Saturday, February 18, 2012

What's this about?


          People have different reactions to the school closing campaign of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, but I'm interested here in talking to people with two specific reactions: the people who think that it's not a good thing, but also think it wouldn't be done if it wasn't necessary, and the people who have enough information to know that it isn't necessary, but don't know why it's being done. 

          The best argument the school-closers have is that no group of Catholics would ever start a mass school destroying campaign if it wasn't absolutely necessary, so it must be necessary. 

          I want to explain why the people behind the school closing campaign are doing what they're  doing, even though it's not necessary, and even though it is of no benefit to the Catholic faith.

          Here's what's hard about doing this:

          ·  It’s complicated.

          ·  Nobody should take my word for it. I should have to prove it. I can’t just say it and expect people to believe me.

          ·  I’m not a good enough writer to prove it quickly.  I am going to have to write a lot to have a chance to get my point across. Whether you read it or not is up to you.

         I have no inside information. I don’t know these people. I only read what they write. The only sources of information I have are available to anyone.  Here are their motives.

          1.  People want to be big shots. This program made the nameless people behind this plan big shots in their world. Anybody who caused so much unhappiness and disruption to so many people must be important.

          2.  They’re embarrassed by Catholicism. By Catholicism I mean the religion that the Pope teaches. The old school Cardinal Krol/Baltimore Catechism/Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament religion.  They’ve got a different, more talky, much more vague religion.  James Hitchcock wrote a book about their religion called “The Decline and Fall of Radical Catholicism.”

          3.  There’s a class war aspect to this, too. They don’t like it that people who live in places they’d never live, or think about living, still have schools that they love.  

         So that’s what I’m going to try to show. The first post is going to be long.

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