Apologies, Disagreements, and a Prayer Request

I need to get going on the giant backlog of stuff to do. But before I do I wanted to write to apologize a) for my out of line comments about Sarah Palin last week, b) for my general crankiness of late, c) to request your prayers for something that I’m concerned about, and d) to express my concern about something else that I’ve been concerned about.

a) First things first, I think I crossed the line in speaking, not of Sarah Palin’s actions, but of her, as “empty and meaningless” in my recent post. I think her tour is pointless beyond an ongoing grab for publicity, but I don’t think she (or any human being) is “empty and meaningless” (indeed, it is blasphemous to say so), and I should not have said that.

b) This bleeds into my second concern, which is the growing sense of dismay I feel about our national politics and my growing cynicism (which was robust to start with) about it. My long and deep habit, when confronted with things that inspire sorrow, anger or hopelessness is to be flippant and I feel all three of these things about our political culture. The problem is that flippancy is, as Screwtape remarks, the “finest armor-plating” hell has devised against the approach of grace. I don’t want to be a person who hardens his heart with cynicism in a bid to protect myself from sorrow if it costs me heaven.

c) Which brings me to my request for your prayers that I not do that. Yes, I know. I’ve apologized for my flippant nastiness before. Not a few of my critics have basically concluded that I’m insincere. That’s understandable. However, I would ask them if they have no besetting sins and have never engaged in a long habit of sin that is hard to break. If not, then I would at least urge them to consider the possibility that there is a reason Jesus said to forgive seven times seventy times, since it appears that the norm for most human beings. Accordingly, I would request your prayers.

d) Finally, I want to try to express why I am concerned about things like the strange faith in Sarah Palin and, in particular, the reaction of some of my readers to my criticism of it.

As I hope I make clear above, I have no quarrel with those who found my remarks uncharitable. They were. Mea culpa.

However, a number of replies went further than concern about uncharity. For instance:

First this “Catholic” attacks Michael Voris and now Sarah Palin. Hey Mark, when are you going to have the courage to go after the bad guys. Just like the typical “progressive/liberal” you jump on the band wagon to attack anyone who truly adheres to their true faith and conviction. Coward! I wouldnt put it pass you to cower in the corner when things get really ugly.

What concerns me about this is the use of scare quotes around the word “Catholic”. It is a rather common phenomenon and it denotes something quite sinister: namely, the conflation a particular political and social subsect with the entirety of the Faith. Here’s the same idea expressed in somewhat more chemical purity from one of the people sent here by Pewsitter:

love it! the Pewsitter.com has listed Mark Shea as a humorist! Guess his identity as a faithful catholic apologist has finally been put to rest. Now if we can just keep him off the airways of EWTN!

Message: express doubts about Sarah Palin and you are not a faithful Catholic. Indeed, you must be silenced! A thirteenth article has been added to the Creed and those who do not profess it are heretics and fifth columnist enemies of Holy Church.

Here’s the deal: the Faith does not commit us to supporting Palin for President or signing off on Michael Voris’ opinions as the sine qua non of truly true Catholic faith. But increasingly, some Catholics are redefining the Faith according to just such sectarian opinions. The proof? The assumption that criticism of a publicity tour which appears to serve no other purpose than to draw attention to a woman who a) abandoned her oath of office; b) promptly set about making a fortune off her fame; and c) contributes almost nothing of substance to the national conversation is, ipso facto, to be a dissenter from Holy Church. Note, for instance, this leap of logic:

Ha! Shea, you’re such a lefty, how’s that hopey change workin’ out for you?

Pure tribalism. I criticized Palin. Therefore I must support Obama. And, of course, I must therefore support abortion:

Your title of “Catholic and enjoying it” is quite misplaced given your description of a beautiful mother and pro-life politician. You must totally destroy the pro-abortion politicians given your title of Catholic. All TRUE Catholics know you can’t be Catholic and pro-choice!

In fact, I do not support Obama, nor any other candidate who asks me to support grave intrinsic evil. As far as I can tell from Palin’s syntactic linguini, she does not ask me to support grave evil (though her public pronouncements are so frequently indecipherable that I could be wrong). “Not supporting grave evil” is itself a huge and commendable rarity in American public life and I applaud her for it (assuming I am right). But “not supporting grave evil”, while a bare minimum, is not all I’m looking for. Something approaching “qualification” also weighs in my thinking. And a politician who ditches her oath of office halfway through her first term in order to make a fortune off a badly ghost-written book, some silly reality TV, and ginormous speaker’s fees does not seem to me to be interested in much beyond how she can milk her fame and stay famous for being famous.

What lies behind most of the enthusiasm of her Catholic fans is, of course, her prolife credentials. I applaud her example in this. But the notion that *merely* being prolife is all that is necessary to be a competent politician is specious. I repeat. I vigorously applaud Palin’s embrace of life for her son. I find the Left’s hatred of her children (particularly of Trig) and their loathing of and obsession over her fertility to be one of the most repellent and pathological features of their opposition to her.

But that does not mean I therefore think her qualified to be President. Indeed (though it is hard to tell for sure) I don’t think even she considers herself qualified to be President (which is, I suspect, why she is being cagey as she wanders around on her pointless self-promotion tour, aimlessly drawing attention to herself and siphoning off attention from people like Ron Paul (as we saw below) and playing this weird game of C’mere/Go Away with the media).

So it is not “hatred” to say that I do not believe she is about much besides being famous, getting rich, lathering, rinsing, and repeating and that her fans who regard her as something more than a symbol of their prolife aspirations are going to be disappointed in the end if they seriously believe she will look beyond the cycle of fame and riches.

I don’t rule out a run for President, of course. People in her position can easily start to believe their hype. But she gives no indication of being willing to do the heavy lifting necessary to be qualified for the job. Given that we have already endured three years of a candidate who was buoyed up by massively inflated religious expectation founded on rather meager understanding of his office or much else, I think it would be a very bad idea for Catholics (who really ought to know better) to make exactly the same secular messianic blunder with Palin. And yet, as the combox comment above illustrate, that is exactly the blunder some are making. She’s just a celebrity pol, not the Hope of Glory for the Church in America.

Personally, I wish she would spend *more* time being a prolife voice, not less. As it is, I think her essential message tends to get diluted as she runs around grasping for the brass ring of money and fame. Or, at any rate, I’m skeptical that such a program, enacted by all American families, would be a prescription for a healthy prolife family. But that’s just me. Your mileage may vary. My main concern is with Catholics who are buying into the notion that failure to take a politician’s publicity tour seriously is a litmus test for orthodoxy as a Catholic. It’s just not, and the fact that I have to even point that out is one of the reasons I struggle with sorrow, anger and hopelessness about our current political climate. So your prayers would be appreciated.