Catholic and Enjoying It!
…and points out to Catholics with astoundingly bad judgment that the Presidency is not supposed to be a reward for penitence or a vehicle for a Generation Narcissus moral drama of personal redemption. It is supposed to be an office for stable and honest human beings to administer justice for the common good and not for those who enrich themselves and routinely lie.
For those who imagine that Christians owe Newt Gingrich a vote on pain of being declared “unforgiving”, Beckwith replies with eminent common sense:
It seems to me that a man whose sins arose as a consequence of the pursuit of political power and the unwise use of it after he became Speaker of the House should not be seeking the most powerful office in the world.
The logic of those who feel it is “unforgiving” to keep Gingrich away from what he himself has declared is a near occasion of sin is like the logic of those who think it “unforgiving” not to let a pedophile go back and work with children or an alcoholic resume his job at the tavern or a gambling addict go back to work at the casino. Gingrich should be nowhere near the White House. He should be nowhere near DC. Catholics who believe that reception into the Church is magic and not grace don’t really seem to have internalized the lessons of the Kennedys, Kerry, Pelosi, and Biden. Trusting any of these people, including Gingrich, is spectacular folly. Attacking as CINOs those who warn foolish Catholics about trusting Gingrich is, well, par for the course for the people who have made the same braindead mistake of anointing a Catholic folk hero and declaring him to be beyond question (see: Maciel, Euteneuer, Corapi). I can see somebody reluctantly holding their nose and voting for Gingrich. What I can’t fathom are those who declare that anybody who criticizes him is a bad Catholic and an enemy of Righteous. How blind can you be?
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In