Around the internets, Vol. 2
A friend sent me this email last week. Here it is slightly edited:
I'm really not trying to get you to snap your molars off at the gum line, but I can't help but point out this followup, once again illustrating what a master manipulator Dreher is. As we saw, having baited the anti-Catholics with the Home babies story, he then quickly picked a fight with Andrew Sullivan both to provide himself with a "cutout" and to get himself linked up the food chain by provoking a response from Sullivan, which Sullivan duly supplied.
But the guy who TMFKS reminds us ostentatiously made up publicly with Sullivan only a year ago now decides to use him as his condom in two ways: first as cutout, and now as representative of Catholicism. The screaming subtext from the man who's still not going back to the Catholic Church is hardly subtle: if you really want a safely non-libertine, sodomy-free religion, better become Orthodox like him. Otherwise you might have to settle for Catholicism 3.5.
BTW, for any who might want to discuss Dante with Rod up close and personal in a hot, steamy environment, he helpfully discloses the specific YMCA where he now regularly works out and can be found:
It’s amazing that I can stand in the Y in Zachary, Louisiana....
Later my friend followed up with an earnest bleg for a Catholic to respond to this story and I said I toss something up. Which I didn't; I didn't find the time. However yesterday he got a major answer to his wish in the form of this fine article by fellow Clevelander, Tom Piatak titled "More Anti-Catholic Hysteria". Here's the meat of it:
It now turns out that the story has been grossly exaggerated. On Saturday, The Irish Times—a paper that is about as friendly to the Catholic Church as its New York namesake—reported that Catherine Corless told the paper that “I never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank. That did not come from me at any point. They are not my words.” One of the boys who found the bones in the 1970s, Barry Sweeney, told the Times that "there was no way there were 800 skeletons down that hole. Nothing like that number. I don’t know where the papers got that.” When asked by the Times how many bodies were in the pit, he replied, “About 20.” Nor is it clear that the underground pit found by the boys ever was a septic tank, though it may have been; or that the bodies they saw there were from the home, though they may have been; or that the nuns were the ones who decided to put them there, though they may have been. The Times story also notes that the number of dead children from the institution is "a stark reflection of a period in Ireland when infant mortality in general was very much higher than today, particularly in institutions, where infection spread rapidly. At times during those 36 years the Tuam home housed more than 200 children and 100 mothers." Indeed, the Irish Catholic blog Lux Occulta calculated that the mortality figures at the home are in line with general infant mortality in Ireland at the time.
Four years ago, when the same papers and bloggers trumpeting this story were attempting to blame Benedict XVI for clerical sexual abuse in Milwaukee decades earlier, British atheist Brendan O'Neill made this telling point: “it might be unfashionable to say the following but it is true nonetheless: very, very small numbers of children in the care or teaching of the Catholic Church in Europe in recent decades were sexually abused, but very, very many of them actually received a decent standard of education.” Whatever may have happened at one home for unwed mothers and their children in Tuam, O'Neill's basic point also applies to the vast number of Irish nuns who served in countless schools and hospitals in Ireland and throughout the world in the first half of the twentieth century. Rod Dreher's desire to pass judgment on Irish Catholicism on the basis of one poorly sourced story, and Andrew Sullivan's desire to jettison sexual morality on the basis of that same story, tell us that they cannot be trusted when it comes to the Catholic Church. Nor, indeed, can the myriad of newspapers that gleefully ran with this story.
I'm glad Tom was the one who responded to this. It's a common sense correction using facts and the title is so accurate. It is hysteria—note how old the subject matter is. Bill Donohue is always pointing out that the abuseniks must consistently go further and further back in time to find the evidence demanded by their narrative. It is anti-Catholic; Rod Dreher is anti-Catholic, Andrew Sullivan is a Catholic who is always bashing the Catholic church for its core teachings so he is basically an enabler of anti-Catholicism. And the initial word more just reminds us that this is just the latest round of hysteria from the scandal machine which will emanate from the tares among the wheat until the end of time.
