Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 1258

Frank Weathers expostulates on 10 Reasons...

...why he won't publish your uncharitable comment.

One of the telltale marks of a jerk is how quick he is to moan about censorship when he deliberately writes something to offend somebody else and finds his comments pulled by a blog moderator.  Add extra jerk points if, a) it never occurs to the jerk to wonder if something he said was out of line, b) he insults you for not letting him insult others, or c) goes to other threads on your blog or to another blog entirely to complain about you for "censoring" his "free speech".

Clues for the Rude: nobody has free speech on my blog.  I run a loose ship and mostly let people say what they like.  But nasty rude people need to remember that I expect you to behave on my blog as you would in my living room.  If you are rude I will warn you (if it seems to me you might not be an unteachable git) and, if you don't learn manners quickly, I will ban you.  Boo hoo to you if you feel oppressed and start shouting about the violence inherent in the system.  I received my kingly authority when a moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me and there's nothing you can do about it.

On rare occasions, spectacular jerks, banned from my blog, will cruise around the Catholic blogosphere bemoaning their outcast state on other blogs.  They are welcome to do so (and if you are a blogger who is tired of listening to them, I would recommend you adopt my basic "act as you would in my living room" policy--unless, of course, you are mad at me too, in which case you'll enjoy their company and everybody wins!).

Finally, to those whom I have banished from my comboxes, seeking to make common cause with other rudesbys I have banned, you should be cautious about the company you keep.  Sometimes, the enemy of your enemy is not really your friend and you might find yourself embarrassed to be found in virtual bed with them.  Take, for instance Larry Coty, who with asinine fatuity, has begun a FB "support group" for people traumatized by being banned from my comboxes.  (I'm not making this up.  He really calls it a "support group".)  He wanders about various Catholic blogs and, whenever the topic turns to how much some commenter loathes me, he offers an invitation to his support group. 

What he neglects to mention to these poor souls looking for love in all the wrong places is that what got him banned from my comboxes was his unflagging defense of the valor of the SS and the moving courage of Josef "Auschwitz Angel of Death" Mengele.  (You can see him making valuable contributions to the conversation here as "Larry C" and "Kurt" (and around the web under various other aliases like "Ulick Varange".)  Also, he seems not to have mentioned his noble support and encouragement of David "Mr. Holocaust Denial" Irving.

To be clear, I doubt very much any of the folks who signed up for "Banished by Mark Shea" have any idea they are hanging out with a guy who seems curiously comfortable rubbing shoulders with the denizens of Nazi.org, but it is amusing to contemplate how they would react if they found out. 

Moral: Be careful of the company you keep.  On the Internet, nobody knows you're a schweinhund.

This one's for you, Larry!

Giovanni Paolo scultura Transporter incidente

rivisto

What could possibly be wrong with this?



I'm just glad JPII wasn't in the energizer beam with a fly when the accident occurred.

Infallible Science!!!! Infallible New York Times Journalism!!!!!

MARTIANS BUILD TWO IMMENSE CANALS IN TWO YEARS: Vast Engineering Works Accomplished in an Incredibly Short Time by Our Planetary Neighbors-Wonders of the September Sky.

When a famous scientist says it *and* it's in the New York Times, then only a fool can doubt it.

HT: Mike Flynn (whose "The Wreck of The River of Stars" I am currently reading, and you should be reading too if you love good writing).

Gore: Believe and Profess the True Faith

The press is all het up about Michelle Bachmann telling a couple jokes about God sending earthquakes and hurricanes cuz he's ticked about the budget. We're supposed to panic because those jokes prove she's crazy.

Meanwhile, Al Gore, speaking in deadly earnest says that we must believe and profess the True Faith of ACC or face the wrath of this kid:



I have no intention of voting for Bachmann, who I distrust deeply (as I distrust almost all the embarrassments the Right is anointing). But the difference between her and Gore's demagoguery about Anthropogenic Global Warming Climate Change Global Climate Disruption the weather is that she makes jokes and the press treats her with panicky seriousness while Gore speaks with prophetic certitude and the press treats him with reverence. I fear, far more, the politician the press imagines to be a prophet than the one it (rightly, I think) regards as a buffoon.

Catholic Geocentrists

Making the Church look ridiculous for the MSM since 2007.

