IS THE POPE ”PETRIFIED BY SEX”???
What Happens When Non-Liberals Join the New Know-Nothing Party

On August 3, in the New York Daily News, self-styled "middle-of-the-road" columnist Mike Barnicle joined ranks with his colleagues in the liberal news media to bash the Pope for having the temerity to issue a document on July 31 which did nothing more than defend the universal, timeless and time-honored institution of marriage against those attempting to both weaken and radically ("at the root") redefine it by rushing gay “marriage” legislation into the nation’s law-books.

A central theme of the Vatican's document, aptly titled Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, is that what has always constituted and defined marriage was, and continues to be, determined by logic, natural law, and gender rather than the wishful thinking of a noisy special interest group.

In short: It's the biology, stupid.

On a sociological and psychological level, Considerations also points out, it has long been established that children grow and develop best under male and female parents. However, it remains to be seen that, on the whole, children --most of whom (if not all) are born heterosexual-- can do so (or worse, grow and develop adversely) under parents of the same gender; hence the Vatican's opposition as well to adoption by gay couples whether they are "married" or not. After all, it's one thing for two consenting adults to tinker with their own lives, and quite another for them to tinker with the lives of innocent children who have no say in the matter.

Moreover, as Considerations also points out, the institutions of marriage and the family, as the most fundamental building block of any civilization, predates both church and state by at least several millenia; hence, neither church nor state has the right or authority to reinvent it from the ground up by including same-sex "unions." Why, one may as well extend the definition of "marriage" to same-person unions (see our July 9 blog, Next Up In Canada: Same-Person Marriage, below).

Yet Barnicle doesn't even address any of the aforegoing concerns, nor does he address any of the other arguments against gay "marriage" raised by Considerations. It's as if the man never came across the term "philosophy," much less ever studied the subject. Instead, Barnicle opened his column with the following preposterous statement, which was quickly followed by other equally preposterous statments (emphasis via bold text and underlines added):

If you're Catholic, you really have to have faith to keep the faith these days. One day, a new archbishop is installed in Boston and instantly adds a breath of fresh air to a church that has been battered by the behavior of liars, hypocrites and obstructors of justice in Roman collars. Then, just when you think it's safe to relax, the Pope and the isolated crew around him issue their latest assault against homosexuals. That was predictable because the Vatican --hey, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church-- is petrified by sex.

Of course, the irony of the above statement is that the "liars, hypocrites, and obstructors of justice in Roman collars" to whom Barnicle refers are the very same homosexual priests who committed the crimes in question, along with the look-the-other-way bishops who protected them. After all, well over 90% of the clerical sexual abuse cases in the American Catholic Church are male-on-male, not male-on-female --a very relevant fact barely mentioned in the secular media and apparently ignored by Barnicle. In fact, had "the Pope and the isolated crew around him" staged a wholesale purge and defrocking of these clerics at least ten years ago --as they should have done-- Barnicle most likely would've waxed indignant about "their latest assault against homosexuals." Logic would suggest that if the Pope should favor gays taking marriage vows (as Barnicle apparently believes), the Pope should likewise favor gays taking priestly vows.

Nevertheless, in the remainder of his diatribe Barnicle showed nary the slightest indication of informed familiarity with the Catholic Church’s teachings in the areas of marriage (regarded as a sacrament by the Church!), sexuality, and sexual ethics. Nor did he present a shred of evidence to support his claim that Pope John Paul II & co. are "petrified by sex."

Instead of doing his homework in order to address these issues with something resembling coherence and intelligence, he apparently decided instead to create a straw-man which he then proceeded to dismantle. But such intellectual laziness seems typical of Barnicle, who according to the news media was once booted from The Boston Globe for repeatedly plagiarizing other writers' work.

On August 4, we sent the following response to Barnicle's column via e-mail to the editors of the Daily News. To date, our letter seems not to have seen the light of day there, much less any space in the Daily News' Letters section --even in a much shorter and heavily edited form. Nor have we yet to receive a reply:


Letters to the Editor
New York Daily News
August 4, 2003

Mike Barnicle's attempt on August 3 to "critique" the Vatican's rejection of gay marriage has got to be most clueless piece of balderdash on things Catholic I've come across since the last time I read a Jack Chick tract.

