I don't like the smutty novels that Father Andrew Greeley writes -- not so much because they are unbecoming of a priest, but more because they are not that good. I've been amused by his tentative efforts at science fiction, and more impressed by his scholarly works in sociology. As a teen, i was especially entranced by his study of American anti-Catholicism, and wish he would write more on the subject. He was the seminary classmate of one of my former pastors, and he cancelled speaking engagements some years ago to fly to be with some of my family's old neighbors and say the funeral mass for their teenage son when he was killed in a fall while rock-climbing. In short, I think he is a good man, even if I don't agree with him in a lot of areas. However today he writes a newspaper column that, in my mind, hits the nail squarely on the head.
Greeley begins by noting that young people seem quite entranced by the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI. How strange, he notes, that there is this "rock star" style enthusiasm for an old theology professor who espouses views that so many of these young people reject. Did John Paul II somehow endow future popes with this sort of charisma, an aura, that draws the young?
That possibility raises the question of whether the pope, almost by definition, enjoys an entirely new charisma -- an immediate appeal to young people. A second question follows on this day of Be Ne De To's installation as pope: Given the inexperience and shallowness of the young, how much is this charisma worth?I submit that it is a license for a pope to teach and not an automatic guarantee of any other long-term religious impact. One heard often in Rome before the conclave that the new pope should be able to communicate with young people like the late pope. Yet, in truth, the religious attitudes and behavior of young people in every country where there has been a World Youth Day have not changed -- nor, for that matter, have the attitudes and behavior of adults changed in any of the countries John Paul visited. As collective religious rituals, these events were dramatic. They were a celebration of Catholic faith and Catholic heritage -- and as such eminently effective. But they didn't change much in ordinary human life.
My three pretty young Italian cheerleaders, unless they were different from typical Italian young women, would eventually sleep with their boyfriends before marriage and use birth control after marriage. They would see no contradiction between such behavior and enthusiasm for Benedict XVI. Does it follow that the new pope should try to teach as well as celebrate religious faith when he attends the next World Youth Day in Cologne?
An excellent question indeed, especially in a world faced with rising Islamist extremism and lukewarm Christianity that has too often surrendered to valueless secularism. What can Benedict XVI say to the assembled young people at this year's World Youth Day in Cologne (including some of my own students, traveling with a parish youth group led by one of my colleagues)? Greeley has an excellent suggestion -- start with the basics.
If he should tell them that they should reform their sexual lives, they will simply laugh. Far better that he listen to them talk about their religious faith and urge them to be patient and forgiving in all of their relationships and generous in helping others. Let sex wait for the next time or the time after. The re-evangelization of Europe cannot be done all at once. This is what I mean when I say that youthful admiration for the pope gives a license to teach -- wisely, cautiously and slowly, as any good teacher would.
Greeley is correct. Start with the basics of Christianity, and build from there. Begin with the fundamentals and build up from there. Just as one does not whip out The Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas and make it the starting point of catechesis and evangelization, one cannot begin with the nuanced and beautiful Catholic teachings on human sexuality without laying the basics. Too often since Vatican II, those basics have not been effectively taught, whether through neglect, rejection, or confusion, and have been drowned out by what then Cardinal Ratzinger called a "dictatorship of relativism" only a week ago. The Christian nature of Western society has been eroded over the course of decades, and there is no way that this pope will live to repair the damage. But the job is his to start, using the special affection this generation appears to have for the successor of St. Peter as a tool for evangelization. By beginning with the fundamentals of the faith, Benedict XVI may begin a revival of the Christian West that matches the fervor and explosive growth of Catholicism (and Christianity in general) in other parts of the world.
One of the bad things about defending the First Amendment is that it sometimes means defending the right of someone to say something you find offensive. That is especially true when PC types attempt to shut down "insensitive" speech, or when someone tries to be "humourous" about a topic which is not, in the least, funny. One such current case involves the newspaper of the University of Nevada -- Las Vegas, The Rebel Yell.
That which passes for humor these days is often nothing more than profanity-laced crudity attempting to evoke uncomfortable titters through shock. However, the same shtick that can fetch a living wage on the comedy club circuit can draw the wrath of the politically correct crew on campus. AdvertisementThat was the scene a little more than a week ago at UNLV during a meeting of the advisory board of the campus newspaper, The Rebel Yell. About 40 students and faculty showed up to protest a column called "Ask Jubert."
Jubert is an amalgam of the names of the paper's editor and managing editor, Justin Chomintra and Hubert Hensen, respectively. The column, two-thirds of which is penned by Hensen, is meant to be a satirical send-up of advice-to-the-lovelorn columns, only written from the perspective of a doltish, misogynistic, rage-prone bully.
Until March the column reportedly had been met approvingly or indifferently. But then the March 7 "Ask Jubert" offered advice on how to "get back at an ex," by recommending -- tongue firmly in cheek and ripping off dialogue from the movie "Anchorman" -- that "the best way to seize revenge is with sudden, blinding violence. Punch the filthy pirate whore in her mouth. Show her exactly how you feel about her. The harder the punch, the more she'll realize how much you care."
Though it carried a disclaimer at the bottom saying, "The Rebel Yell does not condone any form of violence, especially domestic violence, nor cruelty against animals. (The column also contained advice on stringing up the ex's poodle.) 'Ask Jubert' is meant to be humorous and should not be taken seriously," it was taken quite seriously.
Now let's say this very clearly -- the piece is crude and offensive. I don't see why anyone would find it in the least bit funny. I don't understand why the young men in question would even think it was appropriate to publish something like that -- even if it is meant to be a satire on advice columns. That said, I also recognize that the First Amendment applies to it, and that those who wrote the column should not be in any way disciplined for their sophomoric attempt at humor.
