Cha-ching
Another nice gratuitous slap at the Catholic Church brings us up to $6.00. It turns out that some Catholic churches are -- for shame! -- buying ashes instead of producing them locally.
Does the Father not understand the sense of continuity and connection between this year's ashes and last year's Palm Sunday services. To dust everything living returns? Good grief! All in the name of convenience.
I imagine these are probably the same churches using cheap imported wine for communion?
Anyway, Rod then provides an example of a bad Catholic liturgical experience he had. Deja vu, anyone? In the combox, a commenter calling himself "ignorant-redneck" who "hates being Catholic" throws a few sticks on the fire:
This post sums up well, why I hate being catholic. Love the magisterial theology, love the liturgy, when it is the liturgy. Have almost no respect for priests or bishops, because of things like you just wrote about.
It gets even better as he instructs us on the meaning of the theological word "damn". Commenter TGB then gives us a laugh and saves me from having to comment:
Don't worry, someday, somewhere you'll find a priest or minister or shaman or mullah who says things exactly the way you want them said, until they say something differently than you want them said and then you'll find another who says things exactly the way you want them said. It's a journey, not a destination, you know.
In other news, a dog barked at a cat somewhere across town.........
He's posted this chestnut before.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I'm concerned, after this performance, Mr. Dreher is in no position to lecture anyone on how to observe Ash Wednesday.
lol. if dreher fasts for the opposite things every lent, thus cancelling out his fasts ever year, does he just metaphysically disappear at some point?
ReplyDeleteRe: the "chestnut" you mentioned; it's the only time I really feel I lost my temper in a combox.
ReplyDeletePauli, in the excessively long post preceding the ash wednesday post, we have a catholic bash i believe: dreher cites a quote from amy welborn (you know, the blogger who's catholic?) and interprets it as a reason to be orthodox. but of course! he also says that orthodox "don't tinker with the teachings of the church", as opposed to the catholic church. the post is excessively long, but i think we mght owe another dollar to donohue and co.
ReplyDeleteAt this rate of Catholic bashing,we will be paying the Catholic League big bucks. Another option for you to consider was also paying some of that money to the Archdiocese for the Military Services. This provides for the spiritual needs of our fighting men and women.
ReplyDeleteMr. Dreher wants a religion that is tough and challenging, except when he disagrees with it, in which case it should shut up and mind its own damn business.
ReplyDeleteAfter all of Mr. Dreher's talk about walking out of Mass, turning his back of there were petitions for peace, etc. when the hierarchy turned out be be right, the continued pleas for challenge ring hollow.
I maintain that having to confront a hierarchy that he had been lambasting that turned out to be correct on such a significant moral issuue when he was wrong was too much for Mr. Dreher to bear, and that has played a greater role in his conversion than he has acknowledged.
I just posted this:
ReplyDeleteRB: "The American church, Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant, could use a little more fire & brimstone."
Oh... OK....
WE'RE ALL GOING TO HELL UNLESS WE REPENT! DO YOU HEAR ME? REPENT!!
Wow, say what you want about F&B; for not being emblematic of my "feel-good American religion", that sure felt good! A fellow could really almost get addicted to this kind of thing if he had nothing better to do.
Pauli | Homepage | 02.19.07 - 7:39 am | #
third catholic bash in 24 hours! dreher is purposely trying to impoverish us. (the bishop on immigration post)
ReplyDeletei actually agree with his criticsm of the bishop, but don't understand why he insists on quoting a bishop when there are about 300 local/state/federal politicans saying the same thing and he could be lambasting them instead. so yes, bash points for dreher's (tiresomely predictable) choice of target. $3 poorer since last night
But...is this post really objectively anti-Catholic? Do any of us here like "I'm okay, you're okay" pop-psyche psudo-theology? Perhaps Dreher overstates the extent to which this watered-down theology is found in the Catholic Church today, but can anyone deny that it's not there? To the extent that it is there, can anyone deny that it's puke-inducing?
ReplyDeleteI think I again let my rhetoric get away from me, and I'm trying to examine why that happens to me with this particular writer and this particular subject.
ReplyDeleteit's always unseemly, always tiresome, always disgusting, when a recent convert can't *shutup* about the foibles of his former communion. dreher's complete lack of maturity and self-awareness speaks to a personality utterly steeped in the "i'm okay" half of the "I'm okay, you're okay" mentality. and amusingly, he thinks he's combatting such a mentality by hammering catholics with "you're not ok" over and over and over again.
ReplyDeleteYeah -- I'm still on the fence on the Farmer's Branch thing. On the one hand he's obsessed with the Bishops. On the other hand, there is silliness in the Jesus/Mary/Joseph analogy.
ReplyDeleteRemember, Kathleen: Rod is a religion writer. That's why he notices when the bishops screw up so often, like the Pharisees before him.
The immigration post was better than I expected -- I thought I would see the same tired lines, e.g., "why are this bishops so concerned about the welfare of illegal immigrants rather than those abused by gay priests?" or a general, "shut up, you don't know what you're talking about."
ReplyDeleteHere, Mr. Dreher did atcually engage the substance of what the bishops said, rather than attempt to say they had no right to say it.
Andy, why hasn't Rod covered the Bloomie blast? You'd think it would be right up his alley as a writer, you know, politics, religion, controversy, the immoral culture, the gay agenda, the sellout Repub mayor.... Right?
ReplyDeleteWrong. For some reason, that story is not a match for the bees stuck in the man's bonnet. The question I throw out there is this "Why not?"
John, I'm not counting the immigration remarks in my official count. Kathleen brings up the good point that he's singling that bishop out, but insofar as Rod's point is valid, I can try to be objective and imagine a non-Catholic making the point and quoting Catholics to do it.
ReplyDeleteTo your other point, I think that we all tend to become angry about this stuff and we should attempt to remain "happy warriors", praying, giving alms and even laughing out loud when we need to.
I understand everyone's point, that perhaps the cumulative effect of always bemoaning the bad, never acknowledging the good, and always fixating on the flaws of one partiuclar church communion can show that a person may be 1)obsessed and 2) distorting the facts. And for the record, I don't care that much about where the ashes come from, which I guess was the main point of his post.
ReplyDeleteDiane, did the Orthodox bishop in question actually recommend suicide bombings, or did he merely speak favorably of the committment to faith shown by suicide bombers? If the second, I'd say he can be excused if he clarifies his comments. If the first, I'd agree that it's utterly inexcusable, being an incitement to murder.
If I wanted to be kind to myself, I could say it's because Mr. Dreher pick on my Mom, but the Church is under withering attacks from a variety of sources much more threatening that whatever Mr. Dreher writes on his blog or on the pages of various publications, so that's not really honest.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the feelings is betrayal. I felt this for some time, before the conversion. We (though not me, personally) welcomed Mr. Dreher in, and now he has used that knowledge to score some points.
Diane, his actions towards you and me show what a fraud he is. It shows that the "Forgiveness Vespers" post was utter B.S.
ReplyDelete