Francoism And Man At Yale (Pt. II)

No, we're not nearly done yet. When we left off with Yale's resident Catholic football player struggling to tread water in a sea of liberalism, the old sport was upset with me for not observing Catholic dictates on acceptable terms of address for Josef Ratzinger. Let's say I were in principle prepared to engage in idolatrous worship of a creepy septuagenarian ex-Hitler youth. How to resolve the incompatability of Ratzinger-cultism with the classical liberal conception of inalienable personal and democratic rights?

Ol' Catholicfootballplayeraquadog has a segmented proposal (all emphases in original):

(1) Deny that Ratzinger's designated spokesapparatchiks speak on his behalf:

This principle [that "the right to freedom of thought and expression...cannot imply the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers"]
applies obviously for any religion. This is an unsigned diplomatic release from “the Vatican.” The Vatican is not an entity that can speak for itself. The Catholic Church is not an entity that can speak for itself. Only people can speak, thus some unknown person made this statement. It is most likely from a papal diplomat...

This is not a moral statement. It is not His Holiness the Pope, Benedict XVI speaking ex cathedra and infallibly on faith and morals. It is a potentially errant diplomatic statement regarding responsible practices of free speech in the current international climate.

(2) Deny that words mean what they mean:

In no way is the statement claiming that the Catholic Church is “opposed to individual and civil rights”.

(3) Affirm the contents of the statement:

[I]n civilized society, there exists the need for peaceful coexistence and thus ideas of moderate freedoms of religion and speech exist.

(4) Identify which fundamental freedoms you oppose in addition to those Ratzinger has anathematized:

Nor is the Catholic Church going soft on Islam. It is still positively maintained that Islam is a heretical religion based on the false revelation of a fake prophet. Theological freedom of religion is never condoned.

A stunning feat of meta-theoretical agility! Get that boy a research grant so that we can finally settle the matter of how many angels fit on the head of a pin and prove that damnliar Copernicus wrong.

Incidentally, I don't expect anyone of the opinion that "There is but one Truth" to notice this until it's too late, but ya know, Falangist Catholics aren't the only ones to refuse to condone freedom of religion. For example, those angry bearded fellows who are putting bounties on the heads of Danish cartoonists; yeah, those guys think it's blasphemy to graphically depict any of their prophets; and Jesus was one of their prophets; so every man-in-loincloth adorned instrument-of-death necklace, according to fundamentalist Muslims, blasphemes Islam. So, I'll just go over here while you folks finish your mutual business; Yahweh knows you deserve each other; just try to slaughter slightly fewer Jews for no reason this time around.

What's that? "Catholicism does not rely on 'conversion by the sword' like Islam. Nor does it seek to create a unified state and religion- a true theocracy." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Eternal innerant truth and all that. Vamp it on out:

[T]he US and many countries are imperfect. Thus the need to demand the end to abortion, marriage reform, banning "gay marriage", contraception, pornography, etc.

Nope, nothing totalitarian about that.

Keep in mind that ALL THAT IS BUILT ON UNREALITY CANNOT LAST FOREVER.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Ed note: There are days' if not weeks' worth of entertainment to be found on Schmalhofer's front page at any given moment. Recent post titles include "Is there a Bible in the Bat-cave?", "Oath Against Modernism, Feminism, and New Age", "Bavarian Pope Benedict XVI Gear!" (wherein our hero recounts the tale of his opa bringing 120lbs. of Ratzinger-kitsch from God's homeland, Bavaria to God's other homeland, 'Merica), "Get Ready For The Da Vinci Blasphemy" (oh boy!), and my personal favorite, "Bring Back the Holy Roman Empire!", a yarn even more charming than its title suggests, of the apparently bonkers founder of Domino's pizza attempting to establish Catholic theocracy in a Florida municipality named "Ave Maria" (natch). Why do I give a shit about this stuff? Schmalhofer is a token of a type; namely, the movement in the anti-democratic wing of the religious right to adopt the poses and discursive tactics of stultified PC leftism. What's the agenda? Ban consensual private behavior among adults. What is the term for anyone who opposes the agenda? "Catholic-hater." This is the way that bratty four-year-olds try to get what they want; among ostensibly grown-ass men, it's just revolting, and dangerous to whatever extent it might succeed.]

Bonus: Bill Donohue goes super crazy batshit fascist:

What does it take to get the New York-Hollywood gang to stop with their Catholic bashing? Threats of beheadings? Threats of lawsuits? Seems that way. What ever happened to common decency?

Try what works, says I.