Ridiculous, I can handle. Making the Church look evil, on the other hand...

True Dat

"Europeans know what Christianity is and have rejected it. Americans believe what they want and call it Christianity." --H.W. Crocker

And so, we get the spectacle, on the Progressive Dissenting end of the spectrum of supporting things like the murder of unborn babies and calling it "free exercise of Christian conscience" when it is, of course, naked suppression of Christian conscience. Likewise, the strange spectacle of Christian supporters of gay sex screaming at you to shut up and render nothing less than acclaim for an act that the Tradition calls a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance.

But of course, people who read my blog know that. Our tribe majors in knowing that. It's not so keen on knowing other things the Tradition condemns and which Lefties try to remind us of. Because, you know, Lefties are Lefties and can be safely ignored and condemned en masse.

Which brings me to something I've noticed of late on the conservative end of the Catholic spectrum is the curious way in which "Liberal" has come to be synonymous with "sinful" and "evil".

Here, for instance, are some curious remarks from the BS Dawg's comboxes as the True Believers and former True Believers (conservative Catholics all) try to wrestle with how to apply their standard American taxonomies to this apostate, fraud and grifter.

What's puzzling to them is that he still knows how to mouth "conservative" jargon about abortion (and no doubt will be offering us his thoughts on socialism, the glory of capitalism, our glorious war for Empire, and all the rest of the usual Talk Radio culture war fare as he tries to reposition himself as a sort of cross between Michael Savage and Joel Osteen for the kind of people who think Glenn Beck is a reliable intellectual and spiritual leader). And, indeed, by any sane measure, the guy is clearly in the camp of what passes for conservatism today.

But he is also, quite obviously, an apostate priest who can't run away fast enough from Mary, all Catholic distinctives, and everything that endeared him to pious conservative Catholics. His whole site can be summed up as "Truth. Hope. For Sale." and only the most desperately needy Celebrity Worshipper still is clinging to the hope that he is not the fraud and grifter he so obviously reveals himself to be.

So how do the ardent conservative Catholics on both sides of the pro/anti Corapi divide order their thinking?

Fr. Carapi is in trouble you can see in his face he is fighting within What he says does not make sense now.Only has a repented Priest will he be able to find honour and holiness in the Church he Claims to love By his actions he just aids the enemy in bringing scandal to The holy Catholic Church …. as is he now serving himself for profit This is so sad I loved to watch him speak on EWTN Shows how powerful the evil one is as you accept more of the liberal views as to what is mercy.

***

I wish I never bought your CD's. I have purchase over 100.00 dollars of your cd's and can't find the stomach to listen to them anymore. Your leaving the church only proves one thing and one thing only, that you must be guilty. The devil is now dancing because you have fooled everyone and only made us Catholics and priest a laughing stock to all liberals.

***

Hmmm, seems like a lot of hating is going on here. If I were the Black Sheepdog I'd shut down this site and I wouldn't look back. He doesn't need the money, this site mostly bashes him, why do it? He is a far better man than I am.

Yet he chooses to be hated by many so that he can continue to teach the word (Matthew 10:22).

I'm hungry to hear what he has to teach, yes I was disappointed that this video didn't talk of the things I wanted to learn, but he explained that there were people that wanted to know about him so I was glad he was being courteous to them and I will wait patiently until he is done.

What we need on this site is more Catholics and Christians, seems like Satan's spawns (for lack of a better word) are doing their masters biddings.

I know what my master says "love others as you love yourself". So before you write your message you have to ask yourself "who is your master?" and WWJD?

If you don't like what you are hearing by the Black sheepdog then please change the channel and let us Catholics and Christians that love the black sheepdog have our peace. We've moved on and we are not looking back.

Let it go and do your masters bidding elsewhere – we are tired of hearing it.