Needless to say, there was a huge turnout at the next meeting of the paper's advisory board, demanding censorship of the paper and punishment of the offenders. Several law students had the audacity to demand that the paper be censored (did they sleep through their Constitutional Law class?) and that there be a ban on "hate speech" in The Rebel Yell (I'll bet they only wanted to ban hate speech against "protected classes", not whites, heterosexuals, males, or Christians). Fortunately, the board held the line and refused to impose such measures.
One professor, the head of the Women's Studies Department (raise your hand if you weren't surprised) joined in the call for censorship.
Several people found it a bit ironic that the chair of UNLV's Women's Studies Department, Lois Rita Helmbold, offered a jesting aside about refraining from using her martial arts skills on Hensen.Helmbold conceded she made a joke but declined to elaborate. She described the advocacy of domestic violence as irresponsible journalism and not funny.
The professor also pointed out that student fees pay for operations of the campus newspaper, unlike other newspapers which people may choose to purchase or not. I thought that was a pretty good point and drew an analogy to taxpayers objecting to their money being used to sponsor "art" that consisted of a crucifix in a jar of urine. For some reason she didn't agree.
I love it when a liberal hypocrite doesn't commits the exact same act that she demands others be punished for, and refuses to concede that the principle of censorship that she supports could logically be extended to censor her point of view. After all, I imagine Professor Helmbold arguing, men are oppressors by nature, so they deserve to be beaten as an act of female liberation; and the patriarchal Christians are racistsexisthomophobes whose beliefs and symbols merit no respect.
In the end, the advisory board did not impose any sanctions or restraints on The rebel Yell. It did turn down Hubert henson's application to be the editor of next year's paper, but that decision appears to have been made on the merits of another candidate, not the controversy over teh column that caused such excitement. he plans on leaving the staff, and devoting himself to completing his degree in physics.
Advisory Board member Steve Sebelius, editor of the weekly CityLife newspaper and a former political columnist with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, makes this observation about those who turned out in favor of censorship and against freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
"If these people ever get hold of the apparatus of power, it will be a Hitlerian danger to free speech."
he is, of course, correct. And not just about those on the Left, but also about those on the Right who would require that words pass some ideological litmus test before being granted the protection afforded them without reservation by the First Amendment.
We all know that the American broadcast networks are de facto arms of the Democrat National Committee. All one has to do is look at Memogate to confirm that reality. But when all is said and done, private businesses have every right to support whatever political philosophy they want. After all, the public can simply cut into their bottom line. A tax-supported broadcast outlet, such as the UK's BBC, needs to remain scrupulously neutral. Guess what -- they don't, and have now been caught formenting the disruption of a Conservative Party event.
The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.The Tories have made an official protest after the hecklers, who were given the microphones by producers, were caught at a party event in the North West last week. Guy Black, the party's head of communications, wrote in a letter to Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news, that the hecklers began shouting slogans that were "distracting and clearly hostile to the Conservative Party".
These included "Michael Howard is a liar", "You can't trust the Tories" and "You can only trust Tony Blair".
Mr Black's strongly-worded letter accused the BBC of staging the event "to generate a false news story and dramatise coverage. . . intended to embarrass or ridicule the leader of the Conservative Party". The letter said that BBC staff were guilty of "serious misconduct". At least one of the hecklers was seen again at a Tory event in the North East, Mr Black added.
Last night, the BBC claimed that the exercise was part of a "completely legitimate programme about the history and art of political heckling" and said that other parties' meetings were being "observed". However, The Telegraph has established that none of Tony Blair's meetings was infiltrated or disrupted in similar fashion.
So, how did these folks get caught? What evidence is there that this was a BBC set-up, not simply a program on the political heckling?
Tory officials became suspicious at the meeting in Horwich, near Bolton, last Wednesday, when they saw BBC camera crew focusing on the hecklers rather than Mr Howard. They twice challenged the two men and a woman involved, and discovered they had been equipped with radio microphones.Mr Black said that they described themselves as "shoppers". In fact, they were under direction from a BBC team making a programme called The History of Heckling for the BBC3 channel. The programme, whose producer is Paul Woolwich, is in the process of being edited.
Mr Black's letter said of the hecklers: "It is entirely clear to me that the success of their presence required an element of performance on their behalf, and that this was a premeditated event intended to disrupt the course of Mr. Howard's speech.
"I do not believe that the BBC should be in the business of creating news. It also appears that the same crew was at the Michael Howard visit to Stockton-on-Tees and it can be no coincidence that someone with them was one of these 'hecklers'.
Absolutely incredible! An arm of the British government supplied equipment to those looking to disrupt a rally featuring the head of the opposition party. This is serious stuff, given the fact that there is no evidence of the BBC sponsoring any such attacks on Tony Blair's Labour Party. Could you imagine the uproar in this country if PBS were to have perpetrated something like this against John Kerry during the last election? It would have been seen as proof positive that the Bush Administration was attempting to create a totalitarian regime (granted, the Left made that claim without any evidence whatsoever, but you see my point) and would have cost the president any chance at reelection. Heck, if the generally conservative Fox News had done this, it would have been viewed as a Karl Rove instigated dirty trick.
And yet this seems to have had little effect in the UK. That is too bad. If the British people had a little bit more spine, they would demand the resignation of the Blair government, the prosecution of those involved in this abuse of government power, and the end of the BBC as a tax-supported entity. Here's hoping there is at least enough spirit left in out cousins on the other side of the pond to see them reject Labour and its dirty tricks.