“Well, it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”
Bob Dylan, Gotta Serve Somebody, 1979
Four months into his presidency no Christian denomination has better played the sycophant to the Enlightened One, Barack “Barry” Hussein Obama, than the Roman Catholic Church.
The first example of this benighted and unseemly bootlicking occurred on April 14 at the old Gaston Hall at Georgetown University when the White House asked that the “Christian symbols” prominently displayed at the front of the stage be covered when the Most Merciful One speaks. And, so in much the same manner that Cecile B. DeMille or Pharaoh proclaimed, “So it is written, so it shall be,” the pusillanimous hierarchy at that old and once proudly independent Catholic institution swiftly covered the offending symbols (the Cross and the Latin letters, IHS), so not to vex the tender Muslim and/or epigonic Marxist sensibilities of the Great Supplicant of the House of Saud.
The second instance is scheduled to occur on May 17, 2009 when the University of Notre Dame will salute the nation’s leading abortion advocate, with an honorarydoctor of laws degree at the 164th university commencement ceremony.
That two of the most prominent Catholic institutions would lay prostrate before the nation’s most powerful supporter of abortion and infanticide indicates just how far the Roman Catholic Church has declined, and answers the question why so many have left the church and moved on to the Orthodox, Fundamentalists, and related denominations. While the immediate future is not promising, all is not lost. The Catholics have Pope Benedict and they have Georgetown University philosophy professor, James V. Schall, S.J.
It was the pope who as a philosopher and theologian, and in his wisdom, identified the problem of modernity thirty years ago when he wrote, “As I survey all the perplexing shifts in the spiritual landscape of today, only two basic models seem to me to be up for discussion. The first I should like to call the Gnostic model, the other the Christian model. I see the common core of Gnosticism, in all its different forms and versions, as the repudiation of creation.”
And, it is the beloved Georgetown philosophy professor, Fr. Schall who further differentiates the Obama agenda by explicating that in order for our Fearless Leader to become The Great Man he must establish a new vision “in which the only thing allowed to be visible is the state.”
It will be fascinating to observe, as the Obama regime begins to institute its statist agenda, how the various elements of the Church will respond. Who will follow the Notre Dames and the Georgetowns to the alter of Moloch and who will stand with the pope and Fr. Schall in their defense of the Cross?
April 18th, 2009 | 10:03 pm
That two of the most prominent Catholic institutions would lay prostrate before the nation’s most powerful supporter of abortion and infanticide indicates just how far the Roman Catholic Church has declined, and answers the question why so many have left the church and moved on to the Orthodox, Fundamentalists, and related denominations.
No. First, these actions of Notre Dame and Georgetown are not acts of worshipping President Obama, who, for the record, is not Moloch. Second, the actions of two Catholic universities hardly indicate the direction of the Roman Catholic Church as a whole. The opposition to these actions from a number of bishops speaks against the idea that these universities exemplify the whole Church.
April 19th, 2009 | 8:22 am
All of the Maoist christenings (excuse the term) of Obama would be compelling if there were a single Obama supporter or liberal using the terms. As this is not the case, it’s merely wearying to read. Somewhere in here there’s a point — can’t you make it without pretending that Obama is a Communist?
April 19th, 2009 | 10:50 pm
Not to quibble, but isn’t Father Schall a Government professor at Georgetown? Though he is a political theorist (a field which shares territory with philosophy), even he would know better than to engage in this sort of polemic.
April 20th, 2009 | 2:08 am
This really is tiresome writing. I come to Postmodern Conservative because there are few venues at which serious conservatives discuss their concerns in a fashion that makes possible dialogue with non-conservatives, and I’m told this is one of them. And then I end up reading this kind of nonsense. I rather expect that when President Obama speaks at an Islamic institution, he will probably request that no particularist symbols of Islam be visible within the television camera frames, to avoid creating the impression that the President of the US is Muslim or endorses Islam over other religious faiths. Surely Catholicism can tolerate getting the same deal as other faiths from the US’s secular authorities.
For the rest, I know plenty of Marxists, in Vietnam, Nepal, and elsewhere. Obama is not a Marxist, and to suggest he is shows about as much sophistication and intelligence as it would if I were to state that the author of this post is Muslim. Okay, apparently a member of some kind of sect of Islam that emphasizes a prophet named Jesus and doesn’t believe Mohammed was a prophet, but the basic beliefs are the same — one God, obedience to His revealed word, teleological historical evolution, a single act of creation by that singular deity, the reality of the physical universe, no understanding of Nirvana, reincarnation, or the Buddha’s enlightenment — so what’s the difference?
April 20th, 2009 | 5:12 am
I agree with Kyle and Max.
My wondering is about (then) Ratzinger’s idea that there are only two options: Christianity and Gnosticism. Only the former (alone?) carries about creation. But what about a renewed sorta of pantheism via say a religionized form of environmentalism. They care about creation. Maybe too much or maybe in the wrong way it might be argued, but not Gnostic. I mean couldn’t you flip this and say that the problem in modernity has been a lack of transcendence and an over-focus on the material? Maybe we could say modernity got neither real transcendence nor real immanence. Maybe that is what Ratzinger meant with his Gnostic remark?
April 23rd, 2009 | 7:55 am
That two of the most prominent Catholic institutions would lay prostrate before the nation’s most powerful supporter of abortion and infanticide indicates just how far the Roman Catholic Church has declined, and answers the question why so many have left the church and moved on to the Orthodox, Fundamentalists, and related denominations.
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