Barnicle claims, with zero evidence to back up his assertion, that Pope John Paul II, among other Church leaders at the Vatican, is "petrified by sex."

REALLY????

Obviously, Mr. Barnicle has never come across the vast corpus on marital relationships, sexuality, and sexual ethics --collectively known as "theology of the body"-- written by the Pope which proves the exact opposite.

Consider, for example, the following excerpts from the Pope's book Love and Responsibility, first published over 40 years ago in his native Poland:

"Sexologists state that the curve of arousal in woman is different from that in man--it rises more slowly and falls more slowly... The man must take this difference between male and female reactions into account, not for hedonistic, but for altruistic reasons. There exists a rhythm dictated by nature itself which both spouses must discover so that climax may be reached both by the man and by the woman, and as far as possible occur in both simultaneously...

"Non-observance of these teachings of sexology in the marital relationship is contrary to the good of the other partner to the marriage and the durability and cohesion of the marriage itself. It must be taken into account that it is naturally difficult for the woman to adapt herself to the man in the sexual relationship, that there is a natural unevenness of physical and psychological rhythms, so that there is a need for harmonization, which is impossible without good will, especially on the part of the man, who must carefully observe the reactions of the woman. If a woman does not obtain natural gratification from the sexual act there is a danger that her experience of it will be qualitatively inferior, will not involve her fully as a person…

"In the woman this produces an aversion to intercourse, and a disgust with sex which is just as difficult or even more difficult to control than the sexual urge. It can also cause neuroses and sometimes organic disorders (which come from the fact that the engorgement of the genital organs at the time of sexual arousal results in inflammation in the region of the so-called little pelvis, if sexual arousal is not terminated by detumescence, which in the woman is closely connected with orgasm). Psychologically, such a situation causes not just indifference but outright hostility. A woman finds it very difficult to forgive a man if she derives no satisfaction from intercourse…."

Does any of the above sound like something written by a man "petrified by sex"???

But perhaps Barnicle was merely trying to make a clever Peter-as-the-Rock pun based on Matthew 16: 18 ("And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church"): The word "petrified" and the name "Peter" --another name by which all Popes are known-- have the same root, the Greek word petros, "rock." However, we doubt that Barnicle is that original: Just ask The Boston Globe. And by all indications, he's not a New Testament scholar either.

As we've pointed out before, whether it comes from intellectually challenged secular pundits or backwoods semi-literate John Calvins, anti-Catholic nincumpoopery is still alive and well on planet Earth.

THE NEW KNOW-NOTHINGS vs. "THE PASSION":
A Catholic Writer Critiques Mel Gibson's Critics

On his web log, Catholic blogger Jim Cork makes some excellent points about those in the media and in the liberal Establishment who have been going out of their way nowadays trying to portray Mel Gibson's upcoming movie "The Passion" --which none of them have ever seen!-- as "anti-semitic," a cinematic equivalent of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

According to Cork, it seems their chief reason for this shameless propaganda campaign is nothing less (or more) than that Gibson is a traditionalist Catholic. This means, in the view of the ADL's Abraham Foxman (whose long track record for knee-jerk overreaction suggests he's never to have met a Christian he hasn't disliked), that "Mr. Gibson ...is supportive of views of church policy that question or reject the many 20th-century changes, including the revolution in attitudes toward Jews beginning with [Second Vatican Council document] Nostra Aetate in 1965." Therefore, in the half-baked minds of Gibson's critics, both Gibson's motives and his attitudes toward Jews must be automatically suspect.

Cork does a fine job not only of debunking their baseless assertions, but also of turning the tables on them to show what's really beneath and behind their vacuous caterwauling --namely, an unabashed anti-Catholicism worthy of the Know-Nothing Party of the late 1880s.

