Not-At-All Crazy Revenge of the Francis Haters

Maureen Mullarkey, fresh from embarrassing the editorial staff of First Things with a ridiculous rant against Pope Francis now moves her cottage industry of spreading fear and loathing of the Holy Father to the much more promising pastures of The Federalist.  In her latest screed against the pope, she instructs us that “Francis is a Leftist and Must be Called Out“.  In her sober, balanced way, Mullarkey takes only two paragraphs before she compares Francis to a Nazi concentration camp guard and her very brave and balanced self to somebody with the guts to Speak Truth to Power.

And they say the Greatest Catholics of All Time lack a sense of perspective. After that, it’s “radical” and “demagogic” and “death walk” and dire warnings of “appeasement”. The charitable sobriety that characterized her previous foray into fear and loathing of a pope (and earned a rebuke from Rusty Reno and the horror of Robert George) returns with renewed vigor to feed the paranoia and malice of hysterical right wingers who see the Magisterium as inferior to themselves and who regard the Faith as something to accessorize their ideology.

Mullarkey is taking no chances.  Before the Pope has published a word of his upcoming document on the environment, she is heading him off at the pass to tell the Greatest Catholics of All Time that they must ignore and contradict whatever it is he might teach.  She doesn’t know what that is; she just knows it will be wrong.  And if you question that, you are just like a Jew walking docilely into an oven–cuz that’s not barking nuts or anything. in

Nor do her readers disappoint in bringing the crazy in response to this lunatic dog whistle of an article.  Here is just a small selection of the charitable sanity that is now the ambient background noise in so-called “faithful conservative” Catholic discourse in her comboxes:

• the little Argentinian Peronian Marxist on the Throne of Peter
• All he cares about is legalized class warfare launched by the State.
• He is a very poorly formed Catholic. His theology is sorely lacking. He doesn’t understand the papacy.
• autocrat
• socialist (which the Church condemns)
• modernist.
• He loves the humility pose but bloviates endlessly about topics he has no clue about as if he is an expert on everything.
• his papacy is endangering souls
• thoughtless frivolous
• bordering on buffoonery.
• wants to be liked by famous people
• We didn’t get to the point of the False Teacher Bergoglio overnight. We have been building up to this Heretic for the last 60-70 years at least.
• apostate on the Throne of Peter
• Pope Flatulence is “catholic” in the very same sense that Judas Iscariot was an “apostle”.
• Francis is a Catholic like Obama is an American. Oh yeah, sure, it’s true in both cases, but one can’t help wonder what good it does.
• High Priest of Histrionic Humility
• communism dressed up as Catholicism
• He was selected BECAUSE he is a leftist. The hollowing out and infiltration of the Church which has been taking place for several decades now has stepped up with this “pope”. Look up “School of Darkness” by Bella Dodd. The Catholic Church, anti communist, needed to be destroyed. You destroy it by remaking it in the image of its former enemy. The “pope” is a Marxist.

Congratulations, The Federalist!  You’ll be very happy with such a readership.  And with luck, you’ll keep them away from the rest of us.

PS, Francis haters.  Don’t try to snow me with “I’m just like St. Paul confronting Peter” or comparisons of yourself to St. Catherine of Siena.  The stuff up there is not charitable respect for the Holy Father.  It’s not even intelligent.  It is contempt and hatred and, in a number of cases, brainless heresy.  There’s a name for Catholics who call Peter “apostate”: Protestant.