Posts tagged as:

Dred Scott

Breaking News: I Got Stoned with the Pope!

by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on April 14, 2010 · 9 comments

A Priest's Story, Bill Donohue, blood guilt, Catalyst, Dorothy Rabinowitz, Dred Scott, Due Process, Easter, Elizabeth Lev, Father Gordon MacRae, Fr Gordon MacRae, fraud, Holy Week, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, HPR, lynch mob, Mark Sargent, Obama health care bill, Pope Benedict XVI, Roe v Wade, Ryan A. MacDonald, Saint Stephen, Scribes and Pharisees, sex abuse, sexual abuse, stoning, the Catholic Church, The Eighth Commandment, the Holy Father, the news media, These Stone Walls, Truth in Justice, TSW, catholic church, holy week, stones, catholic, stone walls, news media, pope benedict, catholic priest, pope benedict xvi, catholic league, the news, easter, stoning, the catholic church, benedict, gordon macrae, benedict xvi, roman catholic church sex abuse scandal, pedophilia, ethics, catholic sexual abuse scandal in the united states, religion, heads of state, catholic sex abuse cases

. . . Perhaps NBC sensed the line of decency was breached a few weeks ago when it apologized to The Catholic League and the world for a scandalous and libelous smear against Pope Benedict XVI on its affiliate news channel, MSNBC. We owe a debt of gratitude to Bill Donohue and The Catholic League for not letting this one pass. It is also no coincidence that the lurid stories of priestly sex abuse and papal complicity rose to a frenzy in the U.S. in the same weeks that tax-payer funded abortion was being argued in the Obama health care bill. Writer and art historian Elizabeth Lev made this same point in a brilliant essay on PoliticsDaily.com entitled “In Defense of Catholic Clergy (Or Do We Want Another Reign of Terror?)” Ms. Lev cited English statesman, Edmund Burke’s 1790 commentary on Catholic witch hunts during the French Revolution: “What would Edmund Burke make of the headlines of the past few weeks …? In 1790, Burke answered … ‘It is not with much credulity I listen to any when they speak evil of those they are going to plunder.’ What would he think of the insistent attempt to tie [a] sexual abuser to the Roman pontiff himself through the most tenuous of links … as the present sales of Church property to pay settlements swell the coffers of contingent-fee lawyers and real estate speculators …?” . . .

{ 9 comments }

Prophets on the Path to Peace

by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on January 20, 2010 · 9 comments

JFK, John F. Kennedy, Civil Rights Movement, Civil Rights March, Selma Alabama, Roe v Wade, Abortion, Martin Luther King, MLK, Richard John Neuhaus, Fr John Crowley, Society of St Edmund, Beloved Community, Selma Times Journal, the Path to Peace in Selma, Dred Scott, Roger Taney, Missouri Compromise, Blackman,

. . . There is a natural abhorrence to such language today, and to such a decision from our Supreme Court. But in 1857 the Court went far beyond the simple ruling that Dred Scott did not possess the rights of a citizen to sue. The decision rendered the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional thereby throwing out the U.S. Congress’s right to make territory free of slavery. The decision held that the Missouri Compromise violated the Fifth Amendment by depriving Southerners of their right to private property, i.e., slaves. That decision sounds appalling to us, but it was cheered in its day by many. It caused some, however, to assert that there is a higher moral law than the Constitution, and a higher moral authority than the Supreme Court. These voices of conscience changed minds and hearts, and, in time, the Supreme Court’s decision. . . .

{ 9 comments }