We here at CMR have been the recipients of a number of inquiries as to why we have not yet commented on the PZ Myers controversy. I will tell you why in a moment.
As you know, last week we wrote about Webster Cook’s Eucharistic hostage crisis. In the combox on the post, a number of people got organized and motivated to contact the school to put pressure on the University to bring this situation to an end. As it happened, not long after the phone calls and emails began, the crisis was resolved and the Eucharist thankfully returned.
An unfortunate thing happened at that point. An associate professor at the University of Minnesota, PZ Myers, wrote a disgusting diatribe on a blog called Science Blogs which is ostensibly devoted to science but in reality it is just a meeting ground for foul mouthed and overweening atheists. In one of the early comments on that post, somebody linked to our story on the Cook kerfuffle. We were then inundated with commenters coming from Myers’ post. For several hours we were deleting rude, disrespectful, and abusive comments. We were eventually forced to shut off comments for that post. A first for us.
PZ Myers post, which we will not repeat here, was a disgusting and cowardly threat proffered for one reason only, publicity. Myers’ empty promise of intentional sacrilege — one which he would never tender toward some of the more unforgiving confessions for fear of rapid and radical recompense — was a stunt aimed entirely at self promotion. I suspect that he has been checking his blog statistics every twenty minutes all week with glee for his momentary deliverance from his well deserved obscurity.
PZ Myers presents himself an intellectual warrior in the cause of enlightened atheism. In reality, Myers is nothing more than a crude and craven attention seeking bigot. This is the reason we have not written about Myers before and likely not again. This is also why there are no links to the pusillanimous professor in this post. We do not desire to be complicit in giving Myers what he so desperately desires, attention. The sooner we let his nauseating notoriety come to an end, the better.
July 13, 2008 at 5:08 am
Amen. Amen.
Don’t away mad, just go away!
July 13, 2008 at 5:19 am
Well said, class always shows.
July 13, 2008 at 1:11 pm
You should at least publish the e-mail of the President of UMN so your readers can express their outrage at Myers comments.
Also, Myers gave an interview this weekend saying he already has someone who has secured a consecrated Host and is sending it to him, so it is not just a threat.
I agree Myers is an absolute attention seeker, but so is anyone who maligns our Faith on a national level. It should not stop us from defending our Faith. I am sure there were a few Roman officials who loved the attention as they crucified apostles. Should we not have spoken out against these officials not to shine publicity on them?
Finally, Leticia Vasquez and myself have been deleting posts all weekend, some of the most vile things you could ever read. Bill Donohue has been receiving hate mail from all over the world. There are RC priests in China suffering for their Faith in prisons for decades, we have it easy.
Absolutely love your blog, but respectfully disagree with you on this position.
July 13, 2008 at 2:42 pm
If the boy — one could hardly call him a man — wants to gain some real MySpace footage, he should misbehave at a mosque.
— Mack
July 13, 2008 at 4:17 pm
VITC,
I sympathize with your position, while continuing to hold my own. I hope you did not infer from my inclusion of an anecdote about nasty commenters that this is in any way causal factor in my choice not to cover this story. It isn’t.
Truth is, obnoxious atheists write thing like this and worse every day. This is only a “national” story because of the attention that we Catholic are paying to it. If we had ignored the ignoble Myers, he would likely have gone back to making fun of creationists.
Instead, by giving him the attention he so desperately desires, we are merely extending his reign of tedium and thus making it more likely that he would attempt to carry out his empty threat.
Like I said, I am sympathetic to your position and applaud you for taking the punches in a fight you care about. But I think that the worst thing you can do to a bully is laugh at them and ignore them.
I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree on this point.
July 13, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Fair enough, Patrick.
Some other concerns are the numbers games. This nut has thousands of people, mostly atheists, visiting his site. They will all be writing the Pres. of UMN in his defense. If the upset Catholics don’t get the word out, the perception of public opinion could be distorted.
Your blog attracts devout Catholics that could take a few minutes to write the UMN president and tell them that this is unacceptable to ensure our voice is heard.
Also, with the Catholic League press release being issued, I think the horse is out of the barn of this already in regard to publicity. My guess is that this will end up on Hannity and Colmes.
Finally, if you Google this professor’s name and the Catholic League, only 2 or so sites come up in the first 10 pages of Google stating the pro-Catholic case. I think we need to have our position out there, on blogs like this, for the masses who don’t have an opinion on this yet.
I have learned in my life there is not always one way to a desired end. We will agree to disagree.
Keep up the good work that you and your brother do!
July 13, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Better yet, send them to MY blog. I’ll have a nice big dose of whoop-@$$ waitin’ for ’em!
HOO-rah.
July 13, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Eucharist stolen from Cathedral in Corpus Cristi.
July 13, 2008 at 11:28 pm
David,
Provide a link to it and we might 😉
July 13, 2008 at 11:38 pm
lcb:
Click on my name. It’s in the profile.
July 14, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I posted about Myers last week, but my wee little blog hasn’t been inundated by any atheists yet. Heck, some days, it doesn’t get inundated by Catholics even! 🙂