Who will rid me of this Meddlesome Priest?

So a couple of questions: After the Wright, Hagee, and Parsley controversies, what on earth could possess this asshole priest, who obviously thinks he's pretty fly for a white guy, to engage in this offensive, misogynistic, racist diatribe in Obama's church?   Does he not understand that everything that happens at that church is being filmed and scrutinized?  Does he not comprehend how harmful what he was saying could be to Obama?  Does he not understand how utterly incompatible with his role as priest this particular performance was, how vile the message, how hateful and un-Christ like?

I am sickened by these guys and their pathetic narcissism and their penchant for playing to the worst instincts of their congregations.  (I am put in mind of Diderot's observation that "man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."  Substitute "crazy minister" for king and we might be on to something here.)   

Can we return to being the party of the godless now?  Because I have to say -- none of my pagan rituals -- which chiefly revolve around food and drink -- okay a lot of drink -- are likely to offend my fellow citizens.   

Comments

[has_te]

Struck me IMHO as an inappropriate concatenation.

"After the Wright, Hagee, and Parsley controversies...."

One certainly is altogether not like the others and shouldn't be chained up with them.

[Joe]

"After the Wright, Hagee, and Parsley controversies, what on earth could possess this asshole priest, who obviously thinks he's pretty fly for a white guy, to engage in this offensive, misogynistic, racist diatribe in Obama's church?"

After living in Chicago for ten years and experiencing the quarterly Father Phleger outrage, my first thought was "wow, I was expecting worse." The guy is insane, always has been. I'm a bit surprised that Trinity let him speak, but I guess you can't really turn him down.

Insanity aside, he really has given all of his blood, sweat and tears to his (very poor, black) parish. My favorite was when his church's youth basketball team was barred from competition in a predominately white south Chicago league -- the league said that it was because it was too dangerous to go to St. Sabina, but everyone knew that they didn't want their kids to go up against a (presumably superior) black team. Father Phleger launched a media campaign that essentially shamed the league into letting St. Sabina's team play. He was also instrumental in keeping a few Catholic schools that serve his community open so the kids didn't have to go to public -- which in that part of Chicago is not something you want to do. It's hard to be too harsh on him given that it is obvious that he really does love his community, and he really has dedicated his life to it. But he is crazy.

[Sir Charles]

has te,

I'm afraid I don't follow, but that may be because I am not smart enough to have known the word "concatention."

I'm impressed.

Having said that, I'm not sure which one you feel is not in the "like set."

Joe,

I am not familiar with the man so I may be overly harsh -- but the bottom line is that no one is going to judge this guy in some overall context, they are going to do so in terms of a brief sound clip. I would think that this is one lesson that the Reverend Wright affair would have driven home to Father Vanilla Ice here.

[Joe]

"Father Vanilla Ice"

Was this really necessary? I know you didn't mean offense by it, but this strikes me as borderline offensive.

When I lived in Britain for a year, I came back with vaguely British speech patterns and sayings (which I promptly lost after a few weeks in the US). The guy has lived for decades in one of the poorest black communities on the South Side of Chicago. I'd be surprised if he speaks to a white person (at least in person) more than a few times a week. Is it any wonder that he has adopted African-American speech patterns? Is there any need to call him "Vanilla Ice"?

[MR Bill]

Today, Micheal Gerson in the WaPo askes the unMusical Question: Was Jesus a Libertarian?

He manages to answer 'no', but just barely.

It made me think of another guy's take:

THE VISION OF CHRIST that thou dost see
Is my vision’s greatest enemy.
Thine has a great hook nose like thine;
Mine has a snub nose like to mine.
Thine is the Friend of all Mankind;
Mine speaks in parables to the blind.
Thine loves the same world that mine hates;
Thy heaven doors are my hell gates.
Socrates taught what Meletus
Loath’d as a nation’s bitterest curse,
And Caiaphas was in his own mind
A benefactor to mankind.
Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read’st black where I read white.\
from The Eternal Gospel by Wm. Blake

I'd still take Pfleger (who actually seems to live his beliefs) over Gerson any day.

[Sir Charles]

Joe,

I am sorry if you were offended but if you have watched the clip, the good Father seems to me to be painfully imitating the preaching style of the African American church -- a difficult task to pull off. It is not a question of acquiring an accent or phrases as you suggest, but a conscious adoption of an entire style that strikes me as jarringly phony. So I stand by my characterization.

Mr. Bill,

I will yield to no one in my hatred of Michael Gerson.

See, e.g.

http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2007/12/more-bashing-th.html

What a fatuous fuck that guy is -- his inclusion in my local newspaper is a continuous slap in the face. And yes, I too would take Father Pfleger over him, but that is probably damning by faint praise indeed.

[Joe]

"the good Father seems to me to be painfully imitating the preaching style of the African American church -- a difficult task to pull off."

Um, maybe he seems to be imitating the preaching style of an African-American church because he is the preacher (query: do you call Catholic priests "preacher"?) in an African-American church?

"It is not a question of acquiring an accent or phrases as you suggest, but a conscious adoption of an entire style that strikes me as jarringly phony."

I empathize with that viewpoint. When I first saw him owh those years ago, I thought his speech patterns seemed phony as well. But watching him pop up on TV for a decade seemed to demonstrate that he wasn't trying to imitate anything -- that's just how he talks (and preaches). Which given his background isn't surprising.

But in any event, my main objection was calling him "Father Vanilla Ice." That just seems awfully close to calling him a w***** (rhymes with "tigger") to me.

[Sir Charles]

Joe,

I hear what you're saying, but I think the difference between the two potential insults strikes me as substantial.

Perhaps I am finding his style so phony (and I was unfamiliar with him until today) because of my upbringing in the whitest, most old school Catholic Church you can imagine where Vatican II was ignored into the early 70s, a Latin mass was still offered and the priests were, if you can imagine -- Fathers Doyle, McGowan, Shields and Flynn. It was very diverse -- their people hailed from several different parts of Ireland.

Seriously, although I meant to be sarcastic, I did not mean to cause offense.

[MR Bill]

Oh, man. I finally got to look at several clips of Father Ice and, dang.
That's ugly, and weird.
Linguist's speak of "code switching" when one learns another dialect or accent other than the one you were raised with. I only sound like the hillbilly I am with a few drinks in me, after speech classes and multiple turns on The Stage. Father Pfleger is a rather extreme example. And his shtick in the bits I saw were just, well, unpleasant.
"I realized I was God when I noticed that when I prayed, I was talking to myself."-The Ruling Class

[Sir Charles]

Mr. Bill,

I loved "The Ruling Class" -- Peter O'Toole just killed me. Of course I was probably about 14 at the time, so I'm not sure it would be as funny to me now.

[Joe]

"Seriously, although I meant to be sarcastic, I did not mean to cause offense."

None taken. I was more trying to explain a vague sense of discomfort than anything. When a white person is criticized for "acting black," it's not hard to feel like the emphasis is sometimes on "acting black" and not "a white person" -- which is problematic for the obvious reasons.

But I feel odd defending the father. My better-looking and smarter half and I were talking about it yesterday evening after seeing the clips (we moved from Chicago a year or so ago, and had forgotten about the guy). She is not a big fan. He's certainly got a few marbles loose, and he can be a pretty extreme race-baiter at times. On the other hand, it's clear (to me) that he loves his parish and his parishoners, and he has done a lot for them. While I find him odd and distasteful, it's hard for me to be super critical in light of that.