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Greatest Catholic Scandal EVER!
By Josh Witten | May 15th 2009 01:22 PM | 16 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
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About Josh Witten

100% of this the rugbyologist's revenue is donated to Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres). A click on one of my articles is a click that helps bring high quality medical care to the... Full Bio

It's not my hyperbole.
"The purposed granting of an honorary degree” by Notre Dame to Barack Obama is “the source of the greatest scandal."
    -Archbishop Raymond Burke, prefect of the Vatican's highest court and former archbishop of St. Louis (from the NCRegister)

The University of Notre Dame had the temerity to invite pro-choice President Obama to speak at their commencement and receive an honorary degree.Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series, oh, wait, sorry this is Archbishop Raymond Burke, my bad - uncannily toad like too though, you must admit 

"Greatest" means that their has never been anything more scandalous, maybe a tie, but never more scandalous than Obama getting a degree from Notre Dame.  Persecuting Galileo?  Nope.  Burning innocents at the stake for witchcraft?  Don't think so.  Failing to speak out against the Holocaust?  Unh-unh.  The sexual abuse of children by clergy?  Think again.

Burke's solution: throw the bums out.  He thinks that stripping Notre Dame of its Catholic status my be a reasonable response.  Hey, private groups can set whatever rules for admission they want, but the Catholics are rapidly turning themselves into a one issue fringe group incapable of compromise. 

Things that can get you thrown out of the Catholic Church:
    1. Picking your own parish priest
    2. Giving an honorary degree to a pro-choic individual who also happens to be the leader of the Free World
Things that won't:
    1. Denying the genocidal mass murder of millions
    2. Molesting kids

Two words, Burke, TONE DEAF.


Comments

rholley's picture
Now it may strike you as odd
That a Belfast Prod
Should be puttin' the case for the Ould Fella -

(I'll complete the rhyme later, if it comes into me head)

But is it true (as I have read over this side of the Pond) that Mr Obama has spoken in favour of partial-birth abortion?

Or am I missing the point.? Maybe it's Ben Sixteen's job you're after.


Robert H Olley | 05/15/09 | 13:48 PM
jtwitten's picture
The point is that its largely irrelevant.  While the Catholic Church can certainly say Notre Dame should not have invited/honored Obama, the hyperbolic response is ridiculous, especially compared to other Catholic scandals.

Plus, nothing says come join the loving community of Jesus like responding to any disagreement with GET OUT!

Josh Witten | 05/15/09 | 13:56 PM
Hank's picture
I think if we are examining consistency and appeal, the Catholic church lost a lot of members because it tried to be too liberal, starting in the 1960s.   Letting pederasts stay in your group because you believe that is the best way to save them is a noble gesture - and right in line with the rehabilitative tenets of liberalism - but ended up being a disaster because they tried to hide it.    

Taking a stand on abortion may be a head fake to some but not taking a stand would lose them whatever credibility that remains.   The fact that Notre Dame students protested Obama's visit is actually a good sign - if students only protest in favor of abortion and Democrats, that's a bad thing for the future of democracy.

Obviously their choice of words in 'greatest scandal' is going to get chuckles from a lot of camps, including Catholics.

Hank Campbell | 05/15/09 | 15:11 PM
I think he was using the superlative in the sense of an elative ("greatest" elativically meaning "very great").

Anonymous (not verified) | 05/16/09 | 10:38 AM
jtwitten's picture
You may be correct.  The central point remains.  By using the superlative, Burke has prevented any distinction between this event and others that would appear far more serious to outside observers.  If he creates a "very greatest" category, I will rethink my position.

Josh Witten | 05/16/09 | 10:48 AM
As far as I know, "scandal" has a technical meaning in Catholic theology -- roughly speaking it is an action that makes people believe that a mortal sin is being approved by the church.

Anonymous (not verified) | 05/16/09 | 15:38 PM
Gerhard Adam's picture
Oh, you mean like molesting kids?

Gerhard Adam | 05/16/09 | 15:45 PM
Hank's picture
It wasn't approved; it was covered up (venial sin).   For the molester, it is pretty bad - taking communion while in a state of mortal sin is sort of like double-dog mortal sin, though obviously pederasts aren't really all that  worried about right and wrong to begin with.

However, insisting the Catholic church not take moral stands now because they have not in the past goes against the grain of common sense.    It would be like saying because Barack Obama said vaccines caused autism during the campaign he shouldn't be smarter now.    

