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.


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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.

A Few God Links (vol. 22)

I think after this week I may undergo a self-imposed moratorium on discussing "gay marriage" and the Obergefell v Hodges case, for a little while at least:

1. One thing which has long bothered me about this issue is the amount of deliberate deception practiced with regards to what Christ and His Church have and haven't aught regarding marriage in general and "gay marriage" in particular. Mark Shea has a good rundown of three lies employed in the present war against (Christian) marriage.
2. On a related note, seminarian Joe Heschmeyer has a good rebuttal to all of those ridiculous (insulting, and to be blunt, lying) flow charts put out as propaganda against the Christian position on marriage. I suspect that this set of propaganda--these charts, their approach, their successful misleading of many otherwise faithful Christians--have done more to directly erode the societal opposition to gay marriage than any other propaganda. I should also include a link to a good chart which upholds the Christian argument.
3. On a related note, The Gospel Coalition has a post on their blog asking 40 questions of those Christians who have been waving rainbow flags (and participating in "pride parades" etc.) in the wake of the Obergefell v Hodges decision. The blog is geared mostly for Protestants (in particular evangelicals)--and specifically ones who take their faith at least somewhat seriously--but most of these questions work for Catholics as well. Actually, a few of the questions are good reflection questions for all of us in general, on whatever side of this culture war battle we happened to fall on. "Do you believe it is possible to love someone and disagree with important decisions they make?" or "Do you hope to be more committed to the church, more committed to Christ, and more committed to the Scriptures in the years ahead?"
4. If marriage is a dignity-granting institution, where does that leave all the single people? When marriage--or at leas "romantic" (sexual") relationships--becomes the only way to know love, where does that leave friendship and the other loves?
5. You know that the "pro-gay" propaganda has an ulterior motive when we Christians have to introduce ourselves by saying, "I'm a Christian, not a bigot." The churches have always been the target and their destruction the goal here, not some mythical "equality" or "dignity."
6. Some forms of incestuous marriage are currently legal in some states. Did you assume I meant Alabama or Mississippi? No, I meant a progressive and urban state, like New York.
7. Double standards? What double standards? Whatever do you mean that their is an agenda against the Church among progressive fools and the societal elite and the media moguls (but I repeat myself)?
8. Where do we go from here? I agree with some of the suggestions that we should evangelize by our lives--show not tell--but I also admit that this is a very difficult proposition:
   
9. On another topic, it is necessary to put the pope's words in context. That is often needed, since our media likes to quote him out of context (at best) and then further misconstrue what he says or does (that is, they like put lies in his mouth which he never uttered).Here, for example, is some context about his recent remarks about weapons manufacture and arms trade.
10. A haunting and timely warning to America: no power on this earth lasts forever.

It's hard to discus other topics when one so large is looming on the horizon, or when one becomes the forefront of most discussion in society.

Protecting Religious Freedom

I've read a few articles of late about Indiana's recent passage of a Religious Freedom Protection Act. It seems to me that the informed opinion is that this act--like laws in 19 other states which have been passed since the early 1990's--basically just weighs religious liberties against compelling interests of the state. My comment here is that it is not a good thing that we need such an act, a point which I have noted before. Nevertheless, the state has made it quite clear that it will overreach wherever possible, including by attempting to stamp out religious liberties.

The most visible way in which it does this is by trying to invoke so-called "gay rights" (hence all of the hysteria of how this law which never mentions GBLT-etc folks is somehow "anti-gay). Invoking so-called "women's rights" arguably a close second. Forcing Christians to participate in so-called "gay marriage ceremonies" as photographers, bakers, floral-arrangers, and perhaps even as ministers is the all-too-common example of the former; the Obama administration's rather tyrannical HHS contraceptive-abortifacent-sterilization mandate is an example of the latter.

In all, this law is meant to be a sort of shield for religious liberties, though I suspect that it may be a rather nebulous one. Case in point, I have yet to hear of any Christian who is sued for exercising his conscience cite any of the various RFRA-analogs. This isn't the Arizona version of the bill, after all.

On the other hand, it seems that these bills provide a flimsy shield at best, since it will largely end up being the state which gets to decide when the state has compelling interests. Not to mention, that is repeat, but the fact that we have sunk so far as to need a law like this is also a rather ill omen.

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.

Pope Francis Is Not a Progressive

It would be nice if our idiotic media would stop portraying the pope as being another simple progressive: in his own words, he is not a center leftist, and to portray him as such is an "oversimplification":

If you don’t follow European politics, the Social Democrats are the main center-left party, so it’s a bit like an American asking the pope if he’s a Democrat. 

Francis actually laughed out loud, and then said: “Caro, questo è un riduzionismo!”
The Italian basically translates as, “My dear friend, that’s an over-simplification!” 

Francis went on to talk about how he tries to follow the Gospel and the social teaching of the Catholic Church, not any party line... 