Reply to the above: Sounds like liberal jargon to me

The inimitable Paul Primavera writes

Please folks, pray for Father Corapi. Instead of speculating that either liberal clergy forced him out or he really did commit indiscretions, just pray for him. I think I may break my own personal rule and buy his story of only to hear his side of things. He does deserve a fair hearing, but most of all our prayers. And yes, I think something is terribly wrong in both camps. But please let us stop the bickering and pray for him.

thus, demonstrating the truth of this again:



Another reader complains of Corapi Kool-Aid drinkers that they are "just blind sheep…almost like liberals in the political realm…"

Still another writes:

This is such a disaster for everyone involved. I'm so torn, I just give up and give it to God. I don't know what to think. No doubt John Corapi is in distress, and I pray earnestly for him and the fate of his spirit. Whether he is a victim or a betrayer, I do not know. I do know he has the mark of a priest, and God will judge him, not me. It's just so disappointing in this time of so many liberal priests setting their own agendas, to lose even one orthodox priest. God help him, and God help us.

What's fascinating here is the role "liberals" and "liberalism" play in all these people's thinking. The liberal is the servant of the Evil One, poisoning Corapi's mind with false views of mercy (because it can't be that Corapi or his conservative followers who have made excuses out the wazoo for him). The liberal is the bogeyman looking on in mockery and Corapi's sin is to make conservatives look stupid to liberals (again, no consideration that the conservative defenders bear some responsibility here). A long screed by a conservative adorer of Corapi is not condemned for being a tendentious expression of a cult of personality (i.e., the sin of idolatry). Nope, it is condemned because it "sounds like liberal jargon". A popular theory that "liberal clergy forced him out" is often bruited, while somebody else complains that Corapi defenders "sound like liberals" and yet another person frets that with so many liberals it's bad to lose an orthodox priest.

Forgive me, but doesn't this strike you as peculiar? Once again, as with the alleged liberal conspiracy to destroy Michael Voris, it sure looks to me like this entirely intramural squabble between Catholics who are all conservative consists, in large part, of invoking liberals as bogeymen or labeling other conservatives as "liberal" (apparently the worst possible sin in the universe). What nobody seems to want to do is consider the possibility that guys like Corapi are--entirely--creatures who were made, promoted, popularized and utterly adored by Our Tribe of conservative Catholics and that, if anything, our blunder was not paying attention to Lefty Catholic critics who were sounding the alarm about this guy for years. As with Maciel and Euteneuer, it turns out that people outside our hermetically sealed epistemological bubble may, in fact, have things to say to us from which we can profit--if we weren't so bloody sure we were the only Real Catholics[TM].

Or we can just go on flinging "liberal" at anybody who discomfits us, including--incredibly--defenders of Simon Rafe or Fr. Corapi. Me: I think when "liberal" get slapped on the forehead of people who like EWTN, Real Catholic TV, and CNA, it's pretty much past the sell-by date. I also think that our tendency to use those terms (terms used nowhere as descriptors in the Catechism or in the Church's teaching documents), only demonstrates how clearly we do not think with the Church, but instead allow ourselves to be herded around by political categories and pop culture manufacturers. In other words, believing what we want and calling it Christianity.

Prayer Request and Work of Mercy Proposal

A reader writes:

A few months ago I wrote to you to ask for prayers and help as my husband faced illness and unemployment. Unfortunately, there is little good news since then. Your readers came through wonderfully in generousity and we were able to get the testing my husband needed, but we've been forced to wait 3 months for the followup appointment through the charity clinic at the university hospital (the only place that will see uninsured patients without cash in hand) so we still don't have a diagnoses or treatment for my husband's GI issues. In the meantime, his mental health has rapidly followed the decay of his physical health and our marriage is under severe strain. I'm due to give birth within the next few weeks and the emotional estrangement and constant stress is taking a toll on me. We aren't able to collect unemployment because my husband is ill, and he isn't able to work enough to pay all of our bills. For the sake of our kids, there doesn't seem to be much choice ahead of us but to move across the country to live with family - an option that my husband, in his distressed mental condition, finds himself unable to face. At present I am afraid my children and I may make the move without him.

I am frightened for my marriage and for my husband's well being.

I ask you and your readers to pray with me especially for the intercession of St. Raphael, patron of healers, and St. Joseph, patron of fathers and husbands. We could use a miracle. And I need peace and strength for whatever comes.

Father, hear our prayer that the needs of this family be met by your Body until such time as it pleases you to grant them Providence through work. We ask that you would strengthen them in the sacrament of marriage, help them overcome their health issue by your healing power, and provide a safe and stable home for their kids. Send them friends and Christian charity and the dignity of good work. We ask this through Christ our Lord and with the intercession of Mother Mary and St. Joseph. Also, we ask that St. Michael and their guardian angels would fight for them and blunt the attacks of any unclean spirits that may be making war on them.

