19 July 2011

Commenters at NCR: "joyless people with no hope"?

Methinks that horrible screeching might be the "Spirit of Vatican Two" being exorcised from the Church. . .

IF you have any doubts at all about whether or not the Holy Father's appointment of Archbishop Chaput to Philly is Good Thing. . .read the comments on this article from N.C.R. (Nasty Cynical Rag, as we called it in seminary).  

Here are a few of my favs from the Exemplars of Catholic Tolerance and Diversity:

"The very worst man for the job in Philadelphia. He will bring more of the same, as in cover-ups and evasion. This man has inflicted more damage on priests and lay people in the past decade that we should not be in the least surprised that Ratzinger (Benedict), would select someone such as this to carry on the right wing agenda of the restorationist movement."

"The Vatican and B16 are only carrying out their plan: Wreck the church. Hope any mature Catholic will leave in disgust. Afterwards, hunker down behind the Vatican walls, with all the gold in the coffers, maybe in a century or two everyone will have forgotten what a mess the hierarchs have made of the church."

"The Church just plunges itself deeper and deeper into the abyss. . ."

"The poor people of Philadelphia. They are getting someone with a heart of stone for a leader of their Church. If they're smart, the parishioners will keep their money in their pockets and let that do the talking."

"Heaven help us! Apparently the thinking in Rome was that the problem with Philadelphia was that its bishop wasn't Republican enough."

"He did all the damage he could in Denver. Let him move on to Philadelphia to spread his narrow minded conservatism. And get that red hat ready."

"Now the people of Philadelphia are being punished for the sins, incompetence and arrogance of Rigali.  How long before this archdiocese becomes the home of the ever-diminishing numbers of the "faithful remnant" in a "smaller, purer" church?  Maybe that's what Chaput promised B16 - weed 'em out and gimme a red hat.  Shame, shame, shame."

[NB.  Almost all of these hysterical rants were answered on the site by someone. . .]

Here are a few comments from Archbishop's interview at N.C.R.

"This is just another case of one following another. The entire Church should demand Benedict 16's resignation along with Rigali's.  Not one red penny for the American Church or the Vatican until these bungling autocrats are gone."

"This appointment is such a crass act from a pope who has been a bungler in so many areas of church life. It's another example of what happens when the episcopate becomes little more than a pawn on a papal chessboard and very little more than that."

"An interview chock full of self-serving statements from another papal pet. . .Hats off to the Chinese who are standing up to Rome in much the same way as the English did in the sixteenth century!"

"Benny 16s days should be over too. A nice house in Sardinia, Sicily, or a jail cell at The Hague could be his great opportunity to reflect on the blunders of his papacy (the Unholy Triumvirate of Ratzinger, Sodano, and Bertone) and to do penance for the damage these old autocrats have brought upon the Church."

On the commenters themselves, one brave soul notes, "I'm convinced that the NCR comments section is probably them most negative, unconstructively cynical corner on the whole Internet. Talk about a joyless people with no hope. . ."

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14 comments:

  1. This, I think, is the statement that most clearly illustrates what the NCR readership so hates about Abp. Chaput:

    "There's nothing about the Gospel that I'm ashamed of, or that I think we are free to discard."

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  2. Wow. Some of those comments sound like emanations from Jack Chick.

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  3. Agnieszka9:17 PM

    Father Philip,

    I don't think it's worth reading this nonsense/poison, and even less justifiable to re-post it (but only for "one brave soul's" comment).

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  4. Agnieszka, we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

    Progressives attack the Church from within the Church using notions like tolerance, diversity, dialogue, difference, etc. They beat orthodox Catholics with these notions and utterly fail to follow through on their own. Showing up this kind of hypocrisy is essential.

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  5. It's not clear to me how many NCRonline commenters have been inside a church since they were sixteen. (I'd've thought the kind of commenters their website attracts might raise a red flag at NCR about how truly Catholic their product is, but apparently not.)

    This is in contradistinction to Commonwealmagazine.com commenters, most of whom are regular Massgoers. They despise Abp. Chaput, not because he's Catholic, but because he's not a Democrat.

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  6. The one that gets me is the one congratulating China on being like Bloody Bess's England. Slamming martyrs of the past and the present - how very classy, guys !