Another reason I'm glad that a serious writer like Mr. Piatak responded was because it elicited this even more hysterical response from one of the aforementioned anti-Catholics in a lame partial-retraction:
It’s wrong to call all this “good news,” but to me, it is a relief to learn that the Church may be less culpable than the initial reports indicated. I posted the shocking first story, and have posted the debunking follow-ups as they’ve become available. That hasn’t stopped pious Tom Piatak, a stringer for a turgid Midwestern monthly, from losing his grip over my blogging. A “bitter apostate” he calls me, which is theologically ignorant; according to the Catechism, an “apostate” is one who totally repudiates Christianity, while a “schismatic” is one who affirms Christianity but who does not submit to the Roman pontiff. But this isn’t really about theology with him, but rather tribal breast-beating....
Who is losing their grip here? Sorry, but this verbal ad hominem assault on Tom Piatak is not going to go well for Rod Dreher. Tom Piatak is not some breast-beating neanderthal drone sent by the Catholic hierarchy. He is a nice guy and a smart, traditional conservative who writes for Vdare, Takimag, and ...oh, wait... lookie here! Seems like Mr. Piatak wrote for TAC once upon a time six years ago.
As Mark Levin once remarked in a similar situation, "Oh, the pain of it all."
Pauli, this post raises two important questions with me. First, what the heck could a "turgid Midwestern monthly" possibly even be? Did someone accidentally leave one in a puddle somewhere and the paper swelled up? Second, why does Rod Dreher have turgidity on the brain so as to create this mystery in the first place? Desire? Nostalgia? Wait, that's more than two questions, sorry.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, though, everything seems pretty clear. Rod Dreher just makes up what he wants to - the technical term is lying - as long as he thinks he can get away with it. There were no sewers in any initial reports; Rod Dreher just invented them. No Catholic nuns threw any babies in any non-existent sewers because they despised them; again, opportunistic liar Rod Dreher just made that up.
Then, when someone knowledgeable and trustworthy points out the obvious, that Dreher's just lying, Dreher gets hysterical and starts name calling.
So if Rod Dreher is so obviously lying about this to press his anti-Catholic agenda, why should anyone believe anything he has to say about anything, particularly about his sister whom he held a grudge against for decades?
Keith: "…why should anyone believe anything he has to say about anything, particularly about his sister whom he held a grudge against for decades?"
ReplyDeleteThat was the conclusion I was finally had to draw. There were just too many places in TLWORL where things just look too "slanted" to be merely accepted at face value. I begin to suspect that relevant facts were being left out in several places. This is why I had to withdraw my initially positive review of the book.
And now it appears that RD is continuing to create a long track record for himself of consistently botching up his facts. This isn't "journalism" — it looks more like hysteria to me, like the kind of the whacko stuff that churns up in Daily Kos or such like.
Anyhow, I think I might start looking at that "turgid Midwestern monthly" publication. Chronicles looks like it might be interesting.
This story is a perfect example of Dreher's M.O.: he regurgitates a story that can be used to disparage the Catholic Church, and as a vehicle to work in his own self-righteousness about leaving the Church, without regard for whether the story is true. When counterfacts then come out, he publishes them, too, because he is a "fair" journalist, you know, and because his blog is "just a notebook". Meanwhile, the hits to the blog keep racking up, and the Church gets pummeled in the combox (with her few defenders looking bad for doing so) along with Dreher adding a couple of NFR's saying "Now, now" just to show he's "fair". Mission accomplished -- on to the next instance of a suspected atrocity from decades ago. Lather, rinse, repeat.
ReplyDeleteI'll sharpen Keith's point just a bit, tho. Dreher isn't lying (on this story, anyway). He doesn't know the actual facts behind the story, but more to the point, he doesn't care what the actual facts are. Instead, he's a bullshitter, in the academic sense. I'll quote myself quoting someone else on this point:
For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.
And we know exactly what his purposes are in doing so, especially on this story.
