Mel Gibson said "the Jews are to blame." He was drunk when he said it. He has since apologized.Pat Oliphant says, "the Catholic Church is to blame." He was presumably sober (but perhaps not). Will he apologize? (Don't hold your breath.)
Update (2:15 pm, 8-5-06): This isn't Mr. Oliphant's first libel against the Catholic Church. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights keeps track of these things. The report for 2002 can be found here; in fairness to Mr. Oliphant, the league's collection of his hate-cartoons is thinner in later years. This isn't even the first time Mr. Oliphant has drawn this image -- this appears to be a recycle of a 2004 cartoon, which drew a mea culpa from the Boston Globe for pubishing it.
Update: (9:43 pm 8-5-06) Amy Welborn posted a link at her Open Book to this site, and drawn a number of comments there. Here's one especially insightful one:
This is actually a very hard cartoon to interpret.
One version: the nun is drilling into "Mel" that, if caught in a DUI, he shouldn't make slurs against Jews. In this version the Church, while abusive, is right, but Mel failed to learn the lesson.
Next version: the nun is drilling to Mel that he should defame Jews if he is caugth driving drunk. This makes sense if O. (and his readers) assume that the Church (nuns) are nothing but vicious antisemites and want to preach that vicious gospel.
The third version, perhaps most hateful, is that the nun (i.e. the Church) and young "Mel" both know that Jews are scum, but that he should learn to control his tongue, so that, if he should be stopped for drunk driving, he would avoid any untoward comments.
Two out of three of these are vicious anti-Catholic bigotry, while the third is anti-Catholic stereotyping. This should be pointed out to the publishers of this cartoon and those with subscriptions should cancel them.
Posted by: Fr. Augustine Thompson O.P.
5 comments:
I know Fr. Thompson (from my days in Charlottesville). He's sharp.
But I agree with Victor that perhaps Fr. Thompson was being somewhat charitable in his first reading.
Is anyone else anxiously awaiting the diatribe orange_cross will let out when he's pulled over for a DUI? Grab some popcorn.
Orange Cross:
Have you heard of such a thing as "proof"? And the principle that the stronger the assertion, the stronger the proof needed to support that assertion?
Orange Cross:
I'm not sure what you're about, but I'm beginning to wonder if there is a language barrier. No offense, but how fluent is your English?
Your response to my request for proof seems either to be meant as a jest, which -- okay, but I didn't take it as particularly helpful, or as perhaps insulting to the relationship between faith and reason -- or maybe you really don't think faith and reason have any interplay...
And your second response to my request for proof, if it is meant to satisfy it, does not.
It may be you don't understand what I'm saying to you. Or you don't care. I really don't know. I want to believe you're sincere, but to be honest, I'm beginning to have my doubts.
Thing is, I've got better things to do than to play this sort of game, if that's what's going on...
Crunch, crunch. Popcorn anyone? I'm more than happy to share as we delve into the insightful comments of orange cross.
Like I said, if anyone was shocked by what came out of Mel's mouth when he was arrested, I bet it's nothing compared to the conspiracy theories on the tip of this guy's tongue...
You know, just the other day, while looking at one of da Vinci's paintings, the strangest thing occured to me ... Catholicism is the root of all evil and Leonardo tried to warn us all."
Language barrier, Father? Oh, no. I'm afraid not.
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