Jim Cork on Mel Gibson's Clueless Critics

”JUDGES NEEDED; CATHOLICS NEED NOT APPLY”:
The U. S. Senate’s New Know-Nothings Institute a Religious Test

"No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." -- Article VI, Constitution of the United States

Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s –the “good ol’ days” of open hostility and discrimination against Catholic immigrants by Protestant political activists known collectively as the Know-Nothing Party-- signs bearing messages such as “Workers Needed; Irish Need Not Apply” were commonplace. Thankfully, most Americans eventually came to their senses and public sentiment went against the bigots.

However, it seems you can’t keep anti-Catholic bigotry down for very long:

Enter U. S. Senators Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, as well as Ted Kennedy, Richard Durbin, Tom Daschle, and Patrick Leahy (nominal cafeteria Catholics who have repeatedly sided with the abortion lobby) –all Democrats and most of them on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Enter also, before that Committee, Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, a devout Catholic who opposes abortion and is a nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Consider also the fact that, by all media accounts, during his tenure as Alabama’s Attorney General Pryor strictly abided by all Supreme Court precedents and decisions vis the abortion issue despite his pro-life commitment and his dedication to Catholic teaching in general.

But this was not good enough for the New Know-Nothing Party composed of Schumer, Feinstein, Kennedy, and Leahy. For them, the fact that Pryor is a committed orthodox Catholic and past president of one of his state’s pro-life organizations alone disqualified him for a seat in the U. S. Court of Appeals.

For example, Schumer announced that Pryor “feels so deeply, so passionately about Roe v. Wade that we can't believe he'll be objective.”

And Feinstein, in a response to Pryor, noted that "Virtually in every area you have extraordinarily strong views which continue to come out in a number of different ways.” [Pryor had referred to the Roe vs. Wade decision as "the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law".] “Your comments about Roe make one believe, could he really, suddenly, move away from those comments and be a judge?"

Lest some dismiss this as a fluke or just a case of Democrats being merely anti-Republican rather than anti-Catholic, all recent judiciary nominees who also “just happen” to be devout, practicing Catholics received the same treatment by the Committee’s Democratic members and other liberal Democrats in the Senate. Among these rejected Catholic candidates were Leon Holmes (in the eastern district of Arkansas), Carolyn Kuhl (in the Ninth Circuit), Bob Conrad (eastern district of North Carolina) and three of the four other stalled nominees from Michigan (Sixth Circuit).

The Holmes case is especially repugnant: During his hearing before the Committee, Feinstein ripped out of context statements Holmes had written in religious (not legal) articles he wrote for Catholic theological (not law) publications and spun these as "evidences" of his alleged unfitness for office as a judge.

As William Donohoe, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, put it so succinctly regarding the Pryor nomination, "[I]t is precisely Pryor's religious convictions that are being scrutinized. Given the cast of mind of some of his critics, it makes it virtually impossible for practicing Catholics to ascend to the federal bench." Similar objections to the Democratic Senators’ approach have also been voiced by leading Protestants such as Chuck Colson.

But Catholics and other Christians are not the only ones horrified by the Senate Democrats’ conduct vis Pryor and other Catholic nominees. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America wrote this regarding Pryor: "We are profoundly troubled by the manner in which this opposition has been framed. . . . We are deeply troubled by those who have implied that a person of faith cannot serve in a high-level government post that may raise issues at odds with his or her personal beliefs."

So the real test for "Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States" in the minds the New Know-Nothings is not Mr. Pryor’s record but rather Pryor’s, and therefore any Catholic’s, ”deeply held beliefs;” specifically, his deeply held Catholic beliefs. It is, at the bottom line, a religious test, a test specifically prohibited by Article IV of the U. S. Constitution, the same document the New Know-Nothings repeatedly claim to revere.

A MUSLIM WOODY ALLEN?
The Comedic Aspirations of a Canadian Filmmaker

Contrary to the impression most of we non-Muslim Westerners have about Muslims, at least some of them have a sense of humor.

See, for example, this story in The Washington Post about the satirical films created by Canadian filmmaker Zarqa Nawaz, a Muslim woman.