Pik, I'll concede Dreher's not a liar only with respect to the fine point distinction you quote.
DeleteBut if he says babies were thrown into a swere and there flat isn't any sewer to be found, that just lying in my everyday book. Either that or produce the f'ing sewer.
Okay, Dreher might counter huffily, so it wasn't a sewer, it was a septic tank, same difference. But was it? Was it filled with human waste at the time, making it like a sewer? Uh...no. Had it ever been? Uh...no, it had not. It was just a mass grave space.
If I used Dreher's moral standards concerning the truth, I could just as easily claim his sister Ruthie had been "thrown into a sewer". So would that make me a liar, or a bullshitter?
There is so much low-hanging fruit here, it's hard to know what to grab for first. There are some hilarious things in the comments, more anger in a Note From Rod conceding that Piatak was "right" about the Iraq war and therefore more trustworthy on that topic, but "We're not talking about that, though."
DeleteI think the word turgid is being used for its 2nd definition meaning "tediously pompous or bombastic". Which is pretty rich coming from Dreher. This whole thing has been bombast from the get-go. Can you seriously write "The collapse of Catholicism in Ireland is a judgment upon the Irish church, priests and laymen both, which will not emerge from it until it has paid the last penny," and not see yourself as being guilty of self-righteous bombast? Obviously some people can.
Keith, Dreher doesn't care whether it was a sewer or a septic tank or a mausoleum. Makes no difference to him for his purposes. All he cares is that he said it. That's why he can post the counterfacts also -- they don't directly reflect on Dreher's own credibility (he's being a "fair" journalist and it's only his notebook anyway), but it keeps the hits on the blog and on the Church coming.
DeleteMy quick reading of the article I cited is that the bullshitter is a lower moral form than the liar. The liar at least respects the existence of truth, but chooses to violate it (and receives the punishment of his conscience for doing so). The bullshitter does not even respect the existence of truth -- the ends justify the means.
So if you were to claim Ruthie were thrown in a sewer, you'd be a liar because you know otherwise.
Thanks, Pik, I think your clarification and elaboration serves a really important purpose here in illustrating just the sort of contempt Dreher has for anyone but himself (Lord have mercy on the wife and children he uses as human shields).
DeleteSadly, the biggest loser, if anyone still has the temerity to defend Dreher as a "journalist", has got to be his alma mater, the LSU J-School. Lord have mercy on them, too.
To our point, Keith, Dreher himself explains the professional journalistic approach that he used in this story:
Delete[NFR: I'm not "apologizing" for believing the initial reporting from normally reputable news sources. I say in this post that I regret being quick to believe the worst, and I have updated the story all along as more counterinformation has come out. This is a blog. This is how it works. I added in this context as to why it's very easy to believe the worst about the behavior of the Irish church -- not to justify it, but to explain how it happens. It doesn't require "anti-Catholic bias" to expect the worst when it comes to the behavior of the Irish church. It just requires an awareness of its recent history. -- RD]
To which I can only say: Wow. I read this as confirming exactly what we are saying here: he didn't care whether the original story he published was true, nor does he regret doing so. IOW, the truth of the story didn't matter, only that he published it. Because that's how blogs work.
That's how his blog works, indeed.
It doesn't require "anti-Catholic bias" to expect the worst when it comes to the behavior of the Irish church.
DeleteGee, Rod. How about the Russian church? Pogroms, anyone? Virulent anti-semitism persisting to this day? Collaboration with the Soviets in seizing Ukrainian Catholic churches and forcibly coverting Catholics to Orthodoxy? Or how about all the sex and money scandals roiling the Greek church? Expect the worst there, too, Mr. Double Standard?
UNreal.
Here's some more journalism that they didn't teach in J-school at LSU (Dreher responding to dcs challenging his assertion that the nuns may have used the kids as "guinea pigs").
DeleteI've been told by Catholics far more knowledgeable than I that a Catholic who deliberately leaves the Church and joins another communion (yes, even one as close as Orthodoxy) is indeed an apostate. Technically and officially.
