Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 2:53am

Leftism is a Poor Substitute Religion

Dave Griffey at Daffey Thoughts notes that too many Catholics are Leftists first:

I am not impressed by Sister Josita Colbert’s letter

You can read it here

I’m actually bothered that she can’t see the problems with Black Lives Matter. Never mind the demonstrably false premise of the movement.  Never mind the myriad positions it takes that are contrary to the teachings of the Faith.  Never mind that BLM has effectively made the call to care for all lives a racist phrase to be condemned (well done idiots who let that happen).

No, I’m bothered by the fact that Archbishop points out a reality – that BLM is an alternate religion for people, as so often political and manmade movements can be.  That’s obvious.  I’m bothered that there appears to be no way but by BLM to deal with justice, to hear Sister Colbert talk.  

I’m mostly bothered, however, that Catholics always used to strut like peacocks under the banner of ‘we’re so above getting dragged into political and worldly inventions like that.’  Not like them ignorant Evangelical right wing Christians who seem to forget that such worldly ideas as Democracy, Capitalism, the Republican Party and even our Constitution are just worldly things and nowhere near Divine revelation. 

Well then hell, it would be nice for Catholics to be able to say we don’t need to follow a human concocted, up to its earlobes in problems, movement like BLM and still care for things like justice, equality and human life.  It would be nice if we said Jesus can actually do it, even if we don’t fall into lockstep behind BLM, #MeToo, LGBTQ, or even liberal Democrats. 

I’m just going to say it, and get pissed at me if you want.  But perhaps its time for some Catholics who happen to be black to be Catholics first, instead of black first.  For that is a major underpinning of the modern Left, that we are first and foremost the latest sanctioned demographic identifier, everything else is dead last.  Except our religious identities, which must always be set under the latest identifier the Left deems worthy. 

It pains me to discover that the National Black Clergy Caucus declared the Catholic Church a racist institution in 1968.  I’m sure atheists and Satanists and everyone else  at war with the Gospel will rejoice at such news.  Today, every ‘they were all evil, but not us’ goes  a long way toward assuring young people that religion has always been as stupid and as evil as they’re taught in school and pop culture.  Every ‘but this time we’re really right’ is just met with yawns and giggles.  They know better.  

There is no God or eternity, science has shown that.  Religion is just made up rules and fairy tales used for evil and wickedness.  And each time we insist the last 2000 years of the Church were a problem, but now we’re getting it right, we’re just convincing youngsters the World is right, best to sleep in this Sunday. 

So assuming we all still  believe what my family and I lost almost everything to come into communion with, let’s be a sport.  Let’s be Catholics first before anything else.  Let’s not say those Christians over there are bad for putting political movements ahead of Christ, but we’re right to do so because our politics and the Gospel are one.  And let’s not say a slick and easy alliance with the Accusing One manifest in one of a million charges against the Church will work this time, unless our goal is to see the Church continue to gush believers by the millions with fewer and fewer coming through the doors.  

Go here to comment.  Pope Francis of course sets the example of substituting Leftism for Christ.  The dwindling of many orders, like the one Sister Colbert is the vocations director of, is to be applauded by faithful Catholics as these orders go whoring after false gods.  The average age of the members of The National Black Sisters Conference, go here to read one of their latest missives, is over 65.  Truth attracts, lies repel.

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Ezabelle
Ezabelle
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 8:08am

I’m assuming here that Sisters like her probably grew up during the time of segregation and haven’t let go of it. And the racism probably extended into the Church at the time ie. Catholic schools, seminary’s and convents.

I mean, I read somewhere that Clarence Thomas abandoned the priesthood because of derogatory racial remarks and attitudes by fellow seminarians after MLK jnr assassination. And he admitted to feeling the pain of being a black man in a Catholic school. That would have been a struggle especially since the prejudice was based on the colour of his skin. The upside is that a Catholic religious guided him in his educational vocation and he is apparently currently reconciled to the Church. But I can imagine the slight bitterness of being at the receiving end of the racism probably stays at the back of his mind.

The current so-called movements are anything but Godly, but I think you can understand where the deep-seated resentment is coming from.

Pope Francis approach of pandering to the left side of politics isn’t the answer unfortunately.

Ezabelle
Ezabelle
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 8:27am

Correction- I meant to say Thomas abandoned seminary studies (not priesthood).

Father of Seven
Father of Seven
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 8:35am

The bride of Christ” is a racist institution? No, Sister is consumed by evil. She quite clearly wants to be her own god. Good luck with that. Repent and believe, Sister!

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 9:53am

Quick! Somebody tell Sister “all Live Matter.” All of us are poor, banished children of Eve.

I bet she believes all the leftist myths.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 10:18am

Sister is not wrong about the racism experienced by black Catholics at the hands of white clerics and laity in the United States in the past.

The historical record is what it is, and it includes Jesuit and other Catholic slaveowners, Fr. Augustus Tolton not being allowed to celebrate mass by white parishioners, and black women and men having to start their own religious orders because whites would not allow their brothers and sisters to take vows with them. I appreciate the short poems of Jesuit Father John Bannister Tabb and have collection of them, but he gleefully dropped the n-word in a poem about Booker T. Washington’s dinner with Teddy Roosevelt at the White House. And remember what Archbishop Rummel’s excommunication decree was about: racist whites not wanting black kids in Catholic schools.

And those are just a few off the top of my head.

So, the historical record is in Sister’s favor, and failure to honestly reckon with that history will only feed into strife.

Where she goes awry is in calling BLM a Gospel movement and thinking that such can be baptized en masse into a force for good. No, it isn’t and it can’t.

When a BLM leader in Milwaukee suggests that mass murderer Darrell Brooks was engaged in a revolutionary act, you have the stink of Satan clinging to you, not the fresh air of the Gospel:

“It sounds possible that the revolution has started in Wisconsin. It started with this Christmas parade.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/hate-dare-not-speak-its-name-daniel-greenfield/

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 10:38am

A comfortable armchair radicalism.

Very well cared for, very comfortable. Never forgive, never forget. Keep hate alive like it was yesterday. Ignore all progress.

Bleat out bitterness and anger, even going into that Dylan Thomas Good Night.

Pinky
Pinky
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 11:00am

I don’t know exactly what “racist institution” meant in 1968, but these days it implies incurability. Gomez rightly states that the Church is anti-racist, but freely admits that we haven’t always lived up to the obligation.

Also, everything was kind of racist in 1968, at least by 1990 standards. The bad news is that 2021 is also more racist than 1990.

Dave G.
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 11:11am

Dale, that’s the problem. Nobody denies the history of racism in the country, though some deny it anywhere else. But we don’t solve it by embracing new racism. Or by calling the Church a racist institution. Or assuming that eight year old over there is racist because of his skin color. Or suggesting one can only align with BLM if one seeks to bring justice to the world. That is where the World always has us. Seldom is it wrong for pointing to failures, sins and even evils. If you do that, you’ll always be right to begin with. But then somewhere along the line, it uses these observations to push us into new forms of such evils, as the old evils of the day were new then as well. And it suggests, strongly sometimes, that to avoid the new evils must mean we’re denying, or worse, endorsing the old evils of the past.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 11:22am

Or by calling the Church a racist institution.
Let me state this very carefully:

The Body of Christ is not racist.
BUT.
Black Catholics have experienced racism at the hands of the Church, and in living memory.

Coleman Young was a controversial mayor of Detroit, to put it mildly. But at one point in his life, he had been Catholic–thanks to the kindness of a white Catholic who treated his father like a full human being with equal dignity.

So one day in the early 30s, a youthful Coleman was trying to enroll in a local Michigan Catholic school. Young was fairly light-complected, and that prompted a question from the white religious Father who was reviewing his application.

“Are you Hawaiian?”

“No, Father, I am colored.”

The reverend proceeded to rip up Young’s application on the spot. And Young never darkened the door of a Catholic Church for the rest of his life.

The ripple effects of acts like that, multiplied by countless other examples, need to be faced squarely and honestly. BLM is a toxic remedy, but there has to be a remedy.

Dave G.
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 11:52am

The remedy, I would say, is reclaiming the Christian Faith and its world view. Taking it – all of it – seriously. Racism against blacks certainly existed. But bigotry and prejudice are facts of the world since the history of the world. Christians are at their best, as has been the case in the West and America in general, when we rise up above the world and not join it.

The World today would have us only care about discrimination done to blacks, for the moment. In another year it might not care about blacks. Just like during #MeToo, the plight of blacks, at least black men, was small beans compared to all women. Today it’s all about blacks, women, at least white women, being small beans now.

When we point out that Catholics have often dropped the ball when it comes to resisting the evils of the world, that’s fine. That includes, but is hardly unique to, the treatment of blacks when treating blacks poorly was all the rage.

One of the World’ best tricks in recent years has been to say at any given moment only one group matters, and then only for one reason. If we want to address the poor treatment of people, then we do so, on our terms, as Christians, not trying to take the latest trick of the World and spin it with a Christian ethic. We’ve done that for a long time, and I have yet to see the positive results.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 12:52pm

Speaking of racist, it is hard to find anymore more racist than Coleman Young.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 1:12pm

I grew up in Detroit during Coleman Young’s reign. I’m just speaking to what I saw from him and experienced during that time.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 2:00pm

The institutional Catholic Church has spent most of the 20th century and all of the 21st up to now embracing the false gospel of social justice, the common good and peace at any price. It has failed to preach conversion and repentance, righteousness and holiness, Godliness and virtue. Everything has been about “The poor! The poor! The poor! Just another dollar to Catholic Charities and we’ll create a heaven on earth!” How about sin, death and hell! Being rich or poor won’t save anyone from hell. Repenting will. Frack the institutional Church. I for one am disgusted with it, its bishops, its Pope and the whole nine yards.

Ezabelle
Ezabelle
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 3:47pm

“Being rich or poor won’t save anyone from hell.” So true LQC and we have the most loving, and just and merciful God that made it so.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 5:05pm

Just imagine how much better things would have been for Young if he had stayed Catholic until the end.

I have my problems with some of his behavior and legacy, but I have more problems with a Catholic religious figure who abuses a child because of his race.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 5:44pm

Unfortunately, Dale, the catholic church now has a different reputation for abusing children.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 6:39pm

While it is possible Coleman Young would have been better if he remained Catholic, but the opposite is equally possible. In fact, I think there was a lot more to Young’s racism and corruption than how he was treated. by a Catholic religious figure. Clarence Thomas experienced racism in a Catholic seminary. While it didn’t cause him to leave, it accelerated his exit. And yes, bigotry is worse when it is veiled in Catholic window dressing. I have been quite disgusted, perhaps to a fault, about what has taken place in prominent Catholic circles for many years now.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 8:35pm

The reverend proceeded to rip up Young’s application on the spot. And Young never darkened the door of a Catholic Church for the rest of his life.

Do we have anything but Young’s word on this?

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 8:45pm

Speaking of racist, it is hard to find anymore more racist than Coleman Young.

Possibly the most destructive core city mayor of the post-war period. His rivals for that title would be Marion Barry and the clown car posse in Baltimore.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, November 26, AD 2021 9:05pm

Where she goes awry

If you say so. The letter read to me like it was generated with a bunch of macros. Not seeing anything of value in it.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Saturday, November 27, AD 2021 1:46am

Yes, I’m aware of Thomas’ reverting back to the faith.

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