Why satire is dying...

Because reality has become this unreal and disturbing. I must resist commentary. Carry on.

Comments

[Jackson]

The writer seems to want to hedge her bets, unsure of whether it's a farce or a wonderful event. She leaves the reader to take it as he wishes.

This whole circus is so boring now. What I would want to hear more about is that father who had to keep going outside to smoke. Was he the only one who recognized it as a sham?

[Paul]

Randy and Michael, were Catholic — super Catholic in fact

Wow! "Super Catholic" That's impressive...not.

Maybe the New York Times will hire some intelligent writers someday. After all, miracles can happen.

[Augustine]

Thousands of years of progress and humanity has still barely progressed beyond Canaanite phallus-worship. Great! The idols have changed, but the world hasn't. I'm often amused when the idea arises that the Church needs to change to adapt to the modern world. Well, the modern world looks a lot like the ancient world. Homosexual behavior certainly was not unheard of in the Greek world (that almost sounds like a joke), abortion and infanticide were common enough for Hippocrates to mention it in his famous oath, there were thousands of religions living for the most part in harmony as each person found a particular deity to devote themselves to and often blended worship of other deities together, hedonism was exalted as a legitimate philosophy... This doesn't sound a whole lot different from our world.

I think a good study of the early Fathers and even the Old Testament to some extent is needed to understand the problems of the modern world and how the Church can react to them. Since Christianity has been in decline, its effect has been that all of civilization is declining and regressing to the kinds of frightening ethics and behavior that we all thought had long passed. Even today, there is a growing interest in witchcraft and neo-pagan reconstructions of pre-modern cults. 200 years ago, no one would have admitted being a worshipper of nature or of Odin, but now, they even have chaplains in the military. What is truly amazing though is the _speed_ with which civilization is declining. The difference between 1956 and 2006 is truly remarkable. I was watching Cardinal George last night on EWTN Live talking about the need for evangelism. We are in dire need of proper catechesis and the willingness to share our faith. I think some of the focus has been lost in ecumenism, as well. The goal should be to bring people to Christ and to bring people into the fullness of Christ in His Church. And that is the same whether we are dealing with pagans or Protestants. There is a difference in approach, but the objective is the same. The Church may be wounded, but she is not mortally wounded. She is the very Body of Christ, who died once for all and who will never again be subject to Death (Hades). It's human nature to want to "fit in." Nobody wants to be different, and nobody wants to change. But to get back to the subject of "gay marriage." This is not a matter of "live and let live" and allowing people to choose their own way of life. This has an impact on civilization and further devalues humanity into mere animals who act on instinct and feeling. The Church needs to have the impact on civilization, on humanity, that it has had in the past. She is the living Body of Christ. That vitality should touch and transform everything she comes in contact with. The sad thing is that I know many Catholics who would be just fine with the ceremony described in the article. The two "grooms" themselves regard themselves as "Catholic." We need to be convinced that we have the Truth and we need the courage to proclaim it and to share it with others.

[Brian John Schuettler]

Note to NY Times: Your slogan used to be " All The News That's Fit To Print"
New Slogan: " We Have Given Up The Search For Reality-Now We Are Just Looking For A Good Fantasy"
Note To Myself: Stop Stealing Other People's Material.

[Augustine]

I can't remember who coined this.. I believe it was Sean Hannity.. "All the news that fits we print"

[Neil]

*“Bread! What does it make you think of?”

Answers poured forth: “Earth.” “Seeds.”*

Sandwiches! Dinner rolls! Carbs! Atkins!

[Jackson]

"The culmination of our vast technology is a pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms, whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth by imitating the drag-queen who makes the music."

-Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

[Gene Branaman]

All that pseudo-ritual, the self-conscious pageantry, the show, the props, the imposed symbolism . . . Still does not make those 2 men married.

It's interesting that 2 men, referred to as "super-Catholic", who realize they can't get "married" in the Catholic Church & would probably speak out against the Church's repressive rules, impose so much ritual & accoutrements of various religious traditions in a sad effort to make themselves *feel* married that it ends up a farce all about the rutual & accoutrements.