In truth, the idea of Francis as a Social Democrat in Strasbourg — and, therefore, as a repudiation of the Catholic Church’s perceived drift to the political right under Pope Benedict XVI — depends entirely on listening to only part of what Francis had to say.

The mainstream media is rather corrupted, and thus corruptive. It twists the pope's words, and really it flat out ignores those things which he says about retaining the Church's moral teachings:

Had it been Benedict who journeyed into the heart of secular Europe and said the exact same things, the question likely would have been: “Holy Father, are you on the far right?” The difference has little to do with what Francis actually said, and everything to do with how the narrative dictates he should be perceived.

It's all about the angle, or the narrative. It's all about getting the people to buy into the story.

Noah Millman Continues to be a Hack

And I, like an Alzheimer's patient, continue to click on his articles and them skim them (no link for you, hack). I need to stop, really. I still cannot fathom why he (or, for that matter, Andrew Sullivan) are considered "conservatives." Here he is rambling on about the "weirdness" of Religion (and especially Christianity, with a specific example taken from Catholicism, despite that he is arguing again Dreher, an Eastern Orthodox Christian):

 It’s as if you explained your love for your wife in terms of evolutionary psychology; an explanation not only avoids addressing your love for her, a specific individual, it suggests that you don’t, in fact, love her, a specific individual. 

But Christianity takes the weirdness to a whole ‘nother level.... 

Dreher snarks about journalists being ignorant of the miracle of transubstantiation, but think for a moment about that miracle, and what is being asked of believers in affirming its truth. The wine and bread are not merely taken “in remembrance” of Jesus; they are supposed to literally turn into the blood and body of the man who was also God, and you are supposed to affirm that this has happened against all the evidence of one’s senses that nothing has happened at all. Isn’t the most sane response to the fact that Christians have slaughtered each other over whether or not wine was really blood and bread was really flesh some version of Brobdingnagian incredulity?... 

I’m also creeped out by people who have, as they say, drunk the Kool-aid, who affirm absurdities as a matter of “faith” and have willfully abandoned any consciousness of the absurdity of what they are affirming.

First of all, Rod Dreher is Eastern Orthodox, and thus belongs to a Church that doesn't explicitly have the concept of transubstantiation. That doctrinal development belong to the Latin West, the Catholic Church, post-schism (or perhaps I should say, the term and the exact definition came about in the west predominantly after the schism). Sure, the idea it captures is generally held by Dreher and other Orthodox, because they also believe that in communion, the bread and wine transform into the body and blood of Christ (literally). The Eastern Orthodox never really developed the philosophy behind how, exactly, this transformation comes about, but rather leave it at the level of a mystery.

Dreher uses the idea as an illustration of journalistic ignorance, and then Millman pounces on it as a way of attacking Dreher's Christianity, as if every sect explicitly accepts transubstantiation, thereby basically proving Dreher's point. If Millman's entire point is that the mysterious nature of transubstantiation is hard to understand, then fine, that is the point of a mystery, but the fact that the Christian faith has these mysteries (Luther's objection to this particular mystery aside, since there are other mysteries like the doctrine of the Trinity which are accepted by all Christians) would make the religion a bit more credible as something other than a mere human invention.


More broadly, it seems to me that the American Conservative website is more intent on combating Republicans (and especially those awful Tea-Partiers) and anything which seems a vestige of "Republican culture" than conserving anything. Religion is, apparently, one of those somethings, but so is the argument over the the debt limit, which is supposedly being driven by the Tea Party (who knew that Boehner was a member of the Tea party?). I'm surprised that they didn't retroactively claim justice Scalia as a Tea Party member in their denunciation of him (ironically written by a man named McCarthy). Their resistance to supposed ideology is admirable, but unfortunately even resistance to ideology can itself become ideological, and the American Conservative too often falls into this ideology-against-movements.

Meanwhile, here's a clue for the clueless regarding modern politics: if you are shilling for the Democratic party, you are not a conservative. Doubly true, if you are shelling for them as a regular thing, both for their cnadidates/politicians and their proposals. There is no "conservative defense of Obamacare," and no "conservative argument for raising the debt ceiling indefinitely."

Slanted Reporting: Excommunication Edition

Australia's laicized former priest*, Greg Reynolds, has been excommunicated--and not by his local ordinary. The excommunication comes from the Vatican, perhaps from Pope Francis himself. That is pretty much automatic when one has been laicized and one continues to celebrate the Eucharist--I'm not a canon lawyer, but I do believe that this is something like simulating a sacrament and celebrating an illicit Mass, which together carry the automatic penalty of excommunication, regardless of whether the man in question is also a "dissident" (he is) concerning serious matters of faith or morality (in his case, both).

Oddly enough, the article linked by New Advent has the same spin one would expect from the mainstream media: they never come out an say that the Vatican is wrong to laicize or excommunicate him. However, the implications are certainly there, and it is also implied that excommunication is something to take lightly (it is not):

Father Reynolds, who resigned as a parish priest in 2011 and last year founded Inclusive Catholics, said he had expected to be laicised (defrocked), but not excommunicated. But it would make no difference to his ministry.

