The Kung Fu Monkey. Go for his thorough and amusing discourse about “Catholic” League rightwingnut William Donahue’s hand-wringing about John Edwards choice of bloggers to use as netroots staffers; stay for everything else.
Masson's Blog
The Kung Fu Monkey. Go for his thorough and amusing discourse about “Catholic” League rightwingnut William Donahue’s hand-wringing about John Edwards choice of bloggers to use as netroots staffers; stay for everything else.
The whole Edwards-blogger flap has become way too much about the messenger. I’m a Catholic, and I can’t really disagree with anything that KFM says about Donahue. He doesn’t speak for me, he doesn’t speak for most Catholics, and he certainly doesn’t speak for the Catholic Church as an institution. I have to think that even Donahue must be quietly amazing at the renown he has achieved. The biggest problem with Donahue isn’t that he exists, it’s that the lazy mass media treats Donahue as the go-to guy for the Catholic Church’s position on issues rather than, say, someone from the Church hierarchy or someone who is officially employed by the Church. So, I’m fully on board with the idea of Bill Donahue (and Michelle Malkin, to boot) as a very negative force in American politics and within the Catholic Church.
That said, justified contempt for Donahue has put many bloggers in the unfortunate position of defending the trash spouted by Amanda Marcotte. The notion that Marcotte is being flogged for salty language is disingenuous at best. Here are some choice quotes from Marcotte:
and:
She also has choice words for NASCAR as a vehicle for white supremacy and some really indefensible recent comments on the thoroughly discredited Duke rape prosecution. Now, I don’t wish to get into some debate of whether Marcotte is a bigot. What seems clear is that she will go out of her way to impugn the motives and character of the Pope, the Catholic Church and anyone else who does not fit her ideological worldview.
In sum, I think it’s fair to say that the range of Catholics who would be deeply, personally offended by what Marcotte said is much broader than the much smaller group of Catholics who identify with Bill Donahue. Personally, I am a Catholic, but I’m also a reliable Democratic voter and I find the meshing of religion and politics on the right to be distressing. I’m not a comrade of the Dobson/Donahue set. So, pick your cliche: sometimes a blind pig finds an acorn, a stopped clock is right twice a day, whatever. As repugnant as he may be, Donahue appears to have stumbled across the right answer on this one. Kung Fu’s claim that Marcotte’s statements are nothing more than the vast majority of Catholics thing is just stunning. Why would anyone who thinks the Pope is some scheming evil genius who isn’t acting in good faith be or remain a Catholic?
I don’t think anyone comes out of this looking particularly good, but perhaps Edwards and his campaign look worse than anyone. How sloppy was the Edwards campaign to hire a blogger without reading her blog? I think Edwards looked like a craven fool by expressing his personal offense at the statements, but accepting at face value the howler that Marcotte didn’t intend to impugn anyone’s religious faith. If that wasn’t her intent, what was her intent? Satire, as she claims? What is she satirizing? Is she satirizing unhinged right wingers like Michael Savage by pretending to be a similarly unhinged left-winger? I suppose less sophisticated types like me, those who buy into some ancient, mysogynist mythology, could easily mistake her for the real thing.
I don’t even know who Amanda Marcotte or Bill Donahue are.
John M, I don’t find the quotes you posted to be particularly troublesome. I can see why people with religious beliefs would be bothered by them, though, and as such they’re impolitic for someone who’s closely involved with a presidential campaign. (I guess an interesting question is how close Marcotte really is to Edwards.)
Your second quote from Marcotte makes a far more cogent point about Catholic doctrine than the former. It wouldn’t be the first time religious believers whined and pouted when presented with a disjunctive syllogism whose premises they dare not deny.
But what’s the point of having religious faith if you don’t get to switch off your brain?
I’m sorry, I’m a staunch Democrat & proud liberal, & one who wouldn’t mind seeing an Edwards challenge to the Clinton/Obama coronation, but Marcotte’s comments are just inexcusable for someone working for a presidential candidate. (The second quote in John’s post, in fact, is just gobbledygook rambling…) I’m also happy to say I’m a church-going Christian, but guess what? My faith helped lead me to the Democratic Party & liberalism. There are lots of others out there just like me, believe it or not. Take a look at sojourners.com. So, when I see some of Marcotte’s writings that are patently offensive to any Christian, not just Catholics, it immediately leaves me to question Edwards’ judgment for not getting rid of her. Wingnuts can come from the left sometimes, too. The Democratic Party can be a progressive, liberal, peace-loving party without their help, thank you very much. Insults to the intelligence of religious people generally also are not required. As a recent South Park episode so cleverly demonstrated, its extremism of any kind (including militant atheism) that gets us all into trouble…
Just by way of clarification, the comments did not come while she was part of the Edwards campaign.
