The New Catholic Equation: (Corapi + Dolan)/Satan = A Double Dose Of $hearing The $heep

This about says it all.

Looks to me like the question being passed around in some clerical circles is "how much $$$ can we get from 'true Catholics'.  This has given us the campaign in New York State led by Archbishop Dolan to use the gay marriage issue to shill for dollars, and in Minnesota, and Madison, and Seattle, and Washington, and well, just about everywhere a member of the USCCB in need of money resides.  And now we have the extremely unique 'blacksheepdog' campaign of the newly self disclosed ex priest John Corapi and his campaign to reinvent himself for a 'broader audience'. Whoaaa,broader audience? Perhaps Corapi has decided Dolan and the USCCB is the bigger, badder, blacker sheep dog on the block and it is in his best interests to look in other greener pastures for $heep to fleece.


Thanks to Bilgrimage, I have spent the better part of my afternoon reading up on these two stories as I wait for my laundry to get done.  It's been a long time since I've had such a fun time doing laundry. Seriously, I must state I have gone past the point of taking any of this stuff, well, seriously.  It's partly Mary Hunt's fault.  Over on Religious Dispatches she totally skewers Dolan's blog blatherings.  What really started me laughing is the idea I myself already had that Dolan is fond of using the logic inversion:  (remember that word inversion, it'll come again)

"Most troubling in this high-strung piece (“please, not here,” he squeals several times) is what feminist theologian and philosopher Mary Daly called “reversals” or “inversions”—the intellectual strategy of turning things upside down and inside out so as to end up with the very opposite of what is intended. For example, Dolan describes how China and North Korea supposedly “‘redefine’ rights, relationships, value, and natural law” on a regular basis via “communiqués from the government,” versus how we exalted Westerners handle the issues. In doing so, he describes exactly how the Vatican operates.

Another reversal is his take on certain rights “like that of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad.” He offers not the slightest hint of irony about the right of a child to be raised by two moms or two dads, or one mom or one dad, or any other permutation of the many ways good people try to provide for children that he actively seeks to thwart. (Or even for instance in Catholic orphanages.)
 
Incredibly, he asserts that “our beliefs should not be viewed as discrimination against homosexual people.” (What are they then?) Again, without even a tad of self-consciousness he states: “The Church affirms the basic human rights of gay men and women” while passing completely over the right to same-sex marriage, adoption, and discrimination-free jobs—all of which the Roman Catholic institution has distinguished itself by opposing..... (And then asserts claims of religious freedom to actually practice--not that this is bigotry or anything.)

......As I said, Dolan’s post is simply a last-ditch effort by the Catholic lobby to rally support to prevent the New York State Legislature from voting for marriage equality. It is not a deeply-reasoned theological argument that deserves an equally deeply-reasoned response. To claim otherwise is to buy into the smoke and mirrors that some religious professional employ to ply their trade.   

And speaking of smoke and mirrors and how they are employed by religious professionals, that brings me to ex Father Corapi:

 I will not try to fight this irrational and unjust situation for the simple reason that I don’t want to be placed in an adversarial posture against the Church. For 20 years I did my best to guard and feed the sheep. Now, based on a totally unsubstantiated, undocumented allegation from a demonstrably troubled person I was thrown out like yesterday’s garbage. I accept that. Perhaps I deserve that. (Can anyone say 'inversion'?)

I can’t do what I can’t do. I can only do what I can do. I shall continue, black sheep that I am, to speak; and sheep dog that I am, to guard the sheep—this time around not just in the Church, but also in the entire world. I am, indeed, not ready to be extinguished. Under the name “The Black Sheep Dog,” I shall be with you through radio broadcasts and writing. My autobiography, “The Black Sheep Dog,” is almost ready for publication. My topics will be broader than in the past, and my audience likewise is apt to be broader. I’ll do what I can under the circumstances. (Doesn't this just make a good sheep want to bleat over the trials and tribulations of it's blacksheepdog?)

Inversion is the kind of the thing that is supposed to be the mark of evil and all things Satanic.  The notion of Corapi being under attack from Satan seems to be the preferred excuse for those Catholic sheep Corapi used to call 'faithful Catholics' but now calls his 'fans'.  Somehow I am supposed to buy into the logic that becoming a self proclaimed ex priest is the way a faithful priest fends off Satanic attack coming from the hierarchy and church said ex priest used to preach was the path to personal salvation and our only defense against Satan. Got that?

It seems fairly obvious Corapi and Dolan are card carrying members from the inversion school of logic. Then again none of this is about logic or faithful Catholicism or truth or Jesus's mission and teaching.  It's about $$$ and how to get fearful people of faith to part with it.  So maybe in the end it really is about inversion, and not particularly funny.