Nawaz apparently follows her religion faithfully yet with her tongue firmly planted in cheek when it comes to Muslim manners, attitudes and culture as well as Western perceptions of and attitudes toward Muslims.

NOW THAT'S ALCOHOL ABUSE!
Jim Beam Loses 1,000,000 Gallons of Good Hootch...

...in a fire this week, according to this article.

THIS IS A SCREAM:
Check Out Oliphant's Vatican vs. Gay "Marriage" Cartoon

Syndicated editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant may not be very kind to the Catholic Church in this one, but his lampooning of the gays and gay "marriage" is priceless. Note the purse carried by one of the guys, and the high heels on the other, and the "His" and "His" shirts. Too much!

Note also the veiled reference to current goings-on within the Episcopal Church by the tiny bird character Oliphant uses in all his cartoons.

Oliphant's Gay "Marriage" Cartoon

No doubt Oliphant's very politically incorrect portrayal of his two gay characters will earn his syndicate far more angry letters than will his poke at the Vatican.

A "GLOBAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST GAYS"???
The Chicago Sin-Times Lies About the Vatican's "Considerations" Document

In the wake of Pope John Paul II's July 31 document opposing the current growing trend towards legalizing gay unions and redefining marriage by lifting civil bans against gay "marriage," the liberal pro-homosexual Chicago Sun-Times lost no time spinning this modest and very reasonable response by the Vatican to a legitimate moral issue into some kind of imaginary pogrom against gays themselves.

In response, Chicago's Cardinal George sent an open letter of apology to the Pope on behalf of the people of Chicago and lambasted the Sun-Times from his pulpit. The Catholic News Service reports on this as follows:

Headline saying pope attacks gays draws ire of Chicago cardinal

By Catholic News Service

CHICAGO (CNS) -- Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago used an Aug. 3 homily to defend Pope John Paul II against a newspaper headline that charged the pope with launching a campaign against homosexuals.

Cardinal George said an Aug. 1 headline in the daily Chicago Sun-Times that read "Pope launches global campaign against gays" was a "false accusation" he felt compelled to defend.

The headline on the front-page article appeared a day after the Vatican released a 12-page document that called on lawmakers to offer "clear and emphatic opposition" to same-sex marriages, which it said were contrary to human nature and ultimately harmful to society.

In releasing the document, the pope was re-affirming the "nature of marriage," the cardinal said.

"Marriage is a lifelong union of a man and a woman who enter into a total sharing of themselves for the sake of family," he said.

The cardinal said the nature of marriage was decided by biology, predates the church and that neither government nor the church had the authority to change it.

"What the Holy Father concluded from the fact that there is neither biological nor moral equivalence between heterosexual marriage and homosexual unions is that there should be no legal equivalence either in a well-ordered and wholesome society," the cardinal said.

Cardinal George said the drive to legalize same-sex unions was because of "morality based upon desires" supplanting a "morality based upon the truth of things," and that those who oppose the unions are denounced as "homophobic."

"Because of a concerted effort in movies and TV shows in recent years to shape public imagination and opinion into accepting same-sex relations as normal and morally unexceptional, obvious truths now are considered evidence of homophobia," he said.

The cardinal said he wrote a letter to Pope John Paul apologizing for the headline, and that he hesitated before signing his title to the letter.

"I'm ashamed that this false accusation against the pope was made in our city. At the very least it is unfair, and we pride ourselves on fairness," he said.

Cardinal George said many who attacked the pope were anti-Catholic, but stopped short levying that charge against the Chicago Sun-Times.

"What I must say today is that a line has been crossed, and Chicago Catholics cannot ignore what has happened," he said.

The Sun-Times defended its headline, saying that when read in its entirety it "accurately reflects the church's view on same-sex marriage and the role the church requires Catholic politicians to play in this issue."

The paper said that the full headline read, "Pope Launches Global Campaign Vs. Gays," followed by the subhead, "Vatican: Catholic pols have 'moral duty' to oppose homesexual (sic) rights."

END

In our view, it's time for all rational and fairminded people to start flooding the offices of the Chicago Sun-Times with letters of protest.