The Daily Utah Chronicle Advances Anti-Catholic Bigotry

From the 2003 Archives of NEW RIGHT PUBLICATIONS' Realm Of Misanthropy:

In an exceedingly crude and vulgar anti-Catholic screed, Craig Froehlich launched an intensely vitriolic and incoherent attack on his former church following a week of celebration in thanksgiving for the lives and apostolates of two of the greatest citizens of the 20th century.

Unlike the first response to this uncharitable mischaracterization of the Catholic faith, I am a "non-revisionist" Catholic: A Catholic who thinks the faith is true. (Period!) The world doesn't need another half-hearted, fearful, and conciliatory profession of the Catholic faith. The truth of the faith needs to be declared boldly and uncompromisingly with orthodoxy because the faith resonates at every level of the human senses and intellect: The faith is liberating, illuminating, ecstatically beautiful, challenging, and invigorating.

Mr. Froehlich seems angry that the Church lives simultaneously in the world and in the galleries of the Vatican museum. He condemns the Church for changing the process of evaluating the presence of heroic virtue in a holy life while he condemns the Church for not changing her doctrines on the holy priesthood and God's gift of human sexuality. Imagine that! The Church doesn't alter the essential and unchanging truths of the doctrines of salvation, but Heaven forefend if she considers alterations to the bureaucratic hierarchy of the Vatican congregations.

It is with this charge that we touch the surface of his anger. There is no greater heresy in the modern liberal mind than to ignore, marginalize, and relegate to irrelevance the power and influence of big governments and mammoth bureaucracies. This is precisely what Mother Teresa did in her ministry to the poorest of the poor.

She didn't love, care, feed, and house the homeless through a welfare state scheme of income redistribution. She didn't substitute the poverty of destitution and deprivation with a poverty of materialism and overabundance -- the sort of poverty that reduces the dignity of the human person to a jumble of disordered passions and values the individual insofar as they contribute to the net worth of a nation.

In caring for the poor of Calcutta, Mother Teresa did none of the things that the secularists advocate to instill self-esteem and empowerment in the victim class. Her life was an authentic witness to the radical, self-emptying message of the Gospel. Her mission to see Jesus in the faces of everyone she met was her small way to imitate the agape love that He showed us in His passion and death at Golgotha. This kind of love is too deep, too strong, and too unselfish -- and it offends the pride of the modern world.

If Mr. Froehlich spent as much time learning about and forming his faith as he did reading the modernist and rationalist propaganda of unabashed secular materialists, then his remarks could possibly have had a shred of intellectual honesty and charity. Perhaps, he might not have felt compelled to issue forth from his venomous quill the cruel and profane attacks on this Blessed Servant of God, Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

KNRS "Family Values" Talk Radio Host Illustrates Virulent Anti-Catholicism

From the 2001 Archives of NEW RIGHT PUBLICATIONS' Realm Of Misanthropy:

Quite the narrowly focused poll today, Bob. Alas and alack, I could not respond to the question (28 years old and counting) because seminarians are required to make certain vows.

I must congratulate you, Bob! Nice way to trash the accomplishments and memory of Mother Teresa! Strange, I would not have counted the Princess of Wales (and her New Age nihilism) as your ideological soul mate.

It would be pointless to cite the preaching, teaching, and nagging of those, like Dr. Laura, who counsel that one should get married in their late twenties. Alluding to human psychological authorities to advocate an opposing view in a debate with you would be feckless: It is quite clear that you are your own authority.

But, Mr. Lonsberry, since I believe you to be a God-fearin’, Bible-readin’ Christian, how would you respond to the whole of the seventh chapter in First Corinthians? In his letter, Paul recommends the life of service a man or woman of Christ should lead, and why that lifestyle is preferable. It was just one more example of taking up your cross to follow him.

Or, how would you respond to the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 19:10-12? “His disciples said to him, "If there is such commitment between husband and wife, we should not get married."* He told them, however, "This manifestation does not go down well for everyone, except for the ones that it applies. "For there are celibates that were born from their mother's womb like this, and there are celibates who became celibate from humanity, and there are celibates who became celibate of their own free will, for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever can do without it, let them be without it."

Contrast the above to the Gospel according to Lonsberry: “ ... marriage and parenthood are the [highest examples] of service in this life. They are opportunities to give of ourselves, to love as God has loved.”

God commanded us to love our neighbours as ourselves. And then, as if to test the point, the religious elders asked who their neighbours were. Surely, they reasoned, their neighbours could not be sinners, the ritually unclean, the gentiles, or the tax collectors. Surely, God didn’t mean for us to violate the law of the Sabbath to help our neighbour. Then, Christ told the story of the Good Samaritan.

No, I don’t believe that marriage and parenthood are the pinnacles of service and love in this life. Husband, wife, and children are one flesh. In this context, how is it a hard sacrifice to serve or love your family?

I will concede to you the point that too many people today are wrapped up in their own little fiefdoms and materialisms. People should be focused on the higher prize; the nobler calling of service to others, but also remember that Jesus was the friend of tight men and loose women. Before they went on to lead exemplar lives of service and holiness; Paul of Tarsus, Augustine of Hippo, and Francis of Assissi all lead quite extraordinary lives of profligacy.

However, I will not concede your argument that the only fulfilling life is wrapped up within the bonds of Eros and domesticity. (Or that procreation is the only way to impact future generations.) Whether or not one is called to the ordained or lay ministry, orthodox Christianity of all denominations encourages a life of consecrated celibacy because it follows the example established during Christ’s earthly ministry, and it foreshadows the life all will lead in the hereafter.

Lonsberry's Note: For some reason I keep hearing words in my head about "drawing near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."