The Deacon's Bench
Of all the ink that has been spilled over the appalling anti-Catholic screed by Jamie Stiehm, the most powerful and, to my mind, inspiring response has come from our own Elizabeth Scalia. Late today, she offered this assessment:
It ought not be dismissed, though, not when U.S. News — which has always been a more-than-respectable news outlet — has gone noticably silent on Stiehm’s piece.
Silence usually implies consent, so perhaps we may understand their editorial board as being in agreement with her. Even as they host a “Debate Club” on whether or not the Little Sisters of the Poor have a case against the HHS Mandate and run a couple of indignant letters to the editor, the editors themselves have nothing to say about Stiehm’s ideas.
Until they say something muscular about unacceptable bigotry and address the suggestion that Catholics vacate the public square, no, this ought not be dismissed.
Stiehm should not be silenced, though; she should certainly not lose employment opportunities, but perhaps U.S. News might ask her to acknowledge where she got it wrong on Thomas Jefferson, and that it was the Catholic Chief Justice, John Roberts, who saved the dubious Individual Mandate when it seemed poised to get the boot, even though he’s not “one of the good ones.”
And then perhaps they might help Ms. Stiehm to get to know some Little Sisters of the Poor, and spend some time watching them work; they could commission a feature article from Stiehm on what she saw and what she thought, after going out begging with the sisters, or watching them tend — with great love, — to human beings our society would just as soon forget, because Catholics do not throw people away.
There is enough theology, catechism, righteous indignation, compassion and common sense there to take your breath away.
What Elizabeth Scalia has done here is offer Stiehm—and anyone who cares to pay attention—a searing and urgent lesson in Catholicity: “Catholics do not throw people away.” Let that sink in. At a time when far too much of the Catholic blogosphere seems content to argue exactly for that—when brimstone and damnation are the rhetorical weapons of choice—and when the Catholic League’s professional hell-raiser Bill Donohue is demanding Stiehm’s head on a stick, Elizabeth shows us all another way. A better way. A constructive way. A Catholic way.
“Catholics do not throw people away.”
We are better than what so many people think of us—and better, even, than the fist-shaking cranks of the Catholic Internet present us to be. We are Catholics. We are the Little Sisters of the Poor tending the sick, the Jesuits teaching the impoverished, the stalwart volunteers of the Catholic Worker manning soup kitchens and handing out bread. We believe in Resurrection. We preach Redemption. We don’t throw people away. We know hope.
Read all of Elizabeth’s post. Read it carefully.
Because this has been written with something more than rage. I dare say: it’s been composed with something approaching love.
This is what the New Evangelization should be.
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