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  7. They all sound like stereotypical "Ugly Americans" who feel their "rights" trump all other considerations, who never learned the meaning of "No!" as children and who believe that rule by group conscious is the only way to go.

    P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C

    Someone should inform them that while democracy is a great political philosophy it has no traction within the Church.

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  8. Anonymous11:47 PM

    So, if all of us Catholics are so opposed to the restoration of the Church then how come the young women and men who are joining orders and becoming priests all want the full habit, the Divine Office, to learn Latin, and go back to the traditional Church? Or am I missing something?

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  9. Emilie, the stereotypical NCR-supporter is still living in the glory days of 1973. They can't quite accept the fact that young people in the Church have listened to their progressive nonsense and decided that the Church isn't all that important anymore. Now, the young people who remain are the ones who take the Church on her own terms and want to help. Seeing traditional seminaries, convents, monasteries, etc. fill up with happy young people wearing habits, cassocks, etc. just send the poor NCR-types over the edge. They've failed to revolutionize the Church on the model of Luther and they know it.

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  10. Emilie, the stereotypical NCR-supporter is still living in the glory days of 1973. They can't quite accept the fact that young people in the Church have listened to their progressive nonsense and decided that the Church isn't all that important anymore. Now, the young people who remain are the ones who take the Church on her own terms and want to help. Seeing traditional seminaries, convents, monasteries, etc. fill up with happy young people wearing habits, cassocks, etc. just send the poor NCR-types over the edge. They've failed to revolutionize the Church on the model of Luther and they know it.

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  11. Anonymous11:35 AM

    Showing up this kind of hypocrisy is essential.

    Exactly. What is "Behold the fruits!" in Latin? Ecce fructasomethingorother I'd assume. :)

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  12. Anonymous6:36 AM

    If you compare these crazy paranoid conspiracy theorists, full of bitter condemnation but without any substance to back up their bizarre claims, to the same anti-Catholic hatred featured in secular media comment boxes you find the exact same thing, name calling and vitriol without any shred of analysis based on reason or proof. From the level of hysteria being displayed right now from this crowd, it is safe to say that this sort of trend of shacking up as people in communion with the Church and aiming their nuclear weapons at all those who take their faith seriously is in its death throes. They have decided to go out raging and shrieking, so much for the Spirit of VII and building community. They appear to have given up altogether on trying to win over through sound argument, through preaching with basis, evangelization. But a movement that took cues from secular pop culture figures such as Timothy Leary and Saul Alinsky cannot be expected after all this time to be able to use reasoned debate or calm discussion to appeal or prove a point. The best they can do is hurl manure at our beloved Church, without even waiting around to see whether it sticks, with very poor aim. It's going to continue but judging from this which is the fruits of their "movement" par excellence, the beginning of the end is on the horizon. What a relief that is.

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  13. Anonymous8:02 AM

    It's also instructive to observe and be aware that the conspiracy statements, ridiculous about the Pope very much mirror the conspiracy opinions of folks who blame, for instance, the Freemasons, for all of the world's ills. It is one and the same wingnutry except that the media will not print or echo back the Freemasonry conspiracy but thrives on broadcasting conspiracy theorist presumption however absurd regarding the Pope.

    What is helpful in addressing this overall historical development is to follow the accounts (some only lately being published) of those who recognized immediately for what it was worth, the Nazi or Stalinist regimes, and those who resist the oppression of the Chinese government (interestingly one of the commenters above actually speaks out favorably about a government that the entire world community agrees has very significant human rights abuses perpetrated). The feature of the refusal to engage in meaningful, reasoned debate is one aspect, with widespread irrational sentiment and hysteria, fear of others who are targeted. The other is the use of propaganda, or what we in this country call the media, to accomplish their ends of pitting human being against human being for evil purposes. Obviously these are far from the Christian way. This publication is going to need to take a good hard look at some point at what they are fomenting and ask themselves, for their own good, whether it is worth it.

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  14. Anonymous9:45 AM

    It's not just that the National Catholic Reporter's commentators' are 'joyless and with no hope' it's more insidious than that. The National Catholic Reporter and many of it's commentator's have become a kind of 'fifth column.'

    Fifth Column: A fifth column is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group such as a nation from within.

    However, the really insidious thing is that they don't even much bother to be very clandestine about it any longer.

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