Victory!

In the fight for a return to decent, sensible Catholic blogging.  So Mark Shea, who is quite the fan of Simcha Fisher, linked to a post of hers attacking – nay, assaulting – the website Pewsitters.  Now Pewsitters is obviously a very conservative Catholic site.  Perhaps traditionalists.  Maybe, as they say, Reactionary.  I don’t know.  Don’t visit it much myself.

Anyway, apparently Pewsitters posted a story about the young girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, in which they say they were raped.  Or admit.  Or confess.  Or whatever.  Pewsitter used the word ‘admitted’.  FWIW, I wouldn’t have thought twice of it.  They admitted.  They revealed what everyone feared.

Ms. Fisher went ballistic.  She unloaded with ‘both barrels.’  Go to hell Pewsitters!  We know your odious hearts!   Mark joined in, praising Simcha and casting venom and loathing as well, explaining that they were in the same camp as those barbaric third world types who still feel a woman raped deserves to be blamed for having sex, even when raped.

The problem?  (I was the first to comment)  Not being a linguist, it didn’t seem to me to follow there was only one way to interpret the word ‘admitted’, on which the entire broadside from Ms. Fisher and Mark relied.  And as such, I reminded everyone that the Catechism is pretty clear how we’re supposed to approach others when in comes to interpreting things they’ve said.

I was quickly answered and accused of hurting my own extensive criticisms of Mark’s posts and being some referee apparently.  But soon, a strange thing happened.  Even folks who don’t care for Pewsitters began to scratch their heads and say, “You know, the word “admitted” might mean many things, and it could easily mean something not at all bad in this context.”  A couple diehards, mostly progressive commenters on Mark’s site tried to stem the tide, accusing some of being Francis haters or trying to split hairs, but more and more those posting reactions were a bit disturbed by this.  For Mark and Simcha’s hatred was palpable.  Her contempt and loathing of those at the site was clear.  And yet, it was based upon something that, to be honest, I could have read twenty times and never, even with Pewsitter’s other posts I looked up, concluded they were suggesting these poor girls were guilty for being raped.

The good news?  Mark pulled the post.  There’s still hope.  I admit I’m not a fan of Ms. Fisher.  I’m sure she’s a fine person.  But as a blogger, she spends quite a bit of time lamenting the age old lament of those other believers.  And she has no problem casting the most vile verbal assaults and accusations and labels at those she disagrees with on such things as politics, women’s rights, fashion, art, you name it.  To be honest, it reminds me of caricatures of old time fundamentalists, albeit with a prolife feminist slant.  Since Mark first began praising her and her blog years ago, I’ve noticed a long change into what things are now.  Maybe he’s just easily influenced.  I noticed a change after he began reading Leah Libresco’s blog, and some others, too.  I don’t know.

But in any event, he did the right thing.  This was a flat out grievous accusation, a horrid – and unless it’s true, slanderous – attack on fellow believers.  Mark was right to remove his post.  I pray he does a better job avoiding such posts in the future.  Whether Ms. Fisher concedes the same and either removes the post or apologizes, we’ll have to see.  But for now, at least one right thing has been done.  Kudos to Mark.  May this be the beginning of better and more careful posting in the future.

UPDATE: Sigh.  Mark reposted this.  I had hoped it was removed.  But Mark reposted with what could only be seen as a very, very slight apology.  Essentially an apology that says ‘because some charitable readers insit I’ve judged falsely, I will officially apologize to those odious reprobates at Pewsitter.’  I did what I seldom do, and that’s tell Mark about what I think about his blog on the thread.  We’ll see.  Keep praying is my opinion.  Perhaps it’s Mark being on Patheos.  I don’t know.  I just know, as I said in my comment, that Mark’s blog has become everything he used to warn against.  And that’s never a good sign.

I’ve copied Ms. Fisher’s post in case she does remove it, simply as a point of reference: