{"id":91252,"date":"2015-01-28T10:08:04","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T17:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=91252"},"modified":"2015-01-28T10:09:54","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T17:09:54","slug":"not-at-all-crazy-revenge-of-the-francis-haters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2015\/01\/not-at-all-crazy-revenge-of-the-francis-haters.html","title":{"rendered":"Not-At-All Crazy Revenge of the Francis Haters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Maureen Mullarkey, fresh from embarrassing the editorial staff of First Things<\/em><\/a> with a ridiculous rant against Pope Francis<\/a>\u00a0now moves her cottage industry of spreading fear and loathing of the Holy Father to the much more promising pastures of\u00a0The Federalist<\/em>. \u00a0In her latest screed against\u00a0the pope, she instructs us that \u201cFrancis is a Leftist and Must be Called Out<\/a>\u201c. \u00a0In 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.<\/p>\n

And they say the Greatest Catholics of All Time lack a sense of perspective. After that, it\u2019s \u201cradical\u201d and \u201cdemagogic\u201d and \u201cdeath walk\u201d and dire warnings of \u201cappeasement\u201d. The\u00a0charitable\u00a0sobriety 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\u00a0right wingers who see the Magisterium as inferior to themselves and who regard the Faith as something to accessorize their ideology.<\/p>\n

Mullarkey is taking no chances. \u00a0Before 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. \u00a0She doesn\u2019t know what that is; she just knows it will be wrong. \u00a0And if you question that, you are just like a Jew walking docilely into an oven\u2013cuz that\u2019s not barking nuts or anything. in<\/p>\n

Nor do her readers disappoint in bringing the crazy in response\u00a0to this lunatic dog whistle of an article. \u00a0Here is just a small selection of the charitable sanity that is now the ambient background noise in so-called \u201cfaithful conservative\u201d Catholic discourse in her comboxes:<\/p>\n