St. Michael the Archangel, defend them in battle. Be their defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray. Thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Come Holy Ghost, Creator blest, and in our hearts take up thy rest. Come with thy grace and heavenly aid, to fill the hearts which thou hast made.

Finally, Body of Christ, let me propose the following. I would like to take up a collection for this family. In order to preserve their anonymity I will act as middleman. Please donate as generously as you can by clicking on the donate button below and PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE marking out the donation for the Struggling Family Fund (so I can distinguish it from other payments from other folks for other stuff). Whatever you send, I will forward to my reader. Let's help this family out! Whatsoever you do for the least of these...


I'll try to keep a running tally and let you know how we do. I have great faith in the generosity of youse guys.

Above all, says my reader, what is necessary is prayer for her and her family, which can work wonders by the power of God.

Speaking of which, I just heard from a reader the other day:

Mark... you reposted a prayer request that I made to you several years ago about my friends 2yr old who had stage 4 liver cancer. She is now a 7 year old Cancer survivor. Thought you might like to know. :-)

Your prayers matter! Thanks for offering them so faithfully all these years.

One last thing: I'm time stamping this 9/6/11 so it will remain at the top of the page till then as a reminder to you youse guys to give generously. Please scroll down past this to see new blog entries till that date passes.

Update: Wow! Tally for Tuesday morning: $2831! Keep it up! You guys are fantastic! Thanks to every single one of you! Keep it coming! They need all the help they can get!

Ouch

"I hope you don't have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky". - Flannery O'Connor

O'Connor must be a librul CINO. Probably a socialist who doesn't believe in subsidiarity.

Speaking of which, I was utterly amazed to look in the other day on the Defense of Michael Voris piece I wrote (I'd sort of drifted away from the comboxes after they had undergone the usual entropy that afflicts such conversations) only to find this astounding quote from a reader:

I do believe that Rafe's one of these "so called Catholics," in name only. His creative fiction belongs in Hollywood where he's sure to make a hit. True Catholicism/Christianity is NOT after the big bucks, but in exposing the "Truth."

So now, not even a worker at RCTV who has labored tirelessly to spread the Faith, who has written an apology filled with sorrow, contrition, and a firm purpose of amendment and who was filled with anguish and wrestling with his conscience even as he was experimenting with writing a role-playing game--even he is not pure enough for the Truly True Secret Catholic Preservation Society. He is "one of these 'so-called Catholics'". A fifth columnist! A fake! Catholic in Name Only! He must be purged! We must remain perpetually vigilant because the Impure can worm their way even into the inmost interior of the purest apostolate on planet Earth!

Sheesh!

Also, where do such Inquisitors get the idea that somebody writes an RPG in order to make "big bucks" or go Hollywood? Must be the same place they receive their information about how "bloggers" are "in it for the money". Yeah. Blogging. Your ticket to boundless wealth. And don't forget the power and the hot chicks that go with it too. Once I was nothing. Then I discovered blogging and now I stride the corridors of riches and power with a smokin' hot babe on each arm. No more of that Jesus and the Church stuff for me. Give me the Mammon and Eros that only a blog can bestow on puny mortal flesh. Faustus, thou art my tutor!

This sort of rubbish illustrates everything I was trying to say here about the tendency of this small but growing subculture in the Church to eat its young. The notion that Simon Rafe--Simon Freaking Rafe--is a CINO who cares nothing about the Faith and is a sinister fifth columnist bent on Mammon is a classic example of what I mean when I say that the inquisitorial culture Voris is fostering is not primarily attacking Progressive Dissent. It is teaching Catholics to attack faithful struggling Catholics and label them as enemies of the Faith--and teaching them to feel proud of themselves for doing it. It will come to no good and Mr. Voris had better be extremely sure to memorize and internalize the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. Because his inquisitor fans, not his Progressive Dissenting enemies, will eat him alive when (not if) it is found that he is as sinful and weak as all the rest of us mortals.

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Marcel LeJeune...

has ten things he wishes he'd known when he was a freshman.

I have a list of ten dinosaurs I wish I'd known when I was a freshman.