And what does the writer mean by "super-Catholic" do you suppose? Does she mean to imply that this . . . display is an example of what a Catholic wedding service should truely be? Or that these 2 men, one a former seminarian & the other a former monk, are being more "Catholic" than those of us who are are in union with the Church's Magisterium & the Holy See? Or that, in some way, these men are fulfilling what it means to be Catholic - whatever this writer's definition of "Catholic" may be - & how it was meant to be 2000 years ago?

The hubris of this piece slaps one in the face.

[Carl Olson]

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

A fascinating book, and one I enjoyed reading back in the mid-1990s. I was surprised to later learn that Bloom (now deceased) was apparently a homosexual who had a long-time partner.

[Brian John Schuettler]

'...and another one bites the dust, and another one bites the dust..."

[Brian John Schuettler]

Carl:
Check out this website: longvalleypubandbrewery.com

My town has had this micro for about a decade now....I especially like the Golden.

[Plato's Stepchild]

"And I realized why monastics can be so sexy. It’s not just the repression."

Waugh lives, moves and has his being. I was disappointed that, at the end, there was no Flower Pot throwing scene. To wit:

"I think that you would find a steady married man an improvement on these wild, flower-pot-throwing bachelors."

From Leave It to Psmith, where the p is silent, as in pterodactyl.

[Plato's Stepchild]

"Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind"

Bloom had 2 devastating ripostes in the book that seem to have slipped past his critics:

(1) The US defeated Germany in WWII, but German philosophy won the war of the American university campus.

(2) Musical education precedes book learning, a Platonic and, need I add, Christian idea.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n18_v48/ai_18738564

[Plato's Stepchild]

Wow! "Super Catholic"

As Edna Mode from the Incredibles said:

"Noh capes!"

[Faith]

It's not...

All the news we fit to print?

[Greg Oatis]

"When asked why they had participated in such atrocities or stood by and watched as others committed them, one answered: 'You don’t start out that way...'"

No, indeed you don't. It takes at least a decade of TV watching, along with several years of non-Catholic Catholic non-education, before your conscience can be sufficiently neutered that you actually believe "being nice" is the supreme charism granted by goddess earth.

+ + +

"...you go in seduced by sweet idealism and can end up confronting your worst monsters in the mirror..."

Same old story. Only these days your worst monsters may show up wearing white shirts imprinted with a motif of a sacred Hawaiian flower, and chanting...

"Bread! Hyuh! (Goodgahdjyall.) What is it good for?

"Absolutely nuthin!"

+ + +

(Sigh.)

In the brief span of my lifetime, the profane has become sacred and the sacred has become legally actionable.

Lord, have mercy.

[Brian John Schuettler]

"In the brief span of my lifetime, the profane has become sacred and the sacred has become legally actionable."

Excellent!...and unfortunately so true.

[Carl Olson]

In the brief span of my lifetime, the profane has become sacred and the sacred has become legally actionable.

Well put, Greg. Great to have you commenting!

[Greg Oatis]

Thanks, Carl! Couldn't help myself after reading something that bizarre.

Incidentally, your point about satire is spot-on.

P.G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh would starve today.

Our front pages read like endless subplots from 'Piccadilly Jim' or 'Vile Bodies'.

[M. Krane]

Has it not been shown that, no matter what did actually happen in Vietnam, much of the "Winter Soldier" testimony was untrue and even given by many men that had not served in Vietnam?

[Fr Seán Coyle]

Isn't 'Leave it to Psmith' Wodehouse?

[Plato's Stepchild]

Isn't 'Leave it to Psmith' Wodehouse?

Yes, and no I wasn't mixing my Waugh and Wodehouse "Wodehouse lives and moves and has his being" just doesn't have the gravitas of Waugh lives and moves..."

[The Grim Reaper]

They are both dead...how is that for good old gravitas.