"Simply Perverse"
Indisputable.
Excerpt:
But Rod Dreher isn't merely a non-Catholic writer. He is an anti-Catholic writer who for more than five years has gone out of his way to heap abuse on the Church and on those Catholics who did not join in his abuse.
As recently as yesterday, he took the opportunity offered by a scandal in his own Church, the Orthodox Church in America, to attack Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone by means of an attack on Bishop Gerald Frey, who retired seventeen years ago and died last week.
Just an inkstained journo doing his job and going where the story takes him? No; in the very same post, Rod writes that he "made a conscious prudential decision to keep [his] involvement with and concern in [OCA] church matters at arm's length." So scandal in the OCA is out of scope for his writing; scandal in the Catholic Church is, if no longer his bread and butter, at least good for leftovers.
Them be some mighty moldy leftovers, Tom.
He concludes this section of his post by stating "And to recognize him as, of all things, a Catholic writer, is simply perverse." I would argue that viewing Rod Dreher as still basically a "Catholic writer" is a temptation that many bloggers fall into. We'll use the comments below to track the responses to Tom's post, be they agreements or further disputations. But in my opinion, no Catholic blogger who links to Rod's blog can simply ignore the well-supported fact of his anti-Catholicism.
UPDATE: Rod states in the comments: "Before I left the Catholic Church, I was a hero to many in this same crowd, for standing up in public on matters regarding the abuse scandal, and saying what many of them said in private, over and over." Indirectly he's praising the folks at OCA News for being heroes since they are standing up in public on matters regarding the Orthodox Church abuse scandal and saying what Rod only says in private.
Bravo, Tom!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis post should be required reading for the entire Catholic blogosphere.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You have said what many of us have been trying to say for months now. For our trouble, we have been vilified, slandered, and libeled...we've heard words we never heard in the Bible. We've been told (by Rod Dreher himself) that we're "troubled," "eccentric," "jerks," "Prufocks"...to tell the truth, I canot even remember all the choice epithets that have been hurled at us by Mr. Christian Charity and his acolytes whenever we've dared suggest that the Dreherrite obsession with Catholic Sin constitutes classic anti-Catholiism in the Maria Monk mold.
I hope this Disputations blog post wakes people up to what they're dealing with here: an anti-Catholic bigot whose bigotry may be subtler than Jack Chick's but is no less pernicious.
It's time that certain prominent denizens of Saint Blog's stopped aiding and abetting the demonization of their own Church. If it is a sin to slander and give scandal, then surely it must be a sin to sponsor and promote those who slander and scandalize.
Thanks again for exposing Rod Dreher, Anti-Catholic Bigot.
Diane
Well, I wouldn't say he's anti-Catholic the way I would say someone like Christopher Hitchens is anti-Catholic.
ReplyDeleteI would characterize it as someone whose relationship with the Church has turned sour, leading him to overemphasize the negative aspects of it -- I think his post today comparing it to a marriage is apt -- he has been and remains so invested in the notion that the bishops are wicked and most Catholics mindlessly nod along that he overvalues any evidence to support that, and dismisses evidence to the contrary.
When he does this, we are right to forcefully correct it, but I'm not sure labeling him "anti-Catholic" is either productive or accurate.
Which makes it alternatively more maddening and more understandable.
I disagree, John.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, I simply cannot buy this idea that the sex-abuse scandal so traumatized Rod Dreher that he lost faith in the Catholic Church, blahdeblah. If that were so, why wouldn't similar revelations re the Orthodox Church have a similar effect on him? I mean, sex abuse is sex abuse. Victims are victims. Sin is sin, and scandal is scandal, no matter who the perp is or what the perp's confessional affiliation.
If episcopal coverups of sex abuse really matter that much to Rod Dreher, then they should matter across the board. He should be as outraged when an Othodox bishop enables, covers up, or commits abuse as when a Catholic bishop does so. He should be as solicitous when the victim is an Eric Ifill (Saint Vlad's student who committed suicide a few months ago after enduring years of sexual abuse at the hands of an Orthodox priest) as when the victim is a Catholic altar boy.
But Rod is manifestly much less exercised by sex abuse in his own communion than by sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Even today, he's been taking M_David to task for pointing out that sex abuse occurs much more frequently in other contexts (families, schools) than in Catholic Church contexts. Rod is berating M_David for not being outraged ENOUGH at the Catholic scandal---even though Rod himself has conveniently recused himself from even commenting further on the OCA Scandal. How self-contradictory is that? Whew. Words fail.
Nope. I just don't buy it. If clerical sex abuse angers and alienates Rod Dreher, then it should do so just as much when the perps are hierarchs in his new communion as when they're now-deceased clergy from his former communion. I simply do not buy the "he's been so burned" explanation. It's too convenient. And it simply does not square with the fact that his new communion seems to be, if anything, much more pervasively corrupt than the RCC ever was. (Peruse OCANews.org for details.) Yet Rod won't even discuss this, let alone obsess over it as he continues to obsess over the Catholic Scandal.
Moreover, Rod's fixation on the Catholic abuse scandal has all the earmarks of lurid Maria Monkism. As Jonathan has noted, anti-Catholicism is a kind of pornography--especially the Maria Monk variety of anti-Catholicism. Notice how often Rod gleefully uses luridly colorful language about priests "boinking" altar boys? It's downright sick.
I dunno. I've got to agree with Tom here. There's something very weird going on with Rod Dreher's obsessive bashing of the Catholic Church. It cannot simply be explained away as post-Scandal trauma. Most people who have been traumatized in one religious context react equally negatively when they are similarly traumatized in another religious context...at least, according to all the cult-awareness and spiritual-abuse websites I've seen. In fact, such survivors tend to have a "once burned, twice shy" attitude--they're even more attuned to abusive situations in their new churches; their antennae are super-sensitive.
So, again, if the trauma of the Catholic Scandal really did drive Rod Dreher into anti-Catholic rage, well, the trauma of the OCA Scandal should be having at least a remotely similar effect. The fact that it is not having such an effect--the fact that Rod is instead contributing to the silence and the coverup--is very telling, IMHO.
Just my two cents' worth....
BTW, for the record...Rod's OCA diocese (Diocese of the South) is fairly notorious in OCA-Land for its culture of silence, coverup, and gag-orders. Archbishop Dmitri has been known to issue gag orders forbidding both clergy and laity from "gossiping" (yes, that was his word) about the OCA Scandal.
ReplyDeleteThis may partly account for the fact that Rod Dreher, the great champion of "transparency" in the Catholic Scandal, has chosen the very opposite of transparency in his own treatment of the OCA Scandal. The hypocrisy involved here is appalling, IMHO. But fairly par for the course, from what I've seen.
(And oh yes--I think the rationale Rod gave for not pursuing the OCA Story was so weak and thin that a mere babe could knock it down. But that's a whole 'nuther topic....)
Diane
John, consider, that Hitchens's anti-Catholicism is different yet again from that of Jack Chick and his fundamentalist Christian ilk. In a sense, these fundies are capable of a much harsher breed of anti-Catholicism with their insistence that the church is the "Whore of Babylon". Hitchens thinks that all religions are whorish and there is no "Babylon", or maybe "Babylon" is secular society without allegience to God, i.e., a good thing to his mind.
ReplyDeleteSo Rod is obviously in another general class in my opinion and I think Tom would agree with that. My guess is that many of Rod's Catholic friends will deny that he is truly anti-Catholic, and if they want to confine the term to spare him, fine. I'm not going to waste my time demonstrating that there are whites that hate blacks but don't own a set of hooded white pajamas.
Another thing worthy to note is that most folks with Rod's temperment are pretty much anti-everything-that-bugged-me-once-or-twice-including-Delta-airlines-McMansions-and-the-Roman-Catholic-Church.
Again, I think "anti-Catholic" is too blunt a term for something that I think is a bit more nuanced.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Mr. Dreher's lack of interest in the failings of the Orthodox Church, I am inclined to take him at his word that he recognized how his attention to the flaws of the Catholic Church led to spiritual ruin, and does not want to repeat that, and end up moving his family to yet another church.
In short, I don't think he ever woke up in the morning thinking, "how can I bash the Catholic Church today." It's just that the emotional state he is in leads him to these reactions that seem facially anti-Catholic. Like Tom, I am not eager to see Mr. Dreher poison his relationship with another church over a sexual abuse crisis for the sake of "consistency."
That's not an excuse -- it's his job to get himself out of that state. But I think it would be a mistake to put him in the same bin as Hitchens and Chick.
But John, someone who has been and remains so invested in the notion that the bishops are wicked and most Catholics mindlessly nod along that he overvalues any evidence to support that, and dismisses evidence to the contrary, is anti-Catholic!
ReplyDeleteIn fact, you've expressed Rod's anti-Catholicism more more neatly and briefly than I would have if I'd tried to euphemise my way around the term.
That your expression fits any number of Roman Catholics in good canonical standing is revealing, I think. And what it reveals is an understanding of Catholicism that all but ignores ecclesiology (in favor of overemphasizing morality, is my guess). It reveals that "to hell with the bishops" means "to hell with the Church," and you can't say "to hell with the Church" and not be anti-Catholic.
So, yes, "anti-Catholicism" is a blunt term. That's why I used it. It risks being dismissed as over-the-top, but I think something like "he is someone whose relationship with the Church has turned sour, leading him to overemphasize the negative aspects of it" runs a much greater risk of being ignored as so much verbiage.
And what it reveals is an understanding of Catholicism that all but ignores ecclesiology (in favor of overemphasizing morality, is my guess).
ReplyDeleteBang, dead-on. No time to comment now. I'll post a few thoughts on this over the weekend, not specifically about Rod; this "ignoring of ecclesiology" is widespread especially among Protestants who want to pull a "me too" about the word Catholic without accepting what all that really implies.
ReplyDeleteAnd what it reveals is an understanding of Catholicism that all but ignores ecclesiology (in favor of overemphasizing morality, is my guess). It reveals that "to hell with the bishops" means "to hell with the Church," and you can't say "to hell with the Church" and not be anti-Catholic.
See, I tend to think Mr. Dreher has (or had) the opposite problem. I think his vision the Church overemphasized eccesiology (or his version of it) to the point that when the bishops failed him (in his opinion), the whole house came tumbling down.
---
By drawing my distinction, I by no means seek to minimize what Mr. Dreher is doing. Indeed, I think it is even more important to confront Mr. Dreher's commentary precisely because it has an appeal to "any number of Roman Catholics in good canonical standing."
Dreher wishes to convert others to his cause. It's one thing to say "to hell with the church" and keep it to one's self. It's quite another to make it one's raison d'etre, and on top of that attempt to turn it into some mini-zeitgeist with one's self at the helm (i.e. crunchy connservatism")
ReplyDeleteLOL, Pauli. I just noticed your update. It made me chuckle. :)
ReplyDeleteAt Tom's blog, Therese made a really good point: If Rod refrains from pursuing stories (to which he has been privately alerted) re sexually abusive Orthodox priests...then doesn't that mean the priests in question will still be able to abuse kids with impunity? If they're not exposed by a crackerjack journalist like Rod...then won't they continue to pose a very real danger to potential victims? How does Rod justify this? What happens if some poor kids gets horribly abused and traumatized by a cleric whom Rod could have exposed but didn't?
An intriguing question, IMHO.
Diane