Catholic and Enjoying It!
“Rev. Wallis told a story a couple years ago about the time he met, apparently Marxists – know this person, I’ve never heard of her – the Marxist Dorothy Day.” – Glenn Beck, Anointed Teacher for Millions of Catholics who Prefer to Get their Understanding of our Catholic Faith from Crazy Ex-Catholics
Here’s some creative editing (Beck is commenting on Jim Wallis’ anecdote about meeting Day):
WALLIS: My Dorothy Day story happened in Chicago. She was just leaving as we were coming on the scene. So we were living in Chicago.
BECK: Chicago –
WALLIS: So I ran 20 blocks. And in the parlor of the Catholic worker – and in walks the great lady. Dorothy wrote a book about her life called “Love is the Measure.” But she wasn’t ever soft. Very tough.
BECK: So was Stalin.
WALLIS: So you’re a radical student like me, right? You’re a Marxist like me, right? Yes.
So Day (about whom Beck just admits he knows nothing whatsoever) is likened to Stalin. But there’s more that Beck slices out. Wallis (who generally gives me a headache, but not as big a headache as Glenn Beck) explains:
But what really made me mad was when Glenn Beck called Dorothy Day a “Marxist” and went after us both with guilt by association. Guilty again. I couldn’t be more proud of that association. It was clear that Beck had never heard of her, so somebody really needs to tell him that Dorothy Day is regarded as a modern saint in the Catholic Church and is already in the process of canonization—before he puts her up on his blackboard. Beck recounted a conversation I had with Dorothy as a new young convert to Christianity. She was in her eighties and asked me if I had been a radical student in my early years as she had been. “Yeah,” Beck recorded me saying. And if I had been attracted to Marxism, as she had. “Yeah” I said again. Gotcha! Beck said. They’re both Marxists! What he left out was the next lines of our conversation that I still remember and, of course, were on the same tape he abruptly cut off. “And now, you’re a Catholic?” Dorothy Day asked me. “Well, now I’m a Christian,” I said. “You’re not a Catholic?” she chided. I lamely responded that “some of my best friends” were Catholic, and Dorothy smiled. We were sharing our conversion stories from secular radicalism and Marxism to Jesus Christ and his gospel of love and justice.
Once again, Beck’s McCarthyite eagerness to smear and his stunning ignorance of Catholic social teaching (not to mention Day’s story) results in a great many people becoming stupider than they were before they listened to his daily fearcast.
Dorothy Day = Stalin. But, of course, once again, lots of people will leap into my comboxes to explain why Beck has so many valuable things to say and why he needs yet another pass.
For those who actually believe in knowing something about somebody before comparing them to mass murderers on national television, here is “Marxist” Dorothy Day on Beck’s current apocalyptic obsession, health care:
We believe also that the government has no right to legislate as to who can or who are to perform the Works of Mercy. Only accredited agencies have the status of tax-exempt institutions. After their application has been filed, and after investigation and long delays, clarifications, intercession, and urgings by lawyers – often an expensive and long-drawn-out procedure – this tax-exempt status is granted.
As personalists, as an unincorporated group, we will not apply for this “privilege.” We have explained to our donors many times that they risk being taxed on the gifts they send us, and a few (I can only think of two right now) have turned away from us. God raises up for us many a Habakkuk to bring his pottage to us when we are in the lion’s den, or about to be, like Daniel of old.
Yeah. Sounds like a totalitarian to me.
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