I’m a little disappointed in Public Catholic readers.
I posted a video yesterday of First Lady Michelle Obama talking about the girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram. The first lady also discussed the attacks on girls in a more general fashion.
A number of Public Catholic readers responded with knee-jerk denunciations of the first lady that sounded very much like anything-she’s-against-I’m-for. The really ugly — and flat-out shameful — comments are now sleeping in the delete file.
If Michelle Obama finds a cure for cancer, are Public Catholic readers going to come out in favor of cancer?
It appears that if she speaks in support of hundreds of school girls who have been kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam and are being sold as slaves, then at least some Public Catholic readers will evince difficulty in supporting the girls alongside her. They will instead launch into divisive and rather ugly attacks on her and by doing that, come out, at least obliquely, in support of violence and atrocities against women.
Is there violence against men and boys, as well? Yes. But to suddenly start proclaiming that women and girls are not treated as second class citizens all over the globe and that they are not subjected to horrific violence is not only ridiculous, it is disgusting.
I’m going to put a video from the Vatican below in support of the kidnapped girls. Boko Haram has released another of their charming videos. It appears that they are now demanding some sort of prisoner exchange for the girls they haven’t already sold.
Pope Francis has spoken in favor of these girls and against their kidnapping. I realize that by posting a video from the Vatican, I will now have to start deleting the comments from people who hate Pope Francis as well as those who hate Michelle Obama.
Because, you see, there are those — all of whom feel they are not only faithful Catholics, but more more faithful in their Catholicism than the pope himself — who, if Pope Francis discovered a cure for cancer, would come out in favor of cancer.
This kind of thinking is not thinking at all. If someone you don’t like says something that is true, then they said something that is true. When you attack the truth, or in this case, the plain facts and reality itself, in order to discredit them, you don’t discredit them. You discredit yourself.
Do not be driven by your hatreds people. In fact, take a look at yourself and stop hating others because you disagree with them. Don’t let your ideologies drive out your capacity for compassion, fair play and common sense.
I’m too busy this week and for the next couple of weeks to write as much as I normally do. And I’m going to be tired, grumpy, irascible and mistake-prone. If I’ve said this too harshly, please remember that I respect and like Public Catholic’s readers. But don’t come on here and speak out, even obliquely, in support of the atrocities committed against women and girls because someone you disagree with politically said that these atrocities are wrong.
Stop knee-jerking. And think.
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