ReplyDeleteCode of Canon Law 751 states, "Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."
DeleteThanks, Tom. dcs already corrected me (below). I don't know whence my misinformation came -- I think from an overly zealous rad-trad (name withheld). But anyway, thanks for the info!
DeletePauli, may I link to this at Facebook? It is just too good. It needs wider circulation!
ReplyDeleteYES! By all means link it.
ReplyDeleteThanks!!! I will!
ReplyDeleteTried to post the following comment at that Chronicles site. I had just posted another comment; I guess there's a comboxer limit or a time thingy or something. Anyway, here goes...I am responding to another (and overall excellent) comment, excerpted here in italics:
ReplyDeletehis bitter anti-Catholic feeling (which understandably had its origins in the sexual abuse scandal)...
Weirdly enough, the numerous cases of clerical sex abuse plaguing Rod's current communion, Orthodoxy, do not seem to have disturbed him overly much. I guess victims matter only if the perps are Catholic priests. If the perps are Orthodox priests or hierarchs, then Dreher either ignores them or gives them only passing mention (usually only when the case becomes so infamous that he cannot avoid mentioning it).
What a difference a beard makes.
Not only the beard, Diane. Don't forget that Orthodox sanctuaries are prettier and they don't sing "On Eagle's Wings".
DeleteI've been told by Catholics far more knowledgeable than I that a Catholic who deliberately leaves the Church and joins another communion (yes, even one as close as Orthodoxy) is indeed an apostate. Technically and officially.
ReplyDeleteCatholics who say that, knowledgeable or no, are technically and officially wrong. An apostate is one who completely abandons Christianity. Dreher is a heretic and schismatic.
Next task: please find all misuses of the semi-colon made by Tom Piatak or any other Catholics and high-light them. And... well, that should do for now.
DeleteIf you're the same "dcs" as this "dcs", good job in calling out Dreher on his journalistic standards.
DeleteThanks, David. ;) I sit corrected.
DeleteOh my gosh, pikkumati! I went to that link. Rod is telling us to trust the Irish Times guy but not Tom Piatak? What a big BABY!!!
DeleteI'm sorry, but if you're gonna thrust yourself into the public as a supposed "journalist" -- and if you're going to write strongly opinionated, even offensive, articles attacking other people's churches -- then you should be able to take the heat when someone takes you to task over your lies and misrepresentations.
Dreher wants to be able to say whatever he wants with total impunity. He is pitching a toddler tantrum because someone had the temerity to call him out on his irresponsible claims. UNbelievable. Completely, utterly unprofessional!
What a BABY!
On the serious side, it's unfortunate that Piatak called Dreher an apostate. Even calling him a heretic--which may be technically correct--is colorful and unnecessary. It distracts from the main point which, BTW, is bearing false witness due to an extreme willingness to bash the Catholic church.
DeleteJust refer to him as an ex-Catholic. That's the most accurate way to look at him or people like Anne Rice who leave the church over ephemeral disagreements. He is really not into theology by his own admission unless it involves ghosts or other sensational subject matter.
Dreher is just like people who leave the church over a lack of women's ordination or because the gay lifestyle is not accepted. Or because some Catholic person committed a sin once or twice and they lost their faith over it. Etc.
Another excellent article:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aleteia.org/en/society/article/scapegoating-the-sisters-for-the-deaths-of-800-babies-5875079674068992?page=1
This is the best article on this subject so far, IMHO. Makes some excellent points. The Bon Secours Sisters actually emerge as the Good Guys in this story -- doing their level best under terrible circumstances, in the teeth of secular opposition.
DeleteMoreover, the mortality rate at the Tuam home was roughly the same as that throughout Irish society at the time -- less thasn the rate in some areas, in fact.
Apparently one of the guys who discovered the septic tank back in the '70s describes it as roughly the size of a coffee table. As he himself testifies, there is no way you could fit even a fraction of 800 bodies in it. Apparently the "boys-discover-septic-tank" story was conflated with "800 children died over a 40-year period," and the result was...sheer fiction. A great big hot mess of a fabricated yarn.
The whole story stinks worse than sewage. And it just stinks more and more as more facts emerge.
Given the hostility toward traditional catholics on the part of the Catholic powers that be, coupled with the big media love for Pope Francis, I'm tempted to believe this Tuam story was a slam on traditional Irish catholicism, perpetrated by modernists iwthin the catholic church. Because here's what else is going on and what you refuse to discuss on this blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/140610
http://veneremurcernui.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/not-satisfied-with-crushing-ffi-vatican-moves-against-franciscan-sisters-of-the-immaculate/
oh and here's a story that's getting a LOT LESS coverage than Tuam, because it's happening under "noH8" Pope Francis and not 50 years ago:
http://fox4kc.com/2014/06/10/archbishop-said-in-deposition-that-he-didnt-know-if-sex-with-child-was-a-crime/
(You entitled this post "Around the internets", so I thought you might want to read what else is going on)
DeleteActually, Kathleen, Rod Dreher is flooding his blog with the Carlson story like a squid squirting ink now for two reasons, to show he can and will slap the Church around anytime he feels like it and to push the disaster Piatak inflicted on him out of sight and hopefully out of mind.
DeleteThen good for Rod, because that link is from the local Kansas City news. there is no nationwide coverage of this outrage in the mainstream or catholic press, least of all on "catholic" blogs, including this one.
DeleteI enjoy pounding on Dreher as much as the next guy, especially when one of his risible books come out. But seriously,this is getting embarrassing and old. It has been nearly ten years and the guy is a ninny, not worth that kind of time. Get over it.
And everyone's silence on the FFI and Fr. Wylie stories is duly noted.
DeleteCarlson is a disgrace, but it is completely wrong to see him as representative of our contemporary episcopate or of the Catholic Church overall.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile...perps in other communions (including Rod's) are getting off scot free. And making statements every bit as insane as Carlson's, if not more so. (Google Spiritual Sounding Board and look up the Sovereign Grace Ministries lawsuit. Things are tough all over, but you'll never hear that from Rod.)
Pace Rod and despite Carlson, overall the Catholic Church TODAY has a far, far better track record protecting children and teens than many other communions. Even Billy Graham's grandson, who runs an anti-abuse group, has conceded this.
You should talk to some ex-Orthodox about sex abuse in Orthodoxy. It would make your hair curl.
"It is completely wrong to see [Carlson] as representative of our contemporary episcopate or of the Catholic Church overall."
DeleteNo, just at least half of it...
Diane, how can i put this ....I. Don't. give. a. crap. about. Orthodoxy.
DeleteOr Billy Graham. or his son. or Sovereign Grace Ministries. you feel me?
Deleteor Joel Osteen
Deletehttp://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Osteen-meets-with-Pope-Francis-at-Vatican-5533805.php
Or Kim Kardashian... Or Taylor Swift... Or Justin Bieber...
ReplyDeleteGee, son of a gun. There are many things I don't give a crap about, either.
DeleteWe're all entitled to not giving a crap. Know what I mean?
Did Pope Francis send them personal videos proclaiming religious unity and/or invite them to the Vatican too? Of course, it wouldn't surprise me, so do tell
DeleteHere's the rub: as a Catholic, there are some things you SHOULD give a crap about. And that's pretty much my point.
DeleteHere you go.
Deletedoubling down on the lame?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou might find this quote interesting from Dreher:As many of you have suspected, I will be writing a book about all this. It’s called How Dante Can Save Your Life. I do not yet have permission to disclose the name of the publisher, but the deal has been struck, and the book is definitely going to happen. My gifted father made the future for himself and his family with his hands; I, a man of different gifts, make the future for myself and my family with mine.
ReplyDeleteYes, I just checked that out. Didn't read it all, but I noticed that he took B&W pictures of his father's left hand and his own right hand and included them in the post.
Delete