Fr. Andrew Greeley long ago took up residence in looney-town. But in a new wrinkle, especially for a Catholic priest, he now believes he’s psychic. And he’s got an announcement: If you’re not voting for Obama you’re a racist. Shocking, I know.
One surprising thing is how these “radical thinkers,” are all so predictably boring. They think of themselves as singular minds speaking truth to power as they march in lockstep with the cultural elite. Instead of arguing, they mock. Rather than define terms they label their opponents. Here’s a snippet of Greeley’s latest column from the Chicago Sun Times:
‘South Pacific” is a morality play for our time. Sarah Palin is the Ensign Nellie Forbush — an All-American girl as racist, this time a racist with her eye on the White House. She can stir up crowds to shout “Kill him!” at the mention of the presidential candidate of the other party a couple of weeks before the national election.
In the restaurant, before I walked over to the theater, all the conversations were about the election — New Yorkers speak loudly in their noisy city for fear they will not be heard. The common opinion was that they didn’t know enough about Barack Obama to make a decision about him — as if there were not two books about his life. That plea implies that they don’t know enough about him to accept his strange name or his skin color. It is, of course, impossible that they could ever know enough. He isn’t one of us.
This kind of thing annoys me a little. A Catholic priest is calling Sarah Palin a racist without any evidence. Does that seem right to anyone? He overlooks Obama’s zealous advocacy of abortion and imagines racism in Sarah Palin. He’s quite simply a kook. And I don’t mind kooks. They’re out there. They do what kooks do. The problem is that this one wears a collar.
October 15, 2008 at 4:38 pm
I’ve been around long enough now to have watched Greeley’s slide from public reaction of “this is a priest writing this?” to purely nonsensical extremism. What a waste.
October 15, 2008 at 4:47 pm
He’s getting old. They’re all getting old. They did their best work thirty years ago, and they’re going at it for one more shot. This isn’t borne out of conviction, but of desperation. In ten years, most of them will be out of the picture. I just hope we can wait that long.
October 15, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I read the article in its entirety and it just got worse and worse. He definitely seems senile. Saying that McCain treats Obama as a “field n—” is just as embarassing knowing it comes from a priest as it is baseless. Greely is the one being a racist for thinking that if anyