Brutally Honest

Shining the light upon Planned Parenthood's colluders in the scientific community

Stacy Trasanco's latest piece at Catholic Stand should go viral:

Maybe the undercover investigation conducted by the Center for Medical Progress needed to happen so people could see and hear the gruesomeness of Planned Parenthood’s harvesting and sale of fetal body parts. Maybe it was too easy to ignore without video-taped evidence in plain, gory language. Maybe it is not enough to be outraged at abortion on its face because, I don’t know, killing is somehow worse if body parts are sold.

But anyone who has followed scientific research on the Human Genome Project, cloning, genetic, evolution, and stem cell research knows that the use of fetal and embryonic body parts and tissues is nothing new. I am not complimenting myself for knowing about this. I have been interested in reading science papers for decades. Now I am urging more people to pay more attention because, while I remain unsure how to stop the horrific conduct in some areas of the scientific community, there is no doubt that information is a fundamental necessity. You cannot change what you do not know about.

Here, let me show you. This is how the information is presented in scientific literature.

Let’s say you woke up a few days ago, poured the dark coffee your husband made you, and sat down with your laptop to read your weekly subscription to Science journal. (Yes, I subscribe, and I struggle with that, but I do not know any other way to keep up with the weekly papers.) The July 3 issue had a News Feature, “Of Mice and Men: Researchers are adding human DNA to mice to pinpoint sequences that helped define our species.” The image bore two mouse embryos with blue brains. There is no jargonhere in this title shrouding what is going on. Researchers have to get human DNA from someone to be able to add it to mice embryos and grow them. Where do you think the human DNA to add to mouse embryos comes from?

...

Doing scientific lab work is much like cooking. The Materials and Methods sections, which all full scientific papers have, are kind of like cookbooks. They have the recipes for making the stuff. There is often not enough room to detail all the steps in a full paper, so sometimes the rest of the story is given in Supplemental Materials. Science journal puts those in a separate document. The link is found at the end of the paper. Here it is, and you have to download the Materials and Methods to read them. Right at the top, there is the paragraph. Go ahead. Read it all.

Human tissue. Human fetal brain tissue was obtained from the Klinik und Poliklinik für Frauenheilkunde und Geburtshilfe, Universitätsklinikum Carl Gustav Carus of the Technische Universität Dresden, following elective pregnancy termination and informed written maternal consents, and with approval of the local University Hospital Ethical Review Committees. The age of fetuses ranged from 12 to 13 wpc (12 wpc, n = 1; 13 wpc, n = 2) as assessed by ultrasound measurements of crown-rump length and other standard criteria of developmental stage determination. Human fetuses were placed on ice immediately after abortion and neocortices were dissected in ice-cold Tyrode’s Solution (TS) and either processed for DiI labeling or fixed for at least 3 h at room temperature followed by 24 h at 4°C in 4% PFA in 120 mM phosphate buffer (pH 7.4). The 16 wpc human brain used for immunofluorescence analyses (shown in Fig. S8) was obtained from Novogenix Laboratories (Torrance, CA), following informed consent and elective termination. Developmental age was determined by ultrasound.

Catch that? Novogenix Laboratories in CA is the company who comes to Planned Parenthood, signs the patients up, and collects the tissues to sell to researchers. They are mentioned in the Center for Medical Progress video.

She's got tons more... and it should be required reading.  It should also make you want to throw up.  

There are Frankensteinian things going on in labs around the world and we're all supposed to apparently accept that because it's considered science, it's ok, because it's being done in the name of medical research, it's ok, because this is what the left sees to be progress, it's ok.

It's not ok.

It's evil.  It's nothing more than a rekindling of the worship of Moloch and Mammon.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Related articles

"We would plainly talk about harvesting fetal parts as if we were talking about harvesting a field of corn."

"The Bible is not so much a book, but a library"

Our Lady Untier of Knots

Cecile Richards, modern day vampire

Yesterday on Facebook I said about Ms. Richards: "This one's soul is black... seriously, seriously black."  And I meant it.  Her lame apology, eviscerated by The Anchoress (with video at the link), was shameless and so I unapologetically made the statement and stand by it.

Today, I come across this by Fr. Longenecker and see that in essence, he agrees:

In most modern vampire films the vampire is always irresistibly handsome or beautiful, and they can only prolong their eternal youth, beauty and life by walking among the living as the dead and sucking from the their blood. Furthermore, they always need to feast on the blood of the young, the strong and the beautiful.

So the vampires of Planned Parenthood suck up the lifeblood (heart, liver, lungs, brains etc) of the youngest and most vulnerable, beautiful and innocent–the children.

So in a society obsessed with the abuse of children we give the nod to a member of the professional class who drags babies out of their mother’s womb and consumes them for payment.

The vampire is an apt symbol for the horror we now live with. Beastly beings who appear to be normal, nice, charming and intelligent but who turn out to suck the life out of others to preserve their own life.

Is my language extreme?

Maybe. Should it be?

I think so.

People need to see the monsters of Planned Parenthood as the ghastly vampires they really are.

The state of the soul of Ms. Richards is, in the end of course, a matter between her and God and I pray, as I ought for every human being, that He will have mercy on her but I am of the opinion, the firmest of opinions, that her soul is currently in a state of mortal danger.  May His light pierce her darkness.  May His light pierce our darkness.

Let it be so Lord.  Let it be so.

"We would plainly talk about harvesting fetal parts as if we were talking about harvesting a field of corn."

Abby Johnson, a former Director of a Planned Parenthood facility, has written a letter to Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the woman at the Center of the baby part harvesting scandal now the focus of much of social media.  You might be surprised at its content:

Dear Dr. Nucatola,

I watched the video put out with your face on it. I heard you talking about harvesting fetal body parts. I saw you sip your wine while talking about how to remove an intact fetus. 

I want you to know that I’m not disgusted by you. I’m not disgusted, because I used to be just like you. You see, my former Planned Parenthood clinic used to harvest fetal body parts. I used to sift through their bodies and prepare them for transport to the research lab we were contracted with.

The other day, I learned a new thing that I hate because of my work at the clinic. Dry ice. We used to participate in studies where we would have to collect fetal body parts and ship them to research labs...all for stem cell research. We kept their little bodies cold and preserved by using dry ice. My daughter was really excited to put water on it so she could see the smoke. I stood there and couldn't get the memories of those little bodies out of my mind. My kids were squealing with excitement and I felt like I couldn't move. I had to make a decision in that moment. I could either let my past consume me, or I could repurpose that memory and use it for good. And that’s what I chose to do. I sat down next to the block of ice and watched my kids run around in the smoke.

But that dry ice did cause me to recall that particular part of my work. All of the blood, body parts and extra tissue would be collected into a glass jar. That glass jar would come to me in the POC (products of conception) lab through a “pass through specimen cabinet.” I would take the jar to our sink, dump everything into a huge strainer, rinse out the jar and then rinse the blood out of the strainer. After I had a clean body, I would dump it into the glass baking dish that was sitting on top of an x-ray light box. I would put a little bit of water in the glass dish so that the body parts would float…that made it easier for me to manipulate them.

During the season of tissue harvesting, an intact body was gold. An intact fetal body is considered perfection in the land of fetal tissue research. But dismembered body parts were okay, too…and that is usually what we gave them. I would check the patient’s chart to make sure that they had signed the consent for us to donate their baby’s remains. Almost every woman did, because we made it seem like that by donating, they were helping others…altruism during abortion. If she had consented, then I would gather the parts wanted (usually all of them) and place them in a particular container given to us by the research company. At the end of the day, I would pack all of the containers neatly in the box with dry ice and ship them off.

That was my life, and I did it for eight years. The images of tiny bodies will always be burned in my memory. And in a strange way, I am thankful for that memory as it reminds me what I’m fighting for.

As I watched you on the video, I could almost see myself. After a grueling abortion day, we would all go out for margaritas and Mexican food. We would talk about the day and specific abortion cases. It wasn’t gross to us. We honestly didn’t think anything about it. We would plainly talk about harvesting fetal parts as if we were talking about harvesting a field of corn. That was our normal…and we were proud to live in it. I get the humor. I get how something grotesque to others can seem ordinary.

I understand the world you live in. I understand the blindness. I don’t think you are an evil person. I wasn’t an evil person. But just like I was, you are gravely misguided. 

There's more and it ends with a direct pitch for Nucatola to leave her "gravely misguided" life.  

The bigger challenge of course is appealing to the gravely misguided who continue to defend Planned Parenthood, who see no problem with what they're doing, who in fact openly support and even ask God to bless their work.

Gravely misguided is being charitable to these people.

God have mercy on them... because I'm having a terrible time mustering up any desire for mercy and I realize that is wrong.  

Yes, God have mercy on them, and God have mercy on all of us that have tolerated this kind of butchery for far too long.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Related articles

"I knew which were the cases that were probably more likely to yield what we needed"

"Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion"

"The Bible is not so much a book, but a library"

Who out there wants to be happy?

I've covered this ground before, not too awful long ago, while quoting Fr. Robert Barron (who's coming to my local area next month):

What makes us truly happy? Forgetting our ego and its needs and desires, opening our eyes, minds, and hearts, and letting reality in. What makes us happy is always right in front of us, because what makes us happy is love, willing the good of the other. 

Next time you're unhappy, here's what you do: you love. When you're feeling miserable, write a note to someone who is lonely; make cookies for your kids; visit thenursing home; donate some money to a charity; sign up to help with an after-school program; say a prayer for someone who's in trouble. 

Love is not a feeling. It's an act of the will, and it's a great act of dispossession. 

Archbishop Fulton Sheen weighed in on happiness as well:

“If you will whatever God wills, you will always have exactly what you want. When you want anything else, you are not happy before you get it, and when you do get it, you do not want it. That is why you are ‘up’ today and ‘down’ tomorrow. You will never be happy if your happiness depends on getting solely what you want. Change the focus.  Get a new center.  Will what God wills, and your joy no man shall take from you.”

On Saturday, Pope Francis touched on this theme:

“Youth is a time of high ideals,” he said July 11 at Leon Condou stadium in Asuncion. “It is important that you, the young, realize that genuine happiness comes from working to make a more fraternal world!”

“It comes from realizing that happiness and pleasure are not synonymous. Happiness is demanding, it requires commitment and effort. You are too important to be satisfied with living life under a kind of anasthesia!”

While pleasure is fleeting, he said, “happiness is a dream that builds, that constructs.”

Dear reader, look in the mirror, look hard, and ask yourself if you're happy.  The answer is honestly self-evident and I mean that quite literally.

If you're focused on self, you're likely not happy.

Do something about it.

And carry on.

 

Beating the dead horse, necessarily

It's an issue pushed to the forefront by the Supreme Court and it's not going away anytime soon, despite the fatigue I suspect is settling in across the country as opposing sides dig in.

Of course, we're talking about gay marriage.

I came across three related pieces today that I thought would be worthy of a post, the first coming out of Detroit involving the Archbishop of Detroit as well as a legal adviser to the Vatican and words they've shared that underscore the seriousness with which all faithful Catholics should be taking this divisive and controversial subject:

The comments of [Archbishop Allen] Vigneron and Edward Peters, who teaches Catholic canon law at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, are part of a polarizing discussion about gay marriage that echoes debate over whether politicians who advocate abortion rights should receive Communion.

In a post on his blog last week, Peters said that Catholic teachings make it clear that marriage is between one man and one woman. And so, "Catholics who promote 'same-sex marriage' act contrary to" Catholic law "and should not approach for holy Communion," he wrote. "They also risk having holy Communion withheld from them ... being rebuked and/or being sanctioned."

Peters didn't specify a Catholic politician or public figure in his post. But he told the Free Press that a person's "public efforts to change society's definition of marriage ... amount to committing objectively wrong actions."

Peters, an attorney who holds the Edmund Cardinal Szoka Chair at Sacred Heart, was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 to be a referendary of the Apostolic Sinatura, which means he helps advise the top judicial authority in the Catholic Church. Peters' blog, "In Light of the Law," is popular among Catholic experts, but not everyone agrees with his traditional views.

...

Last month, Vigneron said at a news conference that maintaining views that oppose abortion and support traditional marriage are important for Catholics.

"Were we to abandon them, we would be like physicians who didn't tell their patients that certain forms of behavior are not really in their best interest," said Vigneron, who oversees 1.3 million Catholics in southeastern Michigan.

Asked by the Free Press about Catholics who publicly advocate for gay marriage and receive Communion, Vigneron said Sunday: "For a Catholic to receive holy Communion and still deny the revelation Christ entrusted to the church is to try to say two contradictory things at once: 'I believe the church offers the saving truth of Jesus, and I reject what the church teaches.' In effect, they would contradict themselves. This sort of behavior would result in publicly renouncing one's integrity and logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury."

Vigneron said the church wants to help Catholics "avoid this personal disaster."

An unpopular but brutally honest truth being proclaimed in Detroit that is sure to meet with vocal dissent, particularly from dissident Catholics, which brings us to the second piece, a very short one, I came across earlier today quoting the book God, Christ, Other Religions that I believe speaks volumes:

It is a thousand times easier for a person to say and admit their religion is COMPLETELY WRONG, rather than to say and admit that their thinking and their life is WRONG.

It is much easier for a person to abandon their religion rather than their EGO, and they are always looking for a religion that does not jeopardize their EGO.

Profoundly counter cultural but necessary thinking there.  And true.  Completely.  And sadly.

The final related piece is one that faithful Catholics (and those interested in faithful Catholicism) should particularly bookmark.  It's a comprehensive, and that's an understatement, post put up by Leila Miller at Little Catholic Bubble that covers this topic most widely and deeply.  Take a good gander at what she's put together.  If you're looking for solidly Catholic pieces on the issues of gay marriage and same sex attraction, Leila's post is your go to place.

Carry on.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Related articles

"...those who oppose it can only be characterized as bigots animated by an irrational prejudice"

Crucial distinctions

"Jesus does indeed comment directly on the nature of marriage..."

"Truth has a way of dividing"

I was having lunch recently with family when someone mentioned being friends with a Christian who had made the decision to never make waves, who refused to give opinions, who thought it best in these divisive times to not in any way engage so that they could avoid controversy.  The person relaying this to the rest of us clearly was seeing this friend's non-engagement as something virtuous.

I don't particularly remember my response but do remember making the conscious, and in hindsight cowardly, decision to not say what I was actually thinking.

I succumbed to the tyranny of nice, a rare thing for me admittedly.

Which makes this piece by Msgr. Charles Pope, titled "The Real Jesus Wants To Know Where You Stand" all the more relevant, timely and instructional:

There is a false, unbiblical notion of Jesus that emphasizes and isolates some of his teachings and traits, while excluding others. Hence there are many who reduce Jesus’ moral teaching to a vague notion that we should be nice and try to get along. This not only simplifies Jesus — it trivializes him.

Jesus, in describing his own ministry and why he was hated so irrationally that even Pontius Pilate had to marvel, said to Pilate: The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me  (Jn 18:37). Pilate scoffed, of course, and like a 21st century secular or libertine, said, “Truth! What is that?”

But there is something funny about the truth. The opposite of the truth is not just less meaningful, or just another opinion. The opposite of  true, is false. Truth has a way of dividing. It will not abide competitors. That Jesus is Lord, is true. Anything different from this is not just less meaningful or someone else’s view — it is false.

Jesus says, “I am the truth” (Jn 14:6). As such he cannot be reduced to a harmless hippie going about speaking of love and inclusion. Did he speak of these things? Surely. But he also summoned us to a choice for him or against him. To choose for him was to be saved; to choose against him was to be condemned. The same Jesus who said, “Love one another” (Jn 13:34) also said, Unless you come to believe that I AM, you will die in your sins (Jn 8:24).

In times like these we are going to have to recover a healthy sense that Jesus not only unites many in his truth, but he also divides and distinguishes by that same truth. Myopic and wistful notions that Jesus want us to be nice and get along cannot supersede  his command that we love him and put faith in his truth, even if it means our own family disowns us or is “offended” by us.

In this sense Jesus did not come to “unite” in some merely sociological sense. He came to distinguish his true followers from those who actually follow the world or Satan.

...

Once the Truth comes into the world, what is false must be rejected. Once the Light has come into the world, the darkness must be called by its proper names: confusion and obscurity. Once the Way has come into this world all other paths are excluded and lead only to Hell. Fr. Robert Barron says well and artfully: “Jesus compels a choice.” We are free to choose, but we must choose. Tertium non datur (no third way is given)!  

Yes, in times like these we are going to have to recover notions that Jesus will divide, even as he seeks to unite us in the truth. We cannot go on clinging to a “Hallmark card theology” of pleasantries about getting along and being “nice.” Jesus did not end up before Pilate and nailed to cross by soft-pedaling the truth.

The Truth divides. And some of the divisions are very uncomfortable, reaching right into our families. There are going to be “weddings” we should not attend, gatherings we must refuse, affiliations that must end, affirmations we should not give, confrontations we must make, and silence that is no longer tolerable (if it ever was tolerable).

Indeed, we have gone on too long remaining silent — even approving — while sons and daughters, nieces, nephews, cousins and friends cohabitated, stopped attending Mass, got divorced and remarried and engaged in any number of other immoral and questionable practices.

We thought being quiet would bring peace. It did not. Compromises with the world and the devil do not bring peace but only demands for further concessions and compromises. At the end of the process we are silent, dead in our sins, and the world and the devil just have more victims. This mess we are in today happened on our watch. We who should be prophets are left shaking our heads and wondering how it got so bad. No real mystery here: silent pulpits, silent dinner tables, and suing for a false “peace in our times.”

Somewhere we bought into a notion of a fake Jesus, a harmless hippie who just wanted us to be nice and get along. But that Jesus would never have ended up before the Sanhedrin, or Pilate, or on a cross. The fake Jesus would not have had enemies at all. The fake Jesus would never have many who left him and would no longer follow him because of his teaching on the Eucharist (John 6) or marriage (Matthew 19), or his own divinity (John 8). The fake Jesus is loved by the world because the fake Jesus’ is of this world.

But the true Jesus stood accused before Pilate, and was condemned to die by a world that hated him because he was not of the world.

Boom.

Seriously.  Boom.

That is hard, dare I say brutal, honesty and well worth reading in its entirety.

I should have the courage of taking Msgr. Pope's piece and passing it along to the person with the silent Christian friend.

I really should.  God grant me the opportunity... and the courage.

Carry on.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Related articles

By seeing the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, we're more likely to see Christ in each other

Maybe Bruce should instead be called Carl Jung Jenner, or maybe even Sophia Jenner

"Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion"

"Fleeting feelings and passing references rule in a society that abandons Truth"

My priest has been a light for me personally since I first met him a number of years ago but he has particularly been a flame for me of late.  

He has been no shrinking violet in the wake of the Obergfell SCOTUS decision, in fact, quite the opposite and I took a moment after Mass today to tell him so, something I think we should all be doing for our faithful and prophetic priests, particularly those who are boldly standing up for truth and who are encouraging us all to do the same.

Father Mike's homilies these last two weeks have extolled truth courageously and he hints that he has been taking some heat for it and I trust that he has as does anyone today who proclaims the Church's teachings.  The lukewarm and the faithless seem to be particularly loud and passionate these days and are quick to call out those who stand with the Church against the zeitgeist.  

I wish there were recordings of Father Mike's homilies, particularly these last two but sadly, there isn't.  So instead, I'm posting the homily of Father John Lankeit of the Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral in Phoenix, Arizona, a homily I tripped over yesterday on Facebook.

He too has a prophetic word for us from last week I thought worthy of sharing.  Set aside 20 minutes today and listen, really listen, to it:

I thank God for the Fr. Mikes and the Fr. Johns that are out there and hope that in fact there are many more.  We need many more.

Amen.

Related articles

Why I am not ever leaving the Catholic Church (again)

Power against thorns

The trans-truth* is apparently setting some free...

"Jesus does indeed comment directly on the nature of marriage..."

Shameless Popery has published an extraordinarily enlightening piece that not only deals with the shallowness of the flowchart above but also deals with the oft repeated claim that Christ's alleged silence on an issue suggests that Christians should not and indeed cannot oppose said issue:

But there’s a second problem with this claim. It assumes that the Bible is essentially a rule book full of Thou Shalt Not’s. But it’s missing that both Jesus and St. Paul present a positive view of marriage. That is, Scripture shows us what marriage is, which is why we can also say what it isn’t.

This is important, because as we saw from the attempts to work around St. Paul’s prohibitions, the same-sex marriage side is essentially arguing: “but here’s an arrangement nobody had thought of back then!” With a positive view of what marriage is, we can easily establish whether some new sexual variation is compatible with marriage or not.

As part of a good Facebook thread on this topic, my friend Peter Ascik (a seminarian for the Diocese of Charlotte) explains:

Jesus does indeed comment directly on the nature of marriage in Matthew 19, and he reaffirms that marriage is founded on the sexual difference of man and woman (Matt 19:4-5), which is itself grounded in God’s creation of humanity in his image (Gen 1:27; Gen 2:24). St. Paul reaffirms the foundation of marriage in the doctrine of creation, again grounding it in the sexual difference of man and woman, (Ephesians 5:31-32), and teaches that it is a symbol of Christ’s union with the Church.

Jesus and St. Paul explicitly teach a doctrine of marriage that is incompatible with gay marriage. Even if Leviticus and Romans were silent on the subject of homosexual acts, the New Testament teaching that marriage is founded in the creation of male and female would be enough to reject same-sex marriage.

And Princeton’s Prof. Robert George chimed in to point out that this witness to marriage doesn’t start in the New Testament, and isn’t confined to Christianity:

The Biblical witness to marriage as a conjugal relationship first appears in Genesis 2. It is restated in various places, including in the teaching of Jesus. The same basic idea appears in the thought of Greek and Roman thinkers and even some teachers from the Eastern traditions. What, in fact, makes no sense is the idea of non-conjugal marriage–marriage as mere sexual-romantic companionship or domestic partnership. That explains why it has no patronage in the great faiths or traditions of philosophy.

George’s contribution is also important because it’s a reminder that even though you can’t be an orthodox Christian or Jew and accept gay marriage, you can reject gay marriage for entirely non-religious reasons. All you have to do is understand what marriage is, or understand that men and women are different, and that children deserve a mother and a father. Believing in Scripture will get you to that point, but you can get there apart from Scripture (or faith) as well.

So the gay marriage view that’s supposed to show that we’re a bunch of Biblical hypocrites more accurately shows that the best argument against Jews, Christians, and anyone holding to any of the great philosophical traditions, is just to shout us down and call us nasty names.

Of course, I skipped completely over Shameless Popery's shameless dismantling of the flowchart so do yourself a favor and go read the whole thing, then do society the favor the next time someone shoves this or similar flowcharts in your face or when they smugly remark, "Jesus never said anything about gay marriage... or homosexuality"and point them to this piece. 

Thank you.  And thank the good folks over SP.  Great stuff over there.

Carry on.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Related articles

"I have the best of intentions, but end up falling short..."

By seeing the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, we're more likely to see Christ in each other

"For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these..."

"It is unthinkable..."

"It’s a literary style that supports a thinking style, and if you ignore the poetry of it, you’ve lost the genre."

This Pope is confounding more than just a few folks and I'm not merely talking about his encyclical Laudato Si.

His latest off-the-cuff-stream-of-consciousness comments, delivered before a crowd of young people in Turin, Italy, are being widely criticized:

It makes me think one thing: people, leaders, entrepreneurs that call themselves Christians, and produce arms! This gives some mistrust: they call themselves Christians! “No, no, Father, I don’t produce them, no, no …. I only have my savings, my investments in arms factories.” Ah! And why? “Because the interest is somewhat higher …” And a double face is also a current coin today: to say something and do another. Hypocrisy …l But let’s see what happened in the last century: in ’14, ’15, in ’15 in fact. There was that great tragedy in Armenia. So many died. I don’t know the figure: more than a million certainly. But where were the great powers of the time? Were they looking elsewhere? Why? Because they were interested in war: their war! And those that died were persons, second class human beings. Then, in the 30s and 40s the tragedy of the Shoah. The great powers had photographs of the railroad lines that took trains to the concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, to kill the Jews, and also Christians, also the Roma, also homosexuals, to kill them there. But tell me, why didn’t they bomb that? Interest! And shortly after, almost contemporaneously, were the lager in Russia: Stalin … How many Christians suffered, were killed! The great powers divided Europe among themselves as a cake. So many years had to pass before arriving at “certain” freedom. It’s that hypocrisy of speaking of peace and producing arms, and even selling arms to this one who is at war with that one, and to that one who is at war with this one!

Into the midst of the seemingly conflicting words of Pope Francis wades Jennifer Fitz with food for thought:

Is the Pope rolling around on the podium, tormented by a hawk on one shoulder and a dove on the other?  No.  Rather, there are several important language and thought patterns being used here that we need to recognize and understand.

1. “High Context” vs. “Low Context” Speech

When we say someone’s manner of speaking is “high context” what we mean is that there’s a whole backstory you need to know if you want to understand the real message.  “Low Context” means that everything is completely spelled out for you.  The statement stands alone, crystal clear.

Some cultures are well-known for being “high context.”  Communication is subtle.  You’re expected to read between the lines.  People who don’t “get it” are considered a bit thick.  They try your patience.  High-context speech works well if the people communicating have the common experience necessary to pass subtle cues.  This is why my older sister and I used to be able to win Pictionary every time: We could draw on a whole lifetime of references to inside jokes, family stories, and preferred words and phrases to quickly get a point across.

Americans as a nation use “low context” speech.  We’re a nation of immigrants, and that massive diversity means that your neighbor probably doesn’t know what you’re referring to in your subtle hints or witty references.  You have to spell everything out.  We dislike jargon, we resent people who won’t say plainly what they mean, and we expect you to mean what you say and say what you mean.

Interestingly, though, American Internet Catholics are a high-context people.  We have a whole collection of cultural references that quickly paint a picture of what we mean.  Say, “the Spirit of Vatican II,” and an astute reader will look at the source (National Catholic Reporter or National Catholic Register?) and know exactly what is being implied, no further explanation necessary.

Because AIC’s live in this dual world, when someone uses a high-context reference to mean something other than what it usually (to us) implies, we expect it to be spelled out.  If you tell someone on the internet, “I’m a social justice Catholic,” you know that you have to quickly say, “who is faithful to the magisterium of the Catholic Church!” unless you wish to be taken for someone who picks and chooses among the doctrines of the faith.  Our high-context habits require low-context speaking to clarify anytime we deviate from code.

This creates a huge conflict with Pope Francis: He’s a high-context speaker, but who is using a completely different set of contexts than we American Internet Catholics are used to.  His frame of reference is the deposit of the faith and his decades of living between two worlds: The richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor.  We AIC’s are used to questioning whether someone believes and accepts the entirety of the Catholic faith; Pope Francis takes it for granted that it’s his job to promulgate the fullness of truth.  We AIC’s are used to moral discussions focused on our particular corner of the world; the Pope is often referring to circumstances utterly unlike our own.

Ms. Fitz goes on to cite linear versus interconnected thinking and sound bite versus developed arguments as thought and language patterns that need to be understood before we understand Pope Francis.

That of course is going to be problematic in a largely meme driven society that expects philosophy to be summarized and tweeted in 140 characters.

The challenge for Catholics and the rest of the world is to think, and I do mean seriously ponder, the Pope's words before reacting to them.

Not exactly an easy thing in a culture that values shallowness and triteness.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Related articles

"What we will meet more and more of is the loss of an ability to even conceive of a common human nature and common moral vocabulary"

The new front line in the culture wars... Bruce or Caitlyn?

Ball bearings and why we shouldn't be one

Leila Miller paints a vivid picture of what makes up a too large segment of society:

If you are bewildered or even frightened about the lightning speed at which the western world seems to be accepting the most nonsensical, sinful beliefs and throwing off any and all notions of traditional, Judeo-Christian, natural law values, take a deep breath. It's not as surprising or alarming as it seems, if you consider the predictable movement of the Ball Bearings in every culture.

What or who are the Ball Bearings? 

They are the citizens who will -- with little or no resistance -- go along with the trend, the fad, the popular opinion, or the peer pressure of the day. The Ball Bearings consist of most of your neighbors, your co-workers, some of your friends, and yes, members of your own family. And you yourself may be, as I once was, a Ball Bearing.

As soon as an opinion or a cultural trend becomes the "right" or "acceptable" one (regardless of its veracity or its connection to anything that came before), and especially as soon as there is a real price to pay (socially or legally) for not accepting or embracing it, the Ball Bearings begin to roll.

I imagine a flat plane, maybe like a massive metal tray, with the free-rolling Ball Bearings headed this way or that, depending on how the tray is tipped at the moment. So, for example, when gay "marriage" was unthinkable in this society, the Ball Bearings were huddled snugly and comfortably on the side of authentic, heterosexual marriage. Believing that man + woman = marriage was clearly "approved thought" -- heck, it was axiomatic -- and there was no price to pay, socially or otherwise, for holding that universal belief.

But watch the tray as public opinion changes. First slowly, and then more quickly, the tray begins to tip towards acceptance of gay "marriage". Sure enough, the Ball Bearings start rolling down until they've landed on the other side and are now wedged firmly in the camp that they had previously, and quite recently, disavowed.

There's more, check it out.

I think she's nailed too many of us.

Lord, let me not be a ball bearing.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Related articles

Book's promising but the cover? Not so much.