We have been far too nice to the people who make time stand-still: the vacuous, lite-enlightened, shifty, greedy, egomanical and the just plain too-stupid to be Governor. Good manners and spineless moral dictates developed by ninnies with far too much time their hands preclude the time honored retort of " What is wrong with you? Just How Goddam Stupid Are You? For Crissakes, You Just Can Not Shut up! Now, have your opinions follow your ass out of here!" following any uncommonly stupid proposition or pronouncement (see any Editorial in any newspaper in Chicago, or catch Chicago Tonight on WTTW).
These dominating ideas used to come only from hopeless drunks after some cash windfall, any recently hired faculty member with a grudge about Homecomings, public librarians, Elks and Hyde Park indigents seeking unrestricted admission to the Newberry Library.
Now days, this field of shameless edgy opinion contrarians crowds and dominates our inkspace, cyberspace, wirewaves and legislatures.
Take for example this celebrated and accomplished asshole -advice columnist, playwright, activist, arse-burglar and bullying lecturer Dan Savage:
All wax and no wick.
Then we have this financially comfortable, mildly educated and spiritually bankrupt couple from Texas:
Two pacifists out of necessity in the battle of wits
Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago*, past President of the American Conference of Catholic Bishops, internationally honored author and theologian, Oblate of Mary Missionary priest is no newspaper columnist and he certainly is no Progressive member of the Cook County Democratic Party, nor is he any way near a GOP tasseled loafer suburban fence sitter, like Senator Marque Kirque and gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner.
How can a scholar of sacred theology expect to reason with a Mark Brown**, an Eric Zorn, a Carol Marin, a Neil Steinberg, or a Proco Joe Moreno and maintain any semblance of moral high-ground? Recently these folks have opined upon the Secular Redemption of Milliken Don James St. James who merely slaughtered his entire family in 1960's served his time in the nut house, deemed clean, was released, advanced degreed, changed his name and lived anonymously among the folks as respected member of the academic community, not unlike Dr. Josef Mengele or other South Americans of post-Holocaust redemption. Columnist love this American Progressive Gatsby narrative. But that is Columnist Theology.
Today, Mark Brown, one of the very few columnists who actually offers a semblance of a fair shake, recounts his 'cordial' exchange with Cardinal George concerning this summer's hoo-ha over Proco Joe and company's outrage in letter form protesting Catholic Campaign for Human Development's (CCHD) decision to no longer fund the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights( ICIRR).
Mark Brown wrote a searing column that burned the fibers of manly hearts that already agree with him on matters relating to same-sex marriage and scorched the muscles of that vital organ in the womanly breasts of maids and dowagers who equate bike repair with non-Euclidean sex and Civil Rights.
Cardinal George found fault with Mr. Brown's column; hence the 'cordial' dialogue.
George expressed his opinion that the funding cutoff “wouldn’t have been an issue if we weren’t in a campaign for governor.” That confused me a little, because I certainly would have raised the issue whether there was an election next year or not. The cardinal reiterated that his understanding is that some people want to use gay marriage as an issue in the governor’s race.
I suggested it was his decision to halt funding from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development to the immigrant groups that made this an issue. He rejected that assertion, arguing that the leaders of the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights in effect cut off funding to their own member groups with the decision in May to endorse gay marriage.
You see, Cardinal; George is not only an episcopal and evangelical leader of the Catholic Church in Chicago, but he also happens to be a Chicagoan and someone who can and does read print.
To avoid any confusion, there is a race for governor. The signer of the hostile and historically damaging Illinois Civil Union Bill, Governor Pat Quinn, lost the May bid to make Same -Sex Marriage the Lincoln Log Cabin for his Reelection, chinking every crack with Progressively pious platitudes. Quinn is even more unpopular than his enemies who are growing up out of the ground from the dragon's teeth sown by the very forces that own Quinn's political soul - ( SEIU, Planned Parenthood, Dr. Quentin Young, Abner Mikva, the ACLU and Fred Eychaner). We now have Bruce Rauner, a billionaire buccaneer hopping out of Rahm Emanuel's vest pocket as a GOP standard bearer and Bill Daley who gave Rahm his first job. We have Kwame Raul as a wedge candidate to gobble up Quinn's African American base, if there ever had been such, and a cavalcade gimpy-wimpy GOP dependables.
Now, that is something to confuse one, Mr. Brown.
The Catholic Church has been sanctioned for fire bombing by the DNC, because of its implacable defense of the unborn and traditional marriage.
Cardinal George knows the political landscape and it is hostile. What passes for an evolved culture in this country finds the Gay Ann Landers, Dan Savage, to be a sober and thoughtful Catholic voice and it finds the certitude of ethical and moral principles just too mean for a queen. Mark Brown offers his last word on the matter ex-cathedra, or swivel seat, or easy chair in a much less than cordial manner. Mark Brown wants that to be his column's take away?
The cardinal acknowledged his own characterization of the pope’s comments on gays may have been “jarring,” as I put it, but he said he was frustrated by journalists missing the pope’s point.
“In our culture, ‘Who am I to judge’ means nobody has the right to distinguish right from wrong,” which wasn’t what the pope meant, the cardinal said.
“He was saying that a person who has given up their sinful ways, you don’t judge them. You accept them,” George said. “. . .He started out saying: gay sex is wrong.”
I told the cardinal I never believed for a moment that the pope was changing church policy toward gays, only setting a different tone that was missing from his own approach.
The cardinal expressed frustration that, in the current political climate, Catholics can’t express their opposition to same-sex marriage without being regarded as bigots.
“”When that becomes the criterion for accepting gay and lesbian people, then we’re in the bind we’re in now, which is a real bind,” he said.
No - that is not what a Sun Times reader must take away from the 'coridal' exchange of the columnist and mere Cardinal. It is this.
"Nobody really expects the Catholic Church to change, only to adapt."
Millions of European Jews were told that very thing. Now, that was some lesson in social evolution . . . very scientific.
* Francis Cardinal George, OMI Education
Bachelor in Theology, University Ottawa
Master in Theology, University Ottawa, 1971
MA in Philosophy, Catholic University America, 1965
PhD in Philosophy, Tulane University, 1970
STD, Pontifical Urban University, Rome, 1989
Career
Ordained priest Oblates of Mary Immaculate, 1963, provincial central region, 1973—1974, vicar general, 1974—1986; coordinator Circle of Fellows Cambridge Center for Study of Faith & Culture, Massachusetts, 1987—1990; ordained bishop, 1990; bishop Diocese of Yakima, Washington, 1990—1996; archbishop Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, 1996—1997, Archdiocese of Chicago, 1997—; elevated to cardinal, 1998; cardinal-priest S. Bartolomeo all'Isola, 1998—
Career Related
Vice president US Conference Catholic Bishops, 2004—; chancellor Catholic Church Extension University St. Mary of Lake, 1997; member Congregation Divine Worship, Discipline of Sacraments, Congregation for Oriental Churches, 2001—, Congregation Institutes, Consecrated Life, Societies Apostolic Life, Pontifical Commission for Cultural Heritage of Church, 1999—, Pontifical Council Cor Unum, 1998, Congregation Evangelization of Peoples, Pontifical Council for Culture, 2004—, Catholic Commission on Intellectual & Cultural Affairs
Creative Works
Author (pastoral letter): Becoming an Evangelizing People, 1997, Dwell in My Love, 2001
Memberships
Mem.: Am. Catholic Philosophical Association, Am. Society Missiologists
Religion
Roman Catholic
Address
Office: Archdiocese of Chgo Pastoral Ctr PO Box 1979 Chicago IL 60690-1979
** Mark Brown
Brown grew up in central Illinois, graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1977 and then attended the Public Affairs Reporting program at University of Illinois-Springfield, then known as Sangamon State, where he was a Sun-Times intern. Brown worked four years at the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa, before joining the Sun-Times full-time in 1982.
At the Sun-Times, Brown worked mainly as a general assignment reporter specializing politics and government, which led him into investigative reporting. In September 2000, Brown began writing his column, which currently appears Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday. One of his strengths is that he has experience covering not only Chicago City Hall, but also Cook County government and the Illinois Statehouse.
Brown, a third-string high school basketball player, grew up obsessed with St. Louis Cardinals baseball, Chicago Bears football and Bradley basketball. Only Bradley has moved down on his radar, replaced by the Bulls.
Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago is a scholar. The Gay Marriage initiative is a pop culture civil rights demand that opinion triumphs over truth.
