Just remember: she's always right.

Person who rules 10 million people by unfettered decree complains about "bullying."

All of her edicts have been upheld by a beyond-supine judiciary--and she's being bullied?

And never forget: she is also the only person in the United States who thinks sending infected patients to nursing homes is still a good idea. 

 

Stop disagreeing with her, you bully.

"Must be Bald-Faced Liar": the essential job qualification for Catholic Archbishop of Washington.

We all knew that Wilton Gregory was moved to Washington to keep Donald Wuerl's and Ted McCarrick's remaining secrets and network of pals secure. After all, the overlap is considerable.

And while that involves a certain amount of smiling mendacity, I wasn't expecting him to display his predecessors' knack for easily-disproven lies.

At least not so soon.

Donald McClarey brings this to our attention today: the shocked, shocked! Archbishop had been fully aware of the President's planned visit to the JPII Center and had declined an invite:

The White House said Sunday that Washington’s archbishop was invited to attend an event with President Donald Trump several days before it took place, amid media reports that the archbishop did not learn of the event until the night before it took place.

White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere told CNA June 7 that “Archbishop Gregory received an invitation to the President’s event at the St. John Paul II Shrine the week prior to the President’s visit. He declined due to other commitments.”

Correspondence between Archbishop Wilton Gregory’s office and the White House indicates the same.

In correspondence dated May 30th and obtained by CNA, Gregory’s office declined “the kind invitation to attend the event celebrating International Religious Freedom on Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at the Saint John Paul II Shrine.“

I'm neither surprised nor disappointed. As the last few years have shown, this is the precisely the kind of shallow, hissing ideologue the pontiff wants in prominent positions in the American church. 

I can't wait to see who he gives us to run Detroit when that bleak day comes.

But...is it true?

At one level, the pearl-clutching response to Ross Douthat's use of the word "heresy" is pretty funny. Do those who are staggering to the fainting couch even believe in the concept of heresy? This is, after all, the enlightened era of the Council to End All Councils. If not, it should be shrugged off like an accusation of lycanthropy. Especially coming from Twitter, for pete's sake. More on that later.

Even funnier is the notion that left-leaning academics--tenured or otherwise--are in any danger of losing their Catholic university posts because of what a conservative writer tweets (!) about them. Far from it--a swat from a righty is a resume'-builder in an educational system that daily burns incense before the smoke-tarnished idol of the Land O' Lakes Statement.

And, really--anyone who's paid attention knows that in this, the New Paradigm of Dialogue and Mercy, the only people losing their jobs and experiencing the disciplinary hand of Rome are those of a more traditional bent. To whit: a Catholic father stricken with cancer and the Friars of the Immaculate.  

On other hand, if you think Fidel Castro is an instrument of the Holy Ghost, it's all good.

So, the fears of a New Inquisition against lefties are something out of the Bearded Spock Universe.

Quite illogical, indeed.

Sorry about the transporter mishap?

Less funny--insulting, in fact--is the argument that no one was trying to silence Douthat.

An open letter to a writer's publisher from a murderer's row of academics stating that the writer is unqualified to opine on the subject for which he is most published--and is hurting people in the process--is not a recommendation to shut him up?

Pull the other one.

All of that, though, is truly beside the point. I mean, I could point out that flinging accusations and questioning another's Christian bona fides might actually be a heartening point of commonality between Douthat and the Pope...brothers in unity after all. 

Nah--too easy.

The real problem is that the howls of outrage obscure the bottom line question: is Douthat right? Was Professor Faggioli's assertion heretical?

The handwaving response of Douthat's critics to the accusation suggests they do not accept the concept of heresy.

Do they? If not, then, no, of course not--no one is a werewolf. Why so serious?

If so, show your work and refute the accusation instead of gesturing to your letters, your collar or your tactical interest in civility.

"Tactical"? Of course. I don't recall an open letter to Andrew Sullivan suggesting that his speculations regarding the previous pontiff were out of line, do you? You know--the ones he made over a course of years?

Interesting. 

And it strongly suggests that the outrage over Douthat is not only manufactured, but, again, an exercise in BS.

They don't mean a word of it.

As I've said before, "dialogue" is a shibboleth of Catholic [sic] progressives, a bit of virtue-signalling, a verbal secret handshake with no deeper significance.

"I am a proponent of dialogue" means "I am a good person whose views are impeccably correct, fellow card-carrying leftist. I'm definitely not one of those bitter/clingy/fundamentalist yahoos. Keep the invites a' comin." 

The actual practice of Dialogue™ is a form of bullshit, in the Frankfurtian sense of the term, meant to obscure truth and not actually explore it.

Exhibit A is this shoddy bit of mau-mauing from a claque of self-described Catholic academics.

Ross Douthat dared to disagree with their ideological preferences, so they bestirred themselves from within their well-appointed, tenure-bestowed offices and got huffy.

This part was particularly rich:

Aside from the fact that Mr. Douthat has no professional qualifications for writing on the subject...

The subject, of course, is Catholicism. No doubt this degreed array of door stops are happy to praise the competence of modern American laity (BEST EDUCATED EVAR!!!) when it suits their purposes...but Gaia help you when you disagree with them.

It's the pissy reaction of guild members to those who infringe on their imagined prerogatives, marking their territory in the same way an outraged feline does his.

So, does this oily band of twee gnostics think only they can speak to Catholic issues, and those without certifications can't? That's the kind of intellectual corruption that leads to reformations. But, it does get you on some media contact lists, so it's all good.

For future reference: if the omnipresent Rev. Jim Martin praises you for something you say about the Faith and you don't have a collar or letters after your name, it's worthless. The bottom line is that he regards you in exactly the same way he does an orangutan who knows some sign language: you're adorable, but he's never handing you the car keys.