''In times past excommunication was a huge thing, but today the hierarchy have lost such trust and respect,'' he said.

''I've come to this position because I've followed my conscience on women's ordination and gay marriage.''...

Father Reynolds is not the first Australian Catholic to be excommunicated. The best-known was Sister Mary MacKillop, who was excommunicated by her local bishop but was reinstated. In 2010 she became Australia's first saint.

Note the comparison: Sister Mary MacKillop was once excommunicated, and now she's a saint. The implication couldn't be clearer. However, in this case it's not the local bishop doing the excommunicating, nor is Mr. Reynolds likely to be reinstated anytime soon. Nor, for that matter, does one discern any heroic virtues about him, any sense of personal holiness, or of beatitude. I'm not saying that he can't be a saint, for we are all sinners and any man can repent; God's grace can seep into any soul which is open to it. However, Mr. Reynolds strikes me as being more sanctimonious than saintly, a saints do not typically show such selfish pride as to be deliberately dissident on matters of doctrine and dogma.

Heaven is not the home of those who are hellbent in their heresies to the point of obstinacy and final impenitence.


*Ordination leaves an indelible mark, so former priest may not actually be accurate here. When he dies, his soul will retain the mark of ordination, whether bound for purgatory and heaven or for hell.



Update: A palate cleanser from Dr Edward Peters.

Morissey vs the Moron

Ed Morissey (and the rest of the internet) performs his autopsy on the recent Slate article claiming that people who don't send their kids to public schools are morally evil:

"Benedikt’s entire argument is that non-participants in an organization ruin it by their non-participation.  It’s not the actual participants who are to blame for the institution’s failures – not the teachers, not the administrators, and not the policy-makers — but the people who avoid the failure that should be blamed.... 

Before we deconstruct the idiocies in that argument, let’s test that theory.  The worst-performing school districts tend to be those in densely-populated urban cores, where teachers routinely complain not of half-empty classrooms but of student-teacher ratios that are way too high. If Benedikt’s theory holds water, then those districts — where school choice is verboten and economic opportunities to provide alternatives are nearly as rare — should be models for educational improvement. Over the last 50 years, which direction have these schools taken?  According to every measure, it’s not the path of excellence. 

Even more fundamentally, Benedikt argues that parents should have the welfare of the public sector as a higher ideal than that of their own children.  So what if they get a lousy education?  Kids fifty years from now might get a better one if parents today would only sacrifice their children’s future on the altar of the Public School Gods, whose beneficence can only be derived through complete sacrifice! And speaking of the common good, exactly how does producing a few generations of mediocre-educated children improve the communities and the country as a whole?  The only way this strategy makes any sense is we aim for a future that looks a lot like the film Idiocracy."

What is it with leftist "progressives" and doubling down on abject stupidity? That the public schools are failing is basically reason to pull as many children out of them as possible. Tear them down and start a new system, preferably one in which there is some balance-of-power between parents and teachers (but not unions, which in this case are worse than worthless). Making the failure into an "education" monopoly (or, more accurately, a publicly-owned education cartel) will not result in their bettering their product (in this case, education), nor for that matter will it result in better conditions for the teachers. A vibrant (and accessible) private/charter/homeschool system which exists as an alternative to the failing public schools is a boon to those parents who do care about their children's education.

Slate-fest Hate-fest Hosted by Ace

Ace is doing a Slate-hatefest, and it is awesome.It begins with, "Slate, the Amateur Online Webzine Specializing in Hit-Trolling and Outrage-Fishing: First in a Series." Opening line: "Well, it looks like the Washington Post was just so many chains holding back the Mighty Joe Young that is Slate. Because they're now parading their naked id in public, in all its stupid, ridiculous, laughable, sub-retarded inglory." We then continue with "Slate, the Group Blog That Troll-Baits With Provocative Stupidity: Second in a Series," and finally end with the real doozy post: "Slate, The Blog That Trolls Its Own Readers, Last in a Series."

"I'm going to digest this rather than quoting it: It's the straighforward proposition that if the state compels you to put your child in a horrible school, you will have skin in the game, an investment in the system, and then will in turn forced to vote the way the Teachers Unions want you to, and this will make Skoolz Better, or something. 

Although she does specifically say she doesn't want to ban schools; she just wants to make the moral case why you're horrible if you attempt to educate your children.... 

I'm omitting something here. You can check the article for her exact words. She sneers off the idea of religious reasons outright, but then says wanting your kid to go to a school which is not horrible is a worthy impulse in and of itself, but that's all the more reason to send your kid to a horrible school. 

Here it comes. Here's the part where she starts saying -- and she really does say this; I won't be paraphrasing, but quoting -- that she went to terrible public schools and learned (by her accounting) almost nothing, which is precisely why all kids must be forced to go to public school."

Saddly, I've seen this argument mad before by real live people, and not just the leftbots who propagandize for Slate/Gawker/MSNBC.