Will someone please remind me again why I find militant secularism ...

... so condescending, shallow, dull, insulting, intellectually-lacking, obnoxious, boring, and adolescent? Ah, Herb Silverman, Founder and President of the Secular Coalition for America, has agreed to help jog my memory. Over to you, Herb:

Thank you, Bishop DiMarzio, for inadvertently reminding the apathetic public why separating religion from government is so critically important. In trying to become more politically relevant, I hope the latest pronouncement of the Catholic Church will make that church even less relevant. As far as I can tell, the Catholic Church is on the wrong side of all issues pertaining to sex.

Let’s see if I have this right. The Church wants heterosexual couples to remain celibate until marriage and then to have as many children as nature (excuse me, “God”) provides, whether they want or can afford them. The exception is for priests and nuns who must remain celibate their entire lives because …. (Fill in the blank, since the reasons have changed over centuries.) It’s bad for straight couples to cohabitate, but good if they commit to a monogamous marriage; it’s bad for gay couples to cohabitate, and even worse if they commit to a monogamous marriage. Don’t anyone even think of the sin of masturbation, which is safe sex for pleasure only. And I—

Okay, okay. That's enough. I remember now. Thanks. Apparently Silverman and Victor Stenger are having some sort of dubious contest. Good effort on Silverman's part, but I think Stenger has a solid lead...

Comments

[Ed Peters]

This really is laughable.

[Teo Matteo]

You know Carl, He did get almost all of it right-in that second paragraph.(He ignores of course the truths that the Church articulates) I wonder if most Catholic Pols could do the same.

[Elizabeth]

Unfortunately he expresses a fairly common view of the Catholic Church, people never want to examine their prejudictes and bigotry, the facts are irrelevant. But we musn't give up. I saw that Pope Benedict wants to have a "Courtyard of the Gentiles" in Quebec city and two cities in the U.S. Washington was one I think. Never give up and never surrender! The Pope leads the way. God bless him!

[Wsquared]

Wow. I had to stop rolling my eyes throughout that whole thing, because my head was beginning to hurt. The first statement in that second paragraph, which is something that floats around incessantly, and is propagated by folks who have never read Humanae Vitae, is just unbelievable. Bigoted, as in frothing-at-the-mouth bigoted. Every bit of it, because it displays no real knowledge of Catholic teaching on sexual ethics.

I agree with Elizabeth, though. Let the "Courtyard of the Gentiles" also come to Washington DC, to New York, and to San Francisco. I'm confident, given what the Pope has actually written on "the dictatorship of relativism" and secularism as a whole, that he can more than hold his own. I found something similar in reading the late Elizabeth Fox-Genovese's conversion story, and it's too bad that she's not around anymore.