It takes a man and woman to make a baby in Nature. Dow Chemicals or Green Futures BioGenetics, LLC might work on some form of Insta-Kidz, but that would not be natural - as the organic and free range farmers are wont to note.
Gay Marriage is a political power play candied up as civil rights, by hack journalists and pricey politicians. Andrew Sullivan is a homosexual writer, baptized a Catholic, and branded by his liberal publishers as a 'conservative voice' on American culture. The breathless and the clueless on MSNBC, Fox and CNN will c cite Andrew Sullivan, or Dan Savage, the borderline Kiddie porn advocate and Gay sex-life advice columnist as Catholic opinion on the SCOTUS Rulings and Gay Marriage.
Here is the only succinct and cogent reaction to the twin rulings of last week found in my vast and eclectic readings during the last few days.
STATEMENT OF FRANCIS CARDINAL GEORGE, O.M.I.
REGARDING SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON MARRIAGE
June 26, 2013
This morning, in the guise of technical legal language, the United States Supreme Court advanced the project of making marriage in the United States a genderless institution. Since women and men are not interchangeable, the Court's action is illogical and pretentious. The Court abuses its own authority when it permits civil law to alter the definition of marriage, which is a natural institution. What is truly at stake in these decisions is not the right of adults to love whom they please, but rather the right of children to have both a mother and a father.
Today's decisions also bring us one step closer to the day when those who continue to distinguish between genuine marital unions and same-sex arrangements will be regarded as "bigots." We have already seen the negative result of gender-free unions on Catholic social services here in Illinois and other states.
We can all be grateful that the Court did not create a new "right" to same-sex marriage, allowing Illinois and other states to continue to acknowledge in law what nature and nature's God already tell us: that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for the sake of family.
That about sums it up.
Catholics have had a target on their backs from the Founding Father and 1st Chief Justice John Jay through the evolved out of the faith Justice Kennedy, who like the evolved Justice Brennan who poked the Pope in the eyes with Roe v. Wade in 1973, proved that he his religious beliefs matter not at all. The target is getting bigger.
Nobody bullies like like a bully, who deeply and passionately believes that he has been bullied - a little corporal in Vienna, who avoided tobacco, alcohol, and bullets during WWI, found his art and lifestyle to be a laughing-stock to jeering Jews and callous Catholics and effeminate critics. It got better.
He went on to pen a world-wide best-seller about his personal struggle and became a transcendent post-political world leader.
It gets better, unless one and others happen to be au contraire. One can almost hear the smartly turned-out jack-booted progressive voices -Sie, nach rechts!Sienach links!
Dan Savage* is a Chicago boy who tells one and all that his lifestyle has made him feel that he was somehow outre; well, different, conspicuously, or grossly unconventional or unusual. Dan is homosexual. For that, Dan Savage has told every carbon foot-print within earshot, or the ability to read that he suffered from bullies.
The only human being, about whom I have some empirical knowledge, never bullied on this earth might possibly have been Swannie (circa - 1950-Present?) Swanie lived at 75th Pl. & Honore Street two houses south of the tracks. He bullied me, Al McFarland, Terry Smith, Larry Fiscelli, Jimmy & Leo Shea, my brother Whitey, the Lutherans Dave and Danny Krieger, The Hamilton Dairy drivers, Brother Sloane from Leo, the Two Mike Kellys, the Railroad Dicks, the Cops from Gresham, the Mercy Nuns, Clara Barton Grammar School, Msgr. Stephan McMahon, my Dad and his six brothers, the late Moose Skowron, three shifts at Donahue Steel on Damen, three shifts at Rheem water heater over by the Old Mill on the north side of the tracks, generations of Norway rats, stray dogs, and wild onions. Swannie-Invictus,intacta,etimproviso
Jesus was Bullied, Moses was Bullied, St. Paul was Bullied, Oscar Wilde both bullied and was Bullied, Ho Chi Minh was Bullied - hell, he was a dish-washer in a French restaurant, Mao was bullied, and even George Sanders was bullied . . .I think.
I hate bullies. Having been bullied I tried to be one myself and had my ass kicked wholesomely - not worth the trouble or the accompanying shame.
Bullies hate being confronted. I hectored, not bullied mind you, the sweet, smart, lovely and talented Tamara Holder due to my misunderstanding of her work in expunging criminal records. Ms. Holder set me straight and that is not reverse bullying. Ms. Holder gave me what for with the facts; we be friends. Ms. Holder holds what some would call Progressive points of view. I value my Catholic, anti-abortion, tribal, close-knit ethnic, pro-real labor beliefs. We believe in truths; we are not truth itself; that is bullying.
