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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