How Groupthink And Political Correctness Are Damaging Faithful Catholics

Last Thursday at Our Lady of Lourdes in Bethesda, I attended a fascinating talk given by Stella Morabito-Green.  It was entitled "Living Faithfully In A Culture Of Fear", and it dealt with the threat of political correctness.  Her focus was on political correctness as it exists in secular culture and the very real threat it poses to faithful Catholics who seek to integrate their faith in all facets of their lives.  As I listened to her talk and related it to discussions I had been having on Facebook and elsewhere, I could see how even some faithful Catholics were embracing and even using some tenets of political correctness interlaced with groupthink.

Progressives have been quite adept at using political correctness, by seizing control of language and vocabulary to shape public thought.  Largely they've been successful because 1) most folks (including most faithful Catholics) don't understand the dynamics of group-think even though 2) they latch onto group-think as a means of social survival.  As she spoke, however, I could understand well what she was saying.  A little over twenty years ago, I had been involved with a "charismatic" group that had more and more assumed the characteristics of a thought-reform cult.  After many of us started questioning things AND the local church forced leaders to step aside, I left the group and started reading voraciously about thought-reform techniques, mostly from the Cultic Studies Journal.  Most cults exhibited similar behaviors.  The late Dr. Robert Lifton listed eight such characteristics.  As you read them, recall how the politically-correct left has hijacked certain words and phrases: "freedom of choice", "bigot", "homophobe", etc.  This is what Dr. Lifton would have called "loading the language".  Here is another summary on characteristics of cults.  As I go through the discussions in which I participated, I'l try to remember to point out these cult characteristics as I saw them at play.  You might want to keep these pages open and refer to them as I relate the examples in following paragraphs.

Bending Over Backwards To Justify Pope's Kissing The Hand of Gay Activist Priest

For some background, please review this.

Did I say "bending over backwards"?  There might have been other choices like "comparing apples to oranges" or "lousy scriptural interpretation" or just "contortions of logic".  That just about sums up Simcha Fisher's piece in yesterday's National Catholic Register blog.

She desperately tried to compare the Pope's actions with De Paolis and St. Francis' actions with the sinful priest.  There are differences between the two accounts to render Fisher's comparison to be an "apples to oranges" comparison.

• The story indicates that St. Francis, in an infirm condition, was brought rather unwillingly to the priest.  The Holy Father was quite willing to be so engaged.
• St. Francis had no canonical authority over that priest.  The Holy Father most certainly does have authority over De Paolis (and every other priest for that matter).  Thus St. Francis had no binding responsibility to address the priest's problems.  The Holy Father has solemn responsibility over all his priest-sons.  To insinuate that it was appropriate for the Pope to (try to) imitate St. Francis in this matter is to deliberately disregard their very different roles and responsibilities to the Church.
• St. Francis never pretended the scandal didn't exist.  The Holy Father has given all appearances of pretending that there is nothing wrong about De Paolis's decades of in-your-face dissidence and promotion of mortal sin.

She then tries to liken the Pope's actions to that of the father of the prodigal son.  She goes so far as to claim, "Francis is speaking and acting precisely like the prodigal son's father".  No.  Not by a long shot.  Why not review Luke 15:11-32?  The choice of translations isn't particularly important.  Note that the boy's father never went on a search for him.  It wasn't until the father saw the son making the gesture of returning that he went out to greet him.  Also note that the boy acknowledged his sin and publicly repented.  De Paolis promoted heinous sin for decades in flagrant manners; did he repent at least as openly as he dissented?  Remember that he sinned not only against papal authority but against the Church, leading many into sin and probably even eternal damnation by his words and examples.

Did Jesus eat and associate with public sinners?  Yes.  Did He ever invite them to join Him as He preached and worked miracles if they had not repented?  Of course not.  Why should that now be presumed to be oakie-doakie today?

Pope Affirms Renegade Priest In His Dissidence

Yesterday we noted with appreciation the excommunication of the "We Are Church" founders by Pope Francis.  I perceived the beginnings of a message that dissidence from Church teaching by prominent Catholics would be treated in helpful and decisive manners.  Unfortunately that message became (once more) garbled and muddied.

News came (via LifeSiteNews) that last week Pope Francis concelebrated Mass with and kissed the hand of Father Michele de Paolis.  This priest has been a long-time activist for "gay rights" and is a founder of a dissident "katholyc gay rights group in Italy called Agedo Foggia.  That group's website advertises one of Paolis' books as being written to "help people get out of the quagmire of biblical precepts".  (Note: Many people don't need help getting out of that "quagmire".  It's quite easy to do; but then they wind up in that nastier quagmire called hell.).

De Paolis is 93 years old.  His time is drawing near; with that his time for repentance is growing short.  One might hope that the Holy Father would perceive the eternal peril that looms over one of his spiritual sons and take appropriate measures to encourage repentance - even defrocking and/or excommunication.  Some might opine that the pope is acting out of misguided sympathy for his age and is trying a lenient approach.  But what happened last week is not mere leniency; it is outright affirmation of a wayward priest as he apparently careens towards eternal damnation.

Please keep Father de Paolis in prayer, that he come to repentance and that he makes a good confession.  Our prayers may be the only source of grace for him.