This is bullying and it is fully approved by the media, government and our current Justice Department**.
A few months ago, It seems to me that in order to clear the way for Rep. Greg Harris' Homosexual Marriage Campaign in Illinois, media types took shots at the Catholic Church and Catholics because of its and their Belief that Marriage is between a Man and a Woman, because a man and woman can procreate - breed, have children.
No less a bully than Neil Steinberg chastised Catholic High Schools for not sending students to see a play at the Steppenwolf Theatre that celebrated a gay girl bullied at a Catholic School.
Mesdames et Messieurs,Notreintimidentpeu idiot,Neil!
Catholic schools avoid Steppenwolf play on gay student bullied — at Catholic school
Most schools have some kind of anti-bullying program, though — since schools don’t like to acknowledge the existence of sex, either (parents tend to go crazy) —most of those programs don’t actually discuss sexuality, even though half of school bullying is against kids who are either gay or seen as gay. Neil Steinberg nsteinberg@suntimes.com March 6, 2012 6:24PM
Gee, and everybody loves Wagner! The opera guy! Wagner gave that little smokes and booze free vegan Viennese corporal paper-hanger the spirit and juice to show everyone that It Gets Better!
Why does Israel bully Old Dead Dick Wagner and not allow his tunes ( His music is better than it sounds - Mark Twain, a huge American bully) to get play ?
Must be something in Bible.
*Dan Savage was born to William and Judy Savage inChicago, Illinois.[6]He is ofIrishancestry.[7]The third of four children,[6]Savage was raised as aRoman Catholicand attendedQuigley Preparatory Seminary North, which he has described as "a Catholic high school in Chicago for boys thinking of becomingpriests."[8]Though Savage has stated that he is now "a wishy-washyagnostic" and anatheist,[9]he has said that he still considers himself "culturally Catholic."[8][10]Savage attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied theater and history.[6] As a theater director, Savage (working under the name "Keenan Hollahan") was a founder of Seattle's Greek Active Theater.[10] Much of the group's work has been queer recontextualizations of classic works, such as a tragicomicMacbeth with both the title character and Lady Macbeth played by performers of the opposite sex. In March 2001, he directed his own Egguus at Consolidated Works, a parody of Peter Shaffer's 1973 play Equus which exchanged a fixation on horses for a fixation on chickens. Savage has not directed, produced, or performed in any productions since a 2003 production of Letters from the Earth, also at Consolidated Works, his trimmed version of Mark Twain's The Diary of Adam and Eve, which received scathing reviews, including one from his own paper, "My Boss's Show Stinks".[11]Savage and his husband, Terry, have one adopted son, D.J.,[12] and were married in Vancouver, BC in 2005.[13][14]
** ARLINGTON— Hundreds of Texas educators, politicians and LGBT activists attended the White House LGBT Conference on Safe Schools and Communities to hear about the Obama administration’s efforts to fight bullying and prevent hate crimes and to discuss local progress. [...]
Holder said the administration has “created a record we can all be proud of” in terms of protecting LGBT rights and “a sense of momentum that today we stand poised to build upon.”
“This morning I’m proud to join you in affirming a very simple truth and renewing this administration’s commitment, as well as my own, to an essential idea that no one, no one, deserves to be bullied, harassed or victimized because of who they are, how they worship or, and hear it when I say it now, or who they love,” Holder said.
Holder said the “It Gets Better” campaign is more than a slogan, but something the administration is backing up with “robust action,” like the five-year settlement with the Anoka-Hennepin school district reached March 5.
Dad always said that I couldn't find my butt with both hands. I can. Allow me to add this imperative -“Defend the unborn against abortion even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you." - Pope Francis to celebrate Pro-life Mass, Vatican
"You stand up for what you believe in, even if it gets in the way of what other people think. You are proud of yourself and your accomplishments and you enjoy letting people know that."
A peach of a guy with all the sweetness one could expect from a life well-spent and in good company: short on brains but a terrific dancer!
Author:
Every Heart and Hand: A Leo High School Story
The Chorito Hog Leg, Book One: A Novel of Guam in Time of War