Dowd vs. the Church: Verily, Verily

St. Patrick's Cathedral NY, NY

"Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen; but you do not receive our testimony."
– John 3:11

Maureen Dowd must not have been feeling well Saturday morning. It seems she woke up and reflexively vomited up an article titled, "The Archbishop vs. the Governor: Gay Sera, Sera".

In keeping with the New York Times policy of taking every opportunity to attack the Catholic Church, this article rehashes every anti-Catholic slur of the recent past. Why is it that Dowd is unable to write more than a few paragraphs about the Church without constantly returning to the issue of a small minority of priests that were guilty of child sexual abuse? And when will Dowd and other anti-Catholics learn the definition of "pedophile"? (And when will Dowd and other baby boomers finally admit that the radical feminism of the 60s was a failure?)

In the campaign to deny the religious rights of Christians, all sorts of new "rights" are created by the anti-Christians. We are supposed to be the intolerant ones, while the mere fact that some people don't like Christians is considered a good enough reason by the ACLU to force us to hide our faith from public view. Catacombs anyone?

Pulitzer prize winning Dowd, seems to have had an anti-Pulitzer moment when she penned such sophomoric slop as:

"The church refuses to acknowledge the hypocrisy at its heart: that it became a haven for gay priests even though it declares homosexual sex a sin, and even though it lobbies to stop gays from marrying."

As a graduate of Catholic University, I would hope that Dowd would have a better understanding of what is at the "heart" of the Church, which is Christ. True hypocrisy is covering oneself with the cloak of tolerance and "rights" while being completely intolerant towards the Catholic faith and campaigning to destroy the fundamental right of religious freedom. (But I guess its OK when Dowd launches these attacks on the Church because she is herself a Mass-attending, Communion-receiving Catholic. Although she apparently holds many views that are in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Church. Like Cuomo, and Pelosi...)

I am thoroughly convinced that the main reason that Dowd et al. are so obsessed with the issue of homosexual "rights" at this time is that it conveniently allows them to further their anti-Christian agenda. As if the country and New York state didn't have much more pressing issues to deal with at this time. We can't make an inch of progress on real issues like the way that Wall Street moguls manipulate the economy, but politicians like Cuomo and Obama can proudly point to their progress on "gay rights". Yes, because that is what America is fundamentally about – the right to sexual promiscuity?

How did we go from "I have a dream" to "I have a sexual fantasy"? And I'm not just talking about homosexuals here.

On what basis was Rep. Weiner forced to abandon his political office if not on the basis of morality? And yet when the Catholic Church offers a moral argument against homosexual marriage, it is immediately repudiated a priori. Who are the hypocrites? Does morality matter to American society or not?

If morality does matter, then what do we base our moral system on? The answer to this question throughout American history has always been Christianity. Those Americans who reject Christianity as the basis of morality do not seem to understand that without that firm foundation, we are tossed about as a society as an earthquake causes people to lose their footing and their bearings; we are swept up as a tornado sweeps up houses, leaving behind a path of destruction; we are buffeted and submerged as a tsunami tears away people from their world and carries them far out to sea.

This unnatural disaster which we are experiencing as a society has its roots in the unnatural course that we have chosen over the past decades since the end of World War II. It began with the deceptions of Kinsey and Sanger and has ended with the deceptions of Obama. It began innocently with songs of peace and love, and has come to a crashing cacophonous orchestral crescendo with the campaign for homosexual "marriage". When did the unthinkable become the "inevitable"?

Oh and Maureen, notice that I didn't even bring up the oft repeated accusation against you of plagiarism in this article, because it is not relevant. The stringing together of a bunch of anti-Catholic clichés and then calling it an article is not an act of plagiarism, it simply demonstrates a lack of originality of thought.

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Epilogue: How much do I [Maureen Dowd] hate the Catholic Church? Let me count the ways.

Just so you don't think I'm exaggerating the nature of Dowd's diatribe let me give all the examples of allusions to the priest sex scandal in her 22 paragraph NYT op-ed. And remember this is an editorial written by a permanent columnist for the New York Times editorial page. Please ask yourself if this piece adheres to the professional standards of the NYT or any other reputable newspaper.

Paragraph 3. This entire introductory paragraph is dedicated to the scandal.

If only his church had been as ferocious in fighting against the true perversity against nature: the unending horror of pedophile priests and the children who trusted them.

Paragraph 10. Just warming up. Another full paragraph dedicated to raising the spectre of the scandal.

The church refuses to acknowledge the hypocrisy at its heart: that it became a haven for gay priests even though it declares homosexual sex a sin, and even though it lobbies to stop gays from marrying.

Paragraph 11. What else? The scandal.

In yet another attempt at rationalization, the nation’s Catholic bishops — a group Dolan is now in charge of — put out a ridiculous five-year-study last month going with the “blame Woodstock” explanation for the sex-abuse scandal. The report suggested that the problem was caused by permissive secular society rather than cloistered church culture, because priests were trained in the turbulent free-love era. It concluded, absurdly, that neither the all-male celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were causes.

Paragraph 12. The scandal again rears its ugly head.

In another resistance to reform, the bishops voted on Thursday to keep their policies on sexual abuse by the clergy largely the same, with only small revisions, ignoring victims’ advocates who were hoping for meaningful changes.

Paragraph 13. Is anyone else getting tired of this?

At their meeting in Bellevue, Wash., one retired archbishop from Anchorage actually proposed an amendment to get rid of the “zero tolerance” provision on abuse so some guilty priests could return to parishes. That failed, at least. 

Paragraph 20. Don't worry, it's almost over.

And how about the right of a child not to be molested by the parish priest?

Paragraph 22. And a parting poke in the eye in the last paragraph.

Worn out by the rampant sexting of Anthony Weiner and the relentless blogging of Archbishop Dolan, I’m wondering if our institutions need to rejigger: Maybe pols should be celibate and priests should be married.

So let's see, that's 7 out of 22 paragraphs of an article ostensibly about the issue of homosexual "marriage" which ends up with nearly one third of the content raising the issue of the priest sex scandal. Come on Maureen! I'm sure you can do much better than that. Next time shoot for greater than 50%. Make the anti-Catholic crowd truly proud of you.

And in paragraph 17 you refer to Archbishop Dolan as the "Starchbishop"? I missed that one until it happened to get highlighted as a misspelling. Name calling? Really? Do you still attend Mass? Why? What could you possibly get out of it?