Photo Caption Call: The Pope’s New Vestments

Someone is excited!

Please post your funny captions below, and then rate other papists’ captions!


-Cheerio

Nicholas Kristof Tramples Over Jesus

Any op-ed which begins “The National Catholic Reporter newspaper puts it best” is already on thin ice, and Nicholas Kristof loses little time in completely submerging his New York Times commentary about the case of Bp. Thomas Olmsted v.  St. Joseph’s Hospital in the worst sort of ignorant bias and hackneyed stereotypes.

We’ve all heard Kristof’s storyline before: the compassionate, inclusive, toiling, uncaving, caring, life-saving [nun and Catholic hospital staff] is bullied by the excommunicating, conservative, evicting, dogmatic, sanctimonious, rule-strapped, punishing, bureaucrat-climbing-the-ladder [bishop].

In fact, everyone one of those adjectives I use above is echoed in Kristof’s article.

It’s almost laughable how every single critic of the Church’s bishops falls into the same exact phrasing and narrative. They also always pick the same targets: bishops who are publicly defending a teaching that the author personally dislikes. Kristof’s article isn’t about Bishop Olmsted, it’s about the fact that Bishop Olmsted chose to follow the Church’s teaching – this is what is under attack.
How can we know? Well, for one thing, the word “abortion” is never mentioned (Kristof chooses instead the abortion movement’s euphemism ”terminate a pregnancy”). The reason it is never mentioned is because the author believes abortion is permissible in some circumstances (and who knows, maybe all circumstances, Kristof does not specify).
In other words, Kristof doesn’t pledge to follow the teaching of God that innocent human life ought never be taken. That doesn’t stop him from writing sentences like this: “If Jesus were around today, he might sue the bishop for defamation.” (Does Kristof really want to get into the business of inviting Jesus to sue people who distort His teaching?)
Who does Kristof call to provide evidence of his verdict?
Well, besides the infamous National Catholic Reporter and Catholic Health Care Association (we know where they stand), and the statements of St. Joseph’s Hospital, we get the National Women’s Law Center (quite the unsympathetic voice for Church teaching), Anne Rice (an ex-Catholic who has gone simply bonkers over this story), and … that’s it. Kristof does not provide one scintilla from Bishop Olmsted (the man he spends most of his column maligning), let alone the defense of Bishop Olmsted’s position published by the National Catholic Bioethics Center. In Kristof’s Kangaroo Court, he acts not only as judge, jury and executioner – he also plays the witness role of Jesus.
Luckily, we have the internet, and because we have the internet I can put Bishop Olmsted himself on the trial stand. Here is what the Bishop said when asked how he came to this decision despite criticism:

My question for Kristof is, how does he come to his opinion about Jesus?

-Cheerio

Legends: Honoring Eugene V. Debs

In 1920, Eugene Debs gained 1 million votes in his bid for president of the United States. At the time he was behind bars, serving his third year for speaking out against the first world war. Debs believed that the objective of entering the war was for the corporations of imperialistic countries to gain more money. This, especially considering the recent wars America has fought in, does not seem like too much of a stretch. Debs, the perennial Socialist Party of America candidate, had spoken to a crowd of fellow socialists in June 1918, urging them to reject the draft and refuse the war. This offense was punishable by 10 years in prison, a charge which he was condemned to soon thereafter. During his trial, Debs opted to monologue, and was able to speak for two hours. The contents of this speech will be mentioned later.
1884 first brought Debs to government, as a Democrat for the state legislature of Indiana. Debs was already involved in organizing with trade unions, and this soon brought him his first arrest soon thereafter. Debs apparently read the works of Marx in his jail cell delivered to him by Victor Berger, and turned socialist after emerging from jail. He, Berger, and other socialists worked to for the Social Democratic Party in 1897 though it later formed with a another radical party to create the Socialist Party of America. Though the party dissolved, the factions broken off from it now house members such as Noam Chomsky and Barbara Ehrenreich. Aside from 1916, Debs ran as presidential candidates for the parties  every election from 1900 to 1920 (SDP in 1900 and SPA for the rest). In 1912, Debs secured 6% of the vote for the socialist party, the greatest performance by a socialist in America in a presidential bid. In terms of electoral success, he is rivaled only by the current self-proclaimed democratic socialist senator of Vermont, Bernie Sanders.
In 1918, when Debs did officially announce his opposition to World War One, he said of those who would be imprisoned for their sentiments, "They may put those boys in jail—and some of the rest of us in jail—but they can not put the Socialist movement in jail."
Indeed, Debs became "one of the rest of us." Regardless of one's political affiliation, anyone who values democracy must take Debs' story as a lesson of when Democracy can fail in the face of war. Debs' legacy as a pacifist is strong, and equally strong is his legacy as a socialist. As mentioned earlier, while his own party has dissolved, there is still a direct faction that runs electoral campaigns, the Socialist Party USA, as well as an organizing committee which supports various progressives and works within the progressive caucus of the Democratic Party. After being released from prison in 1921, Debs went straight to an invited meeting with the president at the White House (he had pardoned him after around 3 years of jailing). He died in October of 1926, chronicled in the news like this: "On Christmas Day, 1921, President Harding pardoned a model prisoner, a broken prophet. Around him he saw his Socialist Party disintegrating; within him he felt his strength ebbing. His speeches seemed almost pathetic; his pen had lost its throb. A month ago he went to a sanitarium in Elmhurst, Ill., where he died, aged 71." (Time Magazine, Monday Nov. 1, 1926)
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,722648,00.html#ixzz1BuxsVxwl

Regardless of Eugene Debs' later speeches being regarded as "almost pathetic," his two hour monologue at his trial was certainly not. It was regarded by journalist Heyward Broun as, "one of the most beautiful and moving passage in the English language."

"Your honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the form of our present government; that I am opposed to the social system in which we live; that I believe in the change of both but by perfectly peaceable and orderly means.

....

-Cheerio

Your honor, I ask no mercy, I plead for no immunity. I realize that finally the right must prevail. I never more fully comprehended than now the great struggle between the powers of greed on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of freedom. I can see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people are awakening. In due course of time they will come into their own.

...

Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is bending, midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning."