Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Mark Shea's "Parable"

To be perfectly honest, I couldn't get through Mark's latest bitter screed.

Is he seriously implying this mauling is like a parable from scripture?

There are plenty of reasons not to trust a politician, not to like his background.
One might go as far as to say there is a duty to warn the sheep about a wolf. But Mark seems to have lost his way from the matrix of who, when, where and how that preserves Catholic convictions about redemption.

If a politician has a long history of saying whatever is politically expedient, of saying one thing but legislating another agenda, if there are reasons to suspect he is a manwhore without respect for the dignity of women, a narcissist, an empty suit, then by all means, knock out an opinion.

But if you look at a person's history and there is a traceable trajectory that leads to conversion to Catholicism and the Sacraments,a stable relationship for some time that goes along with the story, a history of honorably serving your country, a patriot, what kind of a bleephole would scour perez hilton to dig up 20 year old stories to imply the path to the sacraments and redemption is cheap to Catholics?

There is a duty to protect and preserve the theology of redemption. We want converts to know that we believe, with full conviction of the heart. We are are supposed to be living witnesses to the forgiveness of sins.

Mark's "parable" does a terrible disservice to Christ's Church.

I didn't think anything could trump Mark's mischaracterization of people who fall from grace as a 'frauds'. It was a reckless disregard for the soul of a priest who served the Church faithfully to malign him as a reprobate. We want our brothers and sisters to get up, dust themselves off, untangle themselves from the sin with vigilant use of the sacraments.

It is supposed to be a loving environment, where we believe in the dignity and good of every person who is traversing towards Bethlehem, Gethsemene, Golgotha, Transfiguration or Resurrection. We don't send the message that we are waiting for them to prove they are frauds so we can toss them into the trash.

Even if you have no good reason for your dislike of a candidate, fine. But you don't use your bully pulpit to scandalize redemption and the sacraments of the Catholic Church.

5 comments:

Dymphna said...

I don't read Shea. He's too nasty for me.

Adrienne said...

It's the likes of Mark Shea and the rest of his so-called "high-end" Catholic blogger buddies that helped to make my decision to not only not read most "Catholic" blogs, but to quit posting on Catholic stuff.

I think he's arrogant and gets way more attention than he deserves.

The funny thing is, a good percentage of people who read him disagree with him but keep coming back. I think that's weird.

StevenD-Jasper said...

Shea is a nasty person. He smears conservative pro-life candidates on a daily basis while touting his 'torture' nonsense. Most of his followers are outright communists. A real bad group.

Veronica said...

Has Mark Shea no good Catholic friend to warn him? The man is setting himself for a great fall. I would feel sorry for him were he not so arrogant, nasty and proud as a peacock.

I wouldn't even follow your link, Carol. I avoid him and his cronies like the plague - they're all the same - male and female.

Steve "scotju" Dalton said...

StevenD-Jasper, I don't think most of Shea's followers are outright commies. I think that most of them are Vatican II babies who don't know a damm thing about the what the Church was like before 1962. They have been fed the so-called 'spirit of Vatican II' hogwash that is merely liberalism with a thin coat of orthodoxy on it. Shea is a liberal. Look at his teaching on the death penalty. He, like any 1962'er, pays no attention to the traditions of the Chrch prior to 1962. He, and others of his ilk, focuses completely on the private opinions of PJPII, BXVI, and the many bishops and priests who follow them, instead of paying attention to what the deposit of faith has always taught us. They also don't pay attention to people who actually work in the field of criminal justice as to why the death penalty is needed. They just call people who believe in the rightousness of the DP, "a death penalty maxiumist". In short, Shea is a dogmatic liberal ideologue who's incapable of thinking outside his small little box. Don't confuse him with the factss his mind is made up!