Top Tips for the Faithful!
Hey, faithful Catholics! Here's a top tip: if your favorite Catholic "apologist" posts this sort of photo on his public Facebook profile (emphasis on public):
you may want to reconsider whose ideas about Catholicism you should be taking seriously.
As an addendum: if you are a "communications" dude for the ne plus ultra of conservative American bishops -- like, say, Bishop Loverde of the Arlington, VA diocese -- you just might have better things to do than publicly scold a priest for calling out said Catholic "apologist". After all, conservative bishops have much, much more pressing things to think about. Don't they? At least, that's most what Catholics believe when they donate to the Bishop's Appeal...
Finally, our last top tip for the day: If you are frequenting a Catholic "portal" that is rife with Catholic bloggers vociferously defending their Catholic "blogbrother" who publicly online poses behind a gun ... that just might be a portal to nowhere. Or worse.
Thanks for posting this, Kathleen. I added a few labels. I really wanted to post something about the whole Fr. West flap. I guess lay-people are allowed to say whatever they want, but not priests. Well... SOME laypeople are allowed.
ReplyDeleteYeah, "blogbrother" got me too. I wanted to point out--among other over-reactions--the ridiculous analogy of Joanne McPortland claiming that Fr. West criticizing Mark Shea is equivalent [her word] to challenging him to a pistol duel.
Then I go onto Shea's Facebook page and see this pointed at me. I guess he's a big 2nd amendment supporter but, jeez! dude, be careful where you're pointing that thing.
But seriously, if you get all hot under the collar about you friend getting criticized maybe you should try to defend him on the merits of the statements at which the criticism was directed. Don't try to shut down the dialogue. That just means you don't have a defense.
Which may be the case.
Nicely said, and Shea's self-portrait is a perfect caricature of his conduct.
ReplyDeleteI repeat Fr. West's original statement - something is seriously wrong with Mark Shea.
What an education.
In light of his Facebook page, is it not a howler that Anchoress posted this yesterday *in defense* of Mark Shea?
ReplyDelete"Facebook is an insidious place; most of us are not so grounded in humility that we can spend any time there without beginning to fall in love with ourselves, because Facebook is a profound vehicle for the feeding of our own narcissism (Look! I am liked! I am friended! I am shared! Everyone agrees with ME! Let me tell you what I’m eating, now!). And narcissism is the key to idol-making. We build them up and make them shiny, because then they better-reflect us back to ourselves."
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2012/09/04/idols-come-in-many-forms-facebook-feeds-them/
Consider the Patheticos shark jumped.
I saw that.
ReplyDeleteIs she serious?
The duplicity is staggering.
All I can say is "yikes!"
ReplyDeleteJust checked. The Boondock Saints Mark Shea is still up.
ReplyDeleteJust for the record: picture of yourself holding gun = OK. Picture of yourself firing gun = OK. Picture of yourself aiming gun at readers = NOT OK.
Not up anymore, maybe Lizzie Scalia finally realized she looks like an idiot and intervened.
ReplyDeleteSo Lizzie is like the hostage negotiator saying stuff like "Mark, I know what you're going through... ...but this isn't the way! You know that, Mark! Mark, listen... you know that this cannot end well... Mark, put the gun down. No one is going to get hurt -- put the gun down, Mark."
ReplyDeleteWhewwwww.....
I hope whatever money Anchoress is making at the ridiculous portal is worth her loss of credibility. I'll say the same for everyone she has hired over there, including Eve Tushnet, K Lo, etc. One of the male catholic bloggers over there chose to detail how he made out with a guy in a bar to test whether or not he was homosexual. -- Hey, Dude! Maybe they are on to something. How do we know Jesus didn't totally do the same thing with like, one of his disciples? The rest of us tea partiers just need to stop harshing their mellow.
ReplyDeleteOne of the male catholic bloggers over there chose to detail how he made out with a guy in a bar to test whether or not he was homosexual.
ReplyDeleteNO!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Good Lord! I hope somebody reported this to
ReplyDeleteFacebook.
That photo is a screenshot from a film that Mark acted in, Manalive, an adaptation of GK Chesterton's novel of the same name. So it isn't really what it seems.
ReplyDeleteBrian, let me explain something to you. When something is put out on the web and shared publicly, or shared in any other public forum for that matter, then for the most part it is really what it seems. That image conveys a certain message even to the miniscule sliver of the populace who saw that film. A man is pointing a gun at the reader of a Facebook page. The existence of a film that barely anyone has seen does not change the accuracy of our perceptions one bit.
ReplyDeleteEven the biggest gun nutjobs out there don't point their guns at a camera. They have the good sense to know that sort of behavior can get them kicked out of school and/or fired from their jobs. It's becoming pretty clear why Mark Shea needs to make a living sitting alone behind a computer all day -- though it's unclear to me why the rest of us should be subject to his daily sabotage of Catholic teaching so he can make a living.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm not buying this is a "screenshot". A screenshot is a still taken from a movie.
