Friday, November 2, 2012

The Art of Speaking Catholic Nonsese

 'The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
SWith Election Day upon uis, it's no surprise that Obama's Catholics are engaging in the art of speaking Catholic nonsense.

Lewis Carroll, the British author of the "Alice" stories, was a trained logician in addition to being a gifted writer. His Alice in Wonderland is filled with characters who speak nonsense, a habit which Carroll repeatedly underscores with lines like this:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

More from "Alice" later, because we should pause to mention just which Obama Catholics are sounding like Humpty Dumpty lately. First, and most notably, our nation's first Catholic Vice President, Joe Biden, who rather pathetically, yesterday, had to release a video reminding voters that he is a "practicing Catholic."

The script read by Biden into the camera is classic Humpty Dumpty, containing words that Biden delivered as if they meant he was a "believing Catholic," that is, one who believes and accepts the teachings of the Church. As everyone knows, or should know, Biden rejects an entire list of moral and social teachings that protect persons and society from the destruction of innocent human life, the family, and our natural right to obey God without interference from the State.

As Alice replies to Humpty Dumpty, "The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things."

Biden, however, only receives our B+ grade for the audacity of his dishonesty, while the A+ goes to the president of "Catholics for Choice". In an article from the Oct. 30 Chicago Sun-Times, which looks like it belongs in the Style section rather than the news, Jon O'Brien calls himself a "real traditionalist."

O'Brien, for any who may not know, replaced Frances Kissling at the helm of a "Catholic" group that promotes abortion and contraception to a mainstream media who lap it up. (The US Catholic Bishops have formally declared, several times, that O'Brien's group is NOT a Catholic organization.)

O'Brien speaks with the firm conviction of a Humpty Dumpty without shame: "I believe in the totality of Catholic teaching, and that includes the right to dissent and freedom of conscience."

You have to admire, so to speak, a man who can say that to a newspaper reporter on the same day he received a Personal PAC. When O'Brien, and Catholics like him, start talking about "conscience," it's time either to lift your sword and shield or leave the field because anything can, and will, happen.

The reporter, to her credit, did ask O'Brien the obvious question: whether he was a "cafeteria Catholic?" "No," O'Brien answered,

"What makes you a Catholic," he said, "is your Baptism."

Whatever happened to the life-is-a-journey sort of thing that Catholics like O'Brien used to wax poetical about? All of a sudden we are in a world of once-and-for-alls and theological finality: "What makes you Catholic is your Baptism." Really? Is that all there is to it, nothing else is required? Perhaps O'Brien should watch the Biden video where he equates being a "practicing Catholic" with helping those less fortunate.
Humpty Dumpty didn't allow Alice the last word, Humpty Dumpties never do:
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."
Yes, to be the "master" is all that matters to the Catholics who speak nonsense. Nov. 6 will reveal whether their gibberish will prevail with Catholic voters.

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