My thought is that, offensive or not, the comments had nothing to do with her position with the Edwards campaign. Her position does not, as I understand it, involve making policy decisions generally or religious policy decisions specifically.
Edwards would be a fool to let Donahue and/or other folks who would never in a million years vote for him dictate his staff decisions. Donahue’s “concern” is a mere pretense. If it wasn’t this, he’d be thinking of other reasons not to like John Edwards.
So, it should be sufficient for Edwards to indicate whether or not he agrees with his staffer’s comments.
To summarize:
1. Comments made prior to employment.
2. Comments made by someone with no religious policy making role in the Edwards campaign.
3. Donahue is a gasbag.
4. Nonissue unless Edwards endorses these sentiments.
Well, yes. Still, I don’t think this is really in the category of a youthful indiscretion. It’s not comparable to flogging a candidate for secretary of the treasury over a college newspaper article from 1968 or some such thing. Amanda Marcotte was hired to be a “campaign blogger.” It’s not a leap of logic to presume that someone who is a political blogger of some renown who is hired to blog for a political campaign was hired because of that past blogging. I agree that these statements would be more significant if they were made in her capacity as the Edwards campaign blogger, but if her past blogging isn’t at all relevant, then why was she hired in the first place?
Well, presumably a campaign blogger is going to have a visible presence on behalf of the Edwards campaign. Her whole job is to be a prominent public face for the campaign. If Tony Snow said similar things about Muslims or Jews or atheists, would this be a non-issue merely because Snow has no official policymaking role in the Bush administration?
As I conceded. Donahue is on the lunatic fringe. The issue he raised is one that is relevant to more than the lunatic fringe (yes, I realize that Branden Robinson would probably consider any religious person to be a member of the lunatic fringe). Unfortunately, sometimes unsavory characters stumble across the correct viewpoint on a particular issue. Donahue’s rhetoric was way over the top as usual, and he is the boy who cried wold, but as to the position that Marcotte’s comments are offensive to Catholics and other Christians, he is correct here.
Should the Edwards campaign rise or fall based upon this flap? Probably not. But it’s not irrelevant. It says something about his leadership that someone in his campaign hired a high-profile blogger without reading her blog. And again, the comments at issue were made in a capacity as a blogger, in the same capacity in which she will work for Edwards. I thought the mealy-mouthed “I’m offended, but they assure me that these comments intended no offense” statement would have been poor work for a city council candidate, let alone for a presidential campaign. Someone thought that of all of the prominent and semi-prominent political bloggers in the United States, Amanda Marcotte and her hate-spewing rhetorical style were the best fit. Thst says something about John Edwards, or at least about the way he is running his campaign.
John M,
I don’t regard religious folks as necessarily being part of a lunatic fringe. Some are, most aren’t.
I do regard religious folks as embracing irrationality. It’s interesting how many people take offense at tautologies.
In any case, I don’t regard the second quote from Marcotte as “gobbledygook”. I won’t defend its concision, though, as I think I can do better myself:
* Catholic dogma recognizes a number of “locations” in the afterlife.
* Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory are three such locations.
* Unbaptized souls are ineligible for admission to Heaven or Purgatory in the afterlife.
* (Pope Benedict has repudiated the doctrine of Limbo.)
* The possibilies for the afterlife are exclusive (that is, your soul ends up in one and only of those places at any one time).
* A soul cannot end up in some “place” in the afterlife not recognized by the Church.
* There is no redemption from Hell, at least not until the end of time. (I’m not clear on Catholic eschatology.)
Therefore, the souls of unbaptized infants will burn in Hell until the end of time.
Mind you, I don’t have anything against irrationality per se; I think irrational processes are key to our enjoyment of food, sex, and art, for example.
I simply think irrationalism is a poor strategy for coping with public policy matters.
Incidentally, I welcome correction on my reasoning about church dogma above from any Catholics who are in a position to know better.
Branden,
I am not a Catholic, and I think you have summed up the offical logic of the church. I don’t see how you can have it both ways.
