Monday, August 31, 2015

"Petered Out"?

Our underground correspondent we keep on retainer, Guy Noir - Private Eye, caught me completely by surprise this evening by walking right through my door at 6:37pm, unannounced and visibly agitated, and handing me a print-out of an internet article that quite apparently had him all riled up.

"This is harsh, no doubt," he said, chewing on a cigar stub. (Since when did Noir take up cigar smoking?) "But I have to admit that Ann Coulter-like broadsides aside, it raises a point that deserves comment," he added, a gravelly growl in his voice.

"What point?" I asked, studiously, trying to steady him.

He took the article from my hands and read: "The Church is supposed to be about religion. It’s not salvation from hunger or poverty or illness or global warming that Christ died on the cross to effect. Can we please have a little religion, now and then."

He snorted, his face flushed with anger: "At what point in the process of making religion modern and reasonable and inoffensive do we decaffeinate it to the point of neutering it?"

"Well, you raise an important question," said I, cautiously.

"Arnold Lunn in Whithin That City has some terrific lines on this I will have to find... Meanwhile, prepare to be offended," he declared, handing me back the print-out of his article and rubbing out his cigar stub in a saucer lying on the kitchen table.

He sighed and cleared his throat, scanning the room. "Got any Scotch around here?" he asked.

Hilary White, "Petered Out" (Remnant, August 26, 2015):
In late July, the very secular paper, USA Today, reported: “Growing conservative disaffection with Pope Francis appears to be taking a toll on his once Teflon-grade popularity in the U.S., with a new Gallup poll showing the pontiff’s favorability rating among all Americans dropping to 59% from a 76% peak early last year. Among conservatives, the drop-off has been especially sharp: Just 45% view Francis favorably today, as opposed to 72% a year ago.”

Some of the pope’s most tireless Catholic “conservative” defenders – including some who have suggested he could just wave his magic pope-wand and allow the cohabiting and divorced to receive Communion – are finally wearying of the constant barrage of nagging. Elizabeth Scalia, the doyenne of Patheos’ neo-Catholic bloggers, wrote recently that she is growing weary of Pope Francis’ constant “scolding” on his pet topics of capitalism, the poor, the environment or the ill-defined “mercy”.

Ms. Scalia observed recently that of a group of Catholics on an internet forum discussing the pope’s environmental encyclical, “some were weary-negative of the encyclical; some were weary-positive. What struck me most was that they all seemed in some way weary.”

“Some of them wish Francis was clearer in his meaning; they’re tired of trying to ‘figure out’ his point, which often seems ambiguous. Others are tired of trying to defend and explain him.” Either way, she says, “I’m just tired of feeling scolded.”

Carl Olson, editor of Catholic World Report, noted Scalia’s backing away from Francis and also wrote in July that more Catholics on the “right” of the US Church were getting worn out by this “hyperbolic and exhausting” pontificate. Read more >>

3 comments:

RFGA, Ph.D. said...

I'm so glad that you posted this, PP, as I have been repressing the following rant for the last couple days. We made our annual pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation in Carey, OH last weekend. (The Allen family has been going there since the 1920s.) It was a NO Mass and I was prepared for the worst (not to mention fuming because I was missing the TLM/coffee and donuts at St. Josaphat with my friends Brothers Michael and Steven, Gerard & Margaret, et. al..) and the 'celebrant' did not disappoint me (nor MC/organist and XX lectors and acolytes). The homily was all about 'making this world a better place,' as this is our 'purpose in life.' (A considerable amount of time was also spent telling us about an offer to prepare a Lebanese meal for a rabbi. Meanwhile, Fr. Ryan Adams was thrilling the aforementioned group of friends with his usual brilliant exegesis of the TLM's readings.) Now let me cut to the chase. Oh I'm sorry, 1st I should mention my poor wife's travails trying to receive HC on the tongue kneeling- as if she'd just descended from Mars. Anyway, I made a beeline for the celebrant on the way out: 'Our purpose in this life is to get into Heaven Father, not to leave this world a better place.' Him: 'But they are the same thing.' Me: 'No, they are not.' Oh well, the Rosary Procession was great. I was given the priceless honor, of which I am the least deserving person who ever lived, of carrying the BM's statue and then the Brothers were kind enough to put my radiation mask in the basement of the Basilica along with other testimonies to miracles (the braces worn by former Polio victims have gotten to me ever since I was a little boy). To top it all off, I discovered a relic of my intellectual hero St. Anselm on the other side the basement. RFGA, Ph.D.

Pertinacious Papist said...

Dear Dr. Allen,

Thank you for sharing these wonderful details, both the agony and the ecstasy, as it were. You display an admirable courage as well as measured reserve in what you call your "rant." I come away from it encouraged and inspired. Kind regards, PP

JM said...

For years I was extremely reluctant to think I might sympathize with The Remnant, or The Wanderer, of the SSPX. Now I am suspicious on anyone who does not. LOL.

Try reading almost anything by Francis, and then anything by LeFebvre. It is an immediately self-authenticating exercise in proving who is a holy mess and who is not.

Unless you have already swallowed the blue pill. [Apologies to most people employed by the Church].