The Cathofrauds

The American cathofrauds response to the new encyclical 'Charity in Truth' is one with the tenor of the conservative movement that I grew up with in the latter '70s and followed for many years. The right-wing public CF's, like the late W.F. Buckley and the innumerable offspring in various groups like the Federalist Society and other more professedly Catholic groups, recall Jesus' admonition, that once a pharisee has made a convert they make him twice the son of hell as themselves. Some of the CF's are cradle Catholics who contentedly pile up wealth & reputation & power in the world while robbing widows & orphans; others are converts & persoanlity-cult enthusiasts who simply have personal grievances about their own loss of prestige and power in the contemporary world & want the Catholic Church to be their vehicle to restore it.

The Catholic writers they often pretend to revere, tho', were strong critics of Church officials' innumerable disasters in the political direction of the Church in the world. As always, the real situation is ironic: few recall how Benedict XIV was slandered during the First World War for attempting to bring an end to the fratricidal conflict -- one famous French writer called him "Judas XIV" for trying to do it -- and after being universally praised during & immediately after the Second World War, Pius XII became the target, starting with David Irving's friend Rolf Hochhuth, of a revisionist campaign to change Pius XII into Hitler's accomplice. Likewise, in the '80s, it was not the crazed military build-up of the US that ended the Cold War. Despite the attempts of the cathofrauds to frame John Paul II with Ronald Reagan, it was John Paul II who constantly embodied Jesus' insistence that we love our enemies, and pray for our persecutors. But the love of Christ leading to the abandonment of war & the policies that lead to war, which has been the main thrust of Church politics, is neglected by the cathofrauds, who are happy with the new crusade & always making excuses for the bombing of civilians. A recent homolist expressed this well by his hypocritical use of moral theology: "The first principle of moral theology is that one may not directly take an innocent life." This is using moral theology as a means of keeping war going while so framing abortion that it excludes the innocence of women who fall victim to circumstance.

While Catholics are enjoined to go about their lives without fanfare, many have swallowed the bait & look to loudmouths & slanderers like Bill O'Reilly and William Donahue and the gullible priests who appear on Fox News, who loudly thank God that they are not like liberals et al. It's painful to have these stooges parading on cable tv & the web as 'faithful', when they make their daily bread from bearing false witness & drumming up hatred against their targets. Patience, the patience Christ enjoins, is hard to maintain in the face of this, and other absurdities so often committed, not just by self-proclaimed holy warriors, but also by prelates & priests eager to demonstrate their bona fides by crusades, rather than by growing silently in the mercy & charity of Christ.