Hattip to commenter Nate Winchester. Mark Shea, who used to be a Catholic apologist and now is a Leftist Pharisee, wrote this week:
What has struck me consistently is how people on the Left are not interested in persecuting Christians and how often they beg them to be Christians, to act like Christians, to give balm to their souls by not being simply awful, selfish, appalling human beings.
Go here to read the rest. This was written in the same week that the Little Sisters of the Poor were making another appearance before the Supreme Court courtesy of the Obama administration.
I guess for Shea it would only be persecution if the state were engaging in the type actions that the Chinese government is currently taking against Christians and Muslims, but perhaps not even then, since he has written nothing about the ongoing current Chinese persecution except to defend the abysmal Vatican-China deal.
Mark should try visiting the same frame of reality the rest of us inhabit occasionally.
Silver Lining Factor: The Leftist, blue state governors are destroying these hateful people’s futures.
I suppose NYC Dear Leader DeBlasio threatening to permanently close churches and synagogues, and LGBTQXYZ guerrillas setting up for litigation bakers and wedding photographers doesn’t count as persecution.
The left doesn’t need to persecute Christians. They have Muslims massacring them all over the Planet.
they beg them to be Christians, to act like Christians, to give balm to their souls by not being simply awful, selfish, appalling human beings
…which is defined as “doing exactly what the Left wants.”
It’s called emotional abuse, and is a standard characteristic of serial abusers– from gaslighting to DARVO, this is basic stuff; if he’d read “The Power of Fear,” just the first chapter or two, then the predatory manipulation would be explained much better than I can.
Facts matter.
The Left does not hate us specifically for being Christians, but for opposing their vicious lifestyles and demanding the right to participate in civil society while saying so. They won’t come after us with torches and nooses; they’ll just write laws that impoverish and imprison us. It will be the impersonal persecution of an Antonine emperor, not (except maybe in spots like San Francisco) the sadistic wrath of a Galerius.
Shea in his bile confounds our agreement with the outcome of Trump’s policies with approval of his personal character.
With scant doubt the clergy, the seminary faculty, the denominational apparat, and the supposed Christian college faculty and chock a block with Vichy characters. “Behave like Christians” for these people means something close to ‘mollycoddle our preferred mascot groups’ (and despise the orthodox faithful).
“if he’d read “The Power of Fear,” just the first chapter or two, then the predatory manipulation would be explained”
I think he and others understand it. However they are using it and similar books as an “How To” manuals.
Foxfier I may not be able to award comment of the day, but you’ve got my vote for it with this one.
Marx Che might want to take a long look in the mirror and begin acting like a Christian, himself, rather than the awful, selfish, appalling serial calumniator and hyperbolic asshat he portrays on social media.
I realized that Mark Shea had went past the point of no return during his debate with Dr. Feser. Shea’s position was that Dr. Feser was completely correct in assessing that the death penalty was not intrinsically against Church teaching, but Shea claimed that actually saying this might convince some evil conservative Catholics to kill as many people as possible. And what’s more, he called Dr. Feser all sorts of names (including the worst in Shea’s arsenal: A Trump Supporter) and treated Dr. Feser’s motivations as entirely evil. All despite supposedly agreeing with him!
Meanwhile Shea couldn’t stop gushing about celebrities who said nice things about Pope Francis, even while he admitted that they fundamentally disagreed with Church teaching on things like abortion and same sex relationships. Because according to Shea all of their mistakes were made out of ignorance and they were really the kindest, warmest, most loving human beings on the face of the Earth.
It couldn’t be clearer that the rule was that if you held to Church teaching you would be held to the standard of not only doing what is right, but making sure that Shea couldn’t make up an impure motivation for you. Meanwhile everyone on the left would get a free pass.
Josh Shapiro, the Attorney-General for Pennsylvania, really has it in for the Little Sisters of the Poor and (I presume) Catholics in general. This will not help him in his road to the Governorship.
which is defined as “doing exactly what the Left wants.”
Foxfier I may not be able to award comment of the day, but you’ve got my vote for it with this one.
I can. Comment of the week Foxfier! Take “er away Sam!
Mark is beyond reason at this point. He is the pure partisan. But what shocks me is the post of Deacon Greydanus that he copied. Deacon Greydanus apparently embraces the template that progressives are on the whole a beautiful people, while only two types of Trump supporters exist: the racist heartless death causing types in the manner of Trump and the scaredy-cat types who only support Trump because they don’t realize just how wonderful progressive type people are. I knew he accepted the idea that opposition to illegal immigration likely means racist (having suggested that my concern about illegal immigration was based on skin color), but I’m surprised to find him embracing such a left party line argument overall.
In a homily (last Wednesday?) Bishop Zubic (Pittsburgh) pled that we all become bridges in this time of disunity. I read in the Office of Readings today, St. Clement’s letter to the Corinthians, a similar plea:
“Let us, then, preserve the unity of the body that we form in Christ Jesus, and let everyone give his neighbor the deference to which his particular gifts entitle him. Let the strong care for the weak and the weak respect the strong. Let the wealthy assist the poor and the poor man thank God for giving him someone to supply his needs. The wise man should show his wisdom not by his eloquence but by good works; the humble man should not proclaim his own humility, but leave others to do so; nor must the man who preserves his chastity ever boast of it, but recognize that the ability to control his desires has been given him by another.”
that’s all folks.
Mr. Kurland, Shapiro is as anti Catholic as one can get. The media on Western Pennsylvania, still a very Catholic region, his exploits against the nuns reveives little attention. The entire grand jury stunt he pulled against the Catholic dioceses uncovered nothing new, but has been an impetus to specifically remove the statute of limitations against the Catholic Church, and only the Catholic Church.
Governor Mutt and his continued lockdown have done no favors for the Democrats here.
TShaw makes a valuable point. Shea purports to be the great defender of the “poors” and “browns” (his terms, dripping with patronizing condescension BTW). Yet he says nothing about the brutal persecution of African Christians in places like Nigeria and Burkina Faso. Nothing. Christians are routinely being butchered in such countries and others. But Mark apparently couldn’t give a flying flip because Muslim persecution of African and Middle Eastern Christians does not fit his “Orange Man Bad” narrative.
salutes Don and Nate
All down to Crossovercreativechaos having pointed out the patterns in some of her writing, years ago– some of her best villains use the tactics. (she has personal reasons to be very interested in mental abuse/emotional manipulation)
It has not been a soothing experience, using it as a predictive too.
Anyone suppose that the uber virtuous Shea noticed that Rush Limbaugh eviscerated the Minneapolis Police for the killing of George Floyd? He routinely accuses us, his political opponents, of favoring the wanton killing of the ‘black and brown’. But, impervious to evidence as he is, I wouldn’t expect that he noticed.