Today’s Francis-Bashing Right Wing Noise Machine Panic

There goes that arch-heretic Francis, talking about responsible parenting with his rabbits comment. The Church has nev–

2368 A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:

When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts, criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart.

Yeah, but did he have to condemn large families and say that Catholics should not “breed like rabbits”?

He didn’t.

“In a world often marked by selfishness, a large family is a school of solidarity and sharing; and this attitude is to the benefit of society as a whole…. I always thank the Lord in seeing mothers and fathers of large families, together with their children, committed to the life of the Church and of society. ”
~Pope Francis, Public Enemy Number One for All Right Thinking, Ally-Bayonetting, Discernment-Free Conservative Catholics, from his address to large families on the Feast of the Holy Family, December 28, 2014. Cuz he totally hates large families.

What he said in the interview the other day, in easy to understand language, was not to *be* like rabbits.  “Breed” was a word supplied reflexively by the media and attributed to him.  What’s the diff?  The diff is that he implied nothing about family size but only about being responsible to have the size of family you can responsibly support.  Coming from (and speaking to) a culture of machismo in which sexual prowess equals “manhood without consequences” it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

How I long for the day when “faithful conservative Catholics” will attempt the feat of listening to the Holy Father and not simply believing whatever they are told to believe by the Right Wing Noise Machine that has him in the crosshairs.  It is beyond absurd that we now live in a time when that machine has climbed in bed with the NY Times and is skillfully telling the Faithful to believe without question lefty reportage on the pope since that helps to stampede them in hysterics away from the Shepherd and toward rebellion.  It’s but the latest in the death of a thousand cuts from the Right Wing Panic Machine.  Next week it will be something else to panic about.   I miss the days when faithful Catholics *corrected* false media reports instead of taking them as gospel, setting their hair on fire, and running in circles.

Clues for the clueless: the biggest friend and ally of the family–including the large family–on the entire world stage is the Holy Father.  How is it possible that Catholics can be such fools as to not see that?  You want to talk about “imprudence”, O Francis Basher?  Start there, with the log in your own eye.