In my own reading of the Bible, it is not clear where those that are not baptized go. Many Christians hold to a “age of accountability”, a man-made idea just like purgatory. Until this age (or mental state I guess would be more approprate), everyone goes to Heaven. Once somone reaches this age, they must believe and be baptized to go to heaven.
The wording used in the Bible is “BORN into sin” or “BORN sinful”. My own thoughts based on this is that the unborn that die from whatever cause, natural or man-made, go to heaven.
Frankly, there isn’t much point in to debating the “what ifs” with that. Either Heaven and Hell or real or they are not. If they are real, then there is some way of sorting them out, and it really isn’t up to debate or popular opinion to define who goes where.
As to your question, the point of faith without switching off my brain is that faith isn’t possiable without thinking about it. Having faith without thought is just dumb, however I do agree that many people do just that. That is sad, because I fail to understand how people that put enough thought into it do not find that they have faith of one kind or another.
Either you have faith in God, or you have faith in science (man). Without one of those, your brain really is switched off.
I wouldn’t discuss the Catholic church under these circumstances. That needs to be on a broader perspective.As Doug pointed out above,these comments were not part of the Edwards blogs,so who dug all this stuff up on these bloggers? Other bloggers did. So we’d know the truth? In what original context were these awful characterizations? Edwards will always have these things brought up to discredit him;that’s what many bloggers do. The presidential campaign is just beginning and many of the bloggers haven’t even come to work yet.
A comment on ‘dogma’ mentioned above.. That’s a general term for ritual,lighting candles,and just about everything that is memorized and repeated in church.Each prayer has a history and a reference point.Out of church ‘dogma’ is always a negative reference . Ritual used properly frees the mind for contemplation,but everyone has the right to make it into mere meaningless repetition if he wants.
Jason,
You’re perfectly correct in that we have to choose our axioms. While it’s possible to turn science into an ideology, I see far less of that than I do in religion.
Critical aspects of the scientific approach to knowledge are falsifiability and verifiability. Religion — at least in the Abrahamic tradition — features neither of these. Religious precepts are presented in terms of eternal truth, and yet the nature of the deity is simultaneously posited as unknowable.
It is intriguing to me that many of the arguments against science — at least on topics that have been adopted as political issues by religious pressure groups — attack its process of knowledge-gathering by characterizing an essential strength as a weakness. That is its capacity to detect and rectify error.
If you have knowledge that is absolutely incapable of being false, then what you have is not knowledge.
Speaking very broadly, both rational (scientific) and irrational (religious) world-views recognize the fallibilty of humans. The difference appears to be that the rational approach recommends adaptation as a remedy, whereas the religious approach demands self-abasement.
Lou,
I was using the term “dogma” literally as I understand the term:
It is my understanding that the Catholic Church has over the past 1,700 years or so built up an extensive body of doctrine that is not directly drawn from the canon of the Bible. I had gathered that, used as such, this is not a term with pejorative connotations among Catholics. That it is the sense in which I was attempting to use the term “dogma” — if that’s incorrect, please clarify.
Some Protestant sects have dogma as well, and one could argue that even in those which emphasize literal interpretations of an inerrant Bible, an orthodoxy forms around the text which calls out certain parts for emphasis — such the characterization of homosexual sex as an “abomination” (Lev. 18:22) — and others which are glossed over or unmentioned, such as the characterization of eating shellfish as an “abomination” (Lev. 11:11-12).
Branden,
Thank you for being precise.
The RRC had a long period of time, up to the Reformation, to add on all kinds of power consolidating gimmicks and money-making beliefs.Your posted list overlaps Martin Luther’s list of grievances he tacked on that Wittenburg chrurch door,and that led to the Reformation. I have a little plack in German right in front of my computer, words by Martin Luther:Iss, was gar ist,trink, was klar ist,Red,was wahr ist.( eat clean food,drink pure water and discuss Truth) And excuse me for pointing out the obvious,but The RCC had hugely illiterate populations to minister to. Dogma is a matter of emphasis,and changes with the culture and needs of the church.Purgatory isn’t the top of the list any more,and abortion never used to any kind of issue til modern times. . but Hell has always been good money maker for the church. You could pay for prayer or buy Indulgences to get your loved ones’ souls to a more pleasant afterlife and we surely dont want babies’ souls suffering.The institutional church was( and is) power and money. By ‘church’ I mean ‘any church’ by extension. Think of ‘church’ as Halliburton with a ceo rather than a Pope.Both sell Indulgences. The RRC has so much dogma that you couldn’t follow it all if you even wanted.A catholic like me is the church’s ‘worse nightmare’but also might be their salvation,as Martin Luther was for a while.(I’m a believer who would choose science over church doctrine, if that were a forced choice)they can easily islolate and dismiss an Atheist.Churches LOVE atheists.
The Pedophilia Problem that may yet crumble the church to ruin could have been nipped in the bud years ago. All that would have had to happen is the Civil authorities coming into the Rectory and hauling off an excused priest to jail for investigation. Even Catholic haters balk at this MO,because we might have Evangelicals locked up with RC’s
one more point:
There is the very same emphasis on life as a preparation for the afterlife among today’s Conservative Christians. We need to avoid Hell and do what gets us into Heaven. The trouble is the list of things to believe and do is more political than celestial.The New RCC?
Though I am not Catholic myself, I think it fair to allow the Roman Church to speak for itself on what it believes about the fate of the soul’s of children who die without being baptized, rather than to defer to Branden’s logic (based on his usual selective choice of axioms) on the subject. I quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
“As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,” allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.”
Available at
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3M.HTM
It was Jaroslav Pelikan’s view that “dogma” was a “normative statement of Christian belief adopted by various ecclesiastical authorities and enforced as the official teaching of the church”. While there is plenty of room for being arbitrary here, adding that it is done “without regard to evidence or truth” seems more than a bit polemical.
In the long view the ability of churchmen to do good sometimes seems to me to be inversely proportional to their political influence (or shall we say their ability to grasp the sword?). The Lutheran theologian Bonhoeffer may have done as much good for the condition of man as any theologian of the last two centuries.
A friend and I were discussing what a great villan Lex Luthor is in “Smallville”. While I’m not into the show, I do love the way they have him portrayed. As my friend put it, “Lex wants to save the world, and nothing else matters. He’ll save us even if he has to kill us to do so.”
I think that is the slippery slope that many leaders fall into regardless of the cause they are working for. They feel so confident that their cause is just that they will to many bad things to make sure their singular goal is met.
Look at Pres. Bush and the war on terror, abortionists that blow up clinics, pro-choice leaders that actually desire more abortions, Christian leaders calling for the murder of the leaders of other countries, athiests that want to “de-convert” non-athiests, and the riots caused by peaceful protesters.
Everyone has the ability to pull an Anikin Skywalker. He just wanted peace in the galaxy. Isn’t that worth a few lives? A few hundred? A few billion?
Paul,
You’ll note I did ask for better citations, and I thank you for offering one.
(emphasis added)
The above quotation does not seem internally consistent to me. If the mercy of God can do anything for children who have died without Baptism, then how can humans prevent the little children from ending up wherever the mercy of God wants them?
Furthermore, I infer that you feel I made up my own definition of “dogma” — one that was self-serving, no less. If so, you’re mistaken. I cited the WordNet dictionary, an online dictionary I keep on my computer. If you’re interested in seeing the whole set of results, you can judge which definitions are applicable in this case:
Note that some of the sources are a bit old. Please direct any complaints about that to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
I remain surprised that MSNBC and other MSM outlets give Donahue a forum to spew his hate-filled messages. He is a lunatic who gives the Catholic leadership an even worse reputation than it already had.
No reason to be surprised. He pushes buttons and, therefore, sells ads. Ann Coulter has been spewing her venomous brand of hate for a decade now, and they still let her on the air from time to time.
We rarely see anywhere,as on this blog, such a high level of critical analysis of religion and politics.I and another 1% of the country listen to NPR,and beyond that we skip to PBS,then Lou Dobbs.We have been so overwhelmed by this awful’fair and balanced’ approach to issues that Fox News invented.It just means ‘make sure not only Bush administration is heard from by one of their mouthpieces,but that designated spokesmen like Donahue and Dobson give some official view from somewhere. . In depth anything is boring I guess and it’s bad for advertising.So thanks to Doug, and others who contribute. I have more insights into social issues as related to legislation and political agenda than I ever have had.( and I don’t have to pay a subscription)I hope also that my man-on-the street non-empirical ‘sharings’ also are of some interest.
They are, and I feel very much the same way. I’m thankful for everyone’s comments, even Brandon’s! :)