ReplyDeleteOnly slightly off-topic from the belligerently exophthalmic Mr. Shea, I was saddened to read that the most excellent Joseph D'Hippolito has just been banned from Erin Manning's blog while the ex-Catholic, now evangelically Allisonian Dreher endures there as a founding apostle.
ReplyDeleteWith our good Pauli's indulgence, should the good D'Hippolito desire a forum in addition to Est Quod Est in which to express whatever he wishes, he need look no further than the link appended to my name.
The thing with Joe is that is he sits down in a thoughtful mood he can be a masterful writer. He is very intelligent especially on the topic of foreign policy. But I've seen comboxes get the better of him on more than one occasion. I consider him a friend and I doubt he'd entirely disagree with this assessment. Coupled with the fact that Erin Manning is excessively priggish on her blog it doesn't surprise me that he was banned there.
ReplyDeleteComboxes have gotten the better of me in times past and that's why I generally don't get into long discussions on other blogs any more. Every time you really score a big point in a debate on some of these "hostile" blogs you stand a good chance of having your comment erased. Kathleen probably has the record for this among people I know.
You know, HM, I was just thinking that your blog Alexandria. You have all kinds of people blogging there representing different points of view. Maybe you could turn it into a "portal" like Patheos which is obviously the hot new thing. You could have a section for Catholics, one for Kabbalah Practitioners, one for Vegetarians, etc. I'd definitely blog there in the fish-eater section, I mean, if I could be working for a portal, man. Big time!
My good Pauli,
ReplyDeleteThe invitation to the good Joseph to become an Author still stands, and I shall take upon myself risk of his getting the better of me.
While Alexandria will of course remain non-monetized, we do already have sections for the various types you listed as well as many others. However these already come individually portioned, almost always bilaterally symmetrical, and usually under their own steam.
You also remain welcome as always and, when you are not dispatching our errant boxes with your crack torch as you were so kind to do this evening, perhaps you can help us all grasp the good Dreher's firmly acquired new Lodowickian gospel of Allisonianism. Should the good Kathleen accompany you, be so kind as to ask her to wear the pearls.
Could you enlighten me as to what Allisonianism is?
ReplyDeleteJonathan Carpenter
Yes, what is Allisonianism? Pray, tell us good dear Mr. Stuart.
ReplyDeleteMy good Jonathan and Pauli,
ReplyDeleteAllisonianism would appear to be the reflexive if not also prudently canny worship of the nimble politico-cultural orientations of one Lodowick Brodie Cobb Allison so as to become fetchingly both unhappy and unhappy (in the Kierkegaardian sense) with both President Barack Obama, but equally more so with opponent candidate Mitt Romney, such that a recently promulgated secret recording featuring the numerologically significant percentage 47 immediately leads to a veritable eruption amidships, to put it delicately, resulting in a spattering of no fewer than five posts today pillorying the Conservative candidate for President.
Given that along with his mentor the fountainhead of these posts today self-reports to be a Conservative, this apparentlt neo-Platonic Allisonian faith that an abstract obamaconic vote for an abstract object of desire trumps an actual political vote for an actual political candidate may in fact represent a species of auto-asceticism, a cilice bravely borne by mood alone, if it does not instead prove to be merely a variant of classic Barnumian egression.
Interestingly, another offering exploring many of these same thematic processes is currently in cinematic release to early favorable review.
I wouldn't say Wick calls all the shots at the execrable TAC. Fair credit has to go to Ron Unz, so perhaps the neologism we are looking for for the pairing of Ray D. and Daniel "Mitt Killed My Parents" Wawison would be "Buddies of Unz"--or BUNZ for short.
DeleteForget how Romney's latest speech played in Peoria--what came out of the BUNZ in response?
-The Man From K Street
HMS: Illuminating.
DeleteMFKS: Please don't compare Larison and Dreherison to Peoria. I like that town. Home of the awesome Caterpillar.
My good Man From K Street,
ReplyDeleteGiven your acronym of choice, I trust we can take your question as rhetorical, no?
I raise the good Wick Allison only because he polished the disappointed-conservative-with-a-moue* at his local D Magazine long before assuming control of the Augean stables at TAC.
*which pose David Brooks in his latest offering, after a most bizarre dressage mincing at straw men, also rides to glory while weeping like Carroll's Walrus at the private fundraising conversation in question as evidence of the ineptness of the Romney campaign.
Funny, I never thought of any candidate's private conversations as any more evidence of their public campaign eptness or ineptness than their potty time would be; however this may now mean Romney's muffled echoes from the powder room exhorting, "Look out, Newt, she's heading for the alfalfa!" may require a caution as well.
H.m. Stuart, you sound like Pops from The Regular Show (see Cartoon Network)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjY4jnEf9GY
ReplyDeleteOn another note, "thePulp.it" has moved over to "BigPulpit.com". If you could update your sidebar, that would be cool!
ReplyDeleteJMJ,
Tito