home invasion.

The same is true in public spaces. In any good defensive carry class, the instructors will teach you to look for a way to avoid conflict (including by fleeing) before pulling a gun in defense; that's pretty much a given. But there is a world of difference between saying that a person must make some attempt to flee before defending himself, and saying that flight is the best first option. Zimmerman may have acted foolishly in following Martin around, and he is paying for that folly in ways that most of us cannot imagine. He got lucky with the innocent verdict, and I think that this ultimately was the right verdict, but he will still have that hanging on his conscience: did he do everything he could to avoid the situation? And he will never be able to go back to life as he knew it again: there are plenty of people who (thanks to the race-baiting mentioned above) will no doubt be looking for ways to "get" him and those whom he loves. He'll have to watch his back as a result.

However, Zimmerman's foolishness cannot be fairly blamed on the Stand Your Ground laws (he claims to have not been aware of those laws at the time, though this seems a little odd and suggests the need for some improvement in the CCW instructions/licensing for Florida). At the point in which the encounter turned violent, there wasn't much opportunity for Zimmerman to flee anyway, and certainly not at the point when he shot Martin--at least not according to the evidence we have available.

The media does nobody any favors by politicizing this court case, or otherwise attempting to manufacture "facts" in pursuit of their own agenda. Overturning laws which are on the books for very valid reasons will not bring back Martin, and it furthermore won't help anybody to sleep safer at night.