The derision and scorn they got should cause them to rehabilitate themselves - instead of saying that they can cure homosexuality or pederasty they can now just exclude it from the priesthood.    If any of you out there are/were Catholic you know this whole thing was not a big surprise; everyone has heard stories about people bounced out of the American seminaries because they were too Catholic.  The American church went rogue and this molestation nonsense being allowed - along with lots of other conduct that the Vatican does not approve - is the legacy.

Hank Campbell | 05/16/09 | 15:58 PM
Gerhard Adam's picture
The point was that a scandal only had to make people "think" that the church may have approved of it, so the statement that this is the "greatest scandal" is patently absurd, regardless of how much the church may have rehabilitated itself.

I can appreciate all of that nuance, but it is difficult to not be harsher on an organization that fundamentally claims a direct line from a supreme being.

The whole point of a church is that is supposed to represent the highest moral ideals of the belief for which they are organized.  If they fail to do that, then they're simply another political organization hiding behind another agenda.

Gerhard Adam | 05/16/09 | 16:09 PM
logicman's picture
Maybe a scientist or lawyer using technical language can claim that the general public doesn't understand the precision of meaning.

But a clergyman running off at the mouth is addressing the public at large, and so cannot sincerely and honestly claim the shield of specialist theological use of language.

To Joe and Jane public, a scandal is wrongdoing by a person whose position in society demands high ethical standards.  Greatest means the biggest and most enormous and humungous of all time ever in all of history and then some.

Greatest scandal?  An honorary degree to President Obama?  You're joshing me, right?  So, from the history of the Roman catholic Church, out of pederasty,  placing of unwed mothers in psychiatric institutions, complete failure to pronounce nazism evil, editing the bible to suit the power of the church as an authority whilst teaching the proles that it is God's own word, teaching knights and young children to travel abroad and kill foreigners,  burning people at the stake to save their souls, the Spanish Inquisition, giving an honorary degree to the leader of a great democracy.

Hmm, too much choice, I'll have to think really hard -

Got it!

The greatest scandal in the Catholic Church bar none is the source of all of the above evils:  the church's  leaders are free to open mouth without first engaging brain, q.e.d.

Patrick Lockerby | 05/16/09 | 16:26 PM
the only thing i really get from this post is that josh witten is a pretty nasty and unpleasant bigot. it has the same kind of casual dishonesty and misrepresentation as white supremacist ranting.

Anonymous (not verified) | 05/17/09 | 03:40 AM
jtwitten's picture
There are pleasant bigots?

If you really want to get mad at me, you should read:
Festival of Idiots #7: Pope Benedict XVI

Josh Witten | 05/17/09 | 09:56 AM
Hank's picture
I think you're only a bigot if you go after a group or groups different than you.    He's ridiculed Republicans, Democrats, white guys, scientists, doctors, funny yet misguided models, heck, even people who sit in the lab right next to him.    He's an equal opportunity hammer of derision.1

I'm a Catholic (though a bad one in America for the criticisms I cited above ) and didn't take offense at any of this.   White supremacist?   The Pope is white ... and German.    That's pretty ironic.  

1  Yet he's gone after no rugby players, so maybe you are on to something.


Hank Campbell | 05/17/09 | 10:16 AM
jtwitten's picture
Hank, in defense of my detractors, I believe that the critique was not that I was a white supremacist, but that my misuse of logic and facts was comparable (although no examples of where I was illogical or lying were presented).  I explicitly mocked the pendulous man-boobs of over-age props in Bigfootology (check the notes).

Josh Witten | 05/17/09 | 10:24 AM
rholley's picture
A relevant quote from this book, I think ...


     I read in a religious paper, 'Nothing is more important than to teach children to use the sign of the cross.'  Nothing?  Not compassion, nor veracity, nor justice?  Voilà l'ennemi.

This is, I believe, known as straining out gnats and swallowing camels.

Still, if the Pope can give an audience to Tony Blair, who has been the driving force behind a lot of contra-Catholic regulation in this country ....

Robert H Olley | 05/18/09 | 11:30 AM
jtwitten's picture
Burke may be Benedict's Cheney.  If you can follow that.  Burke makes statements that the pope can't without it being a major controversy.

Josh Witten | 05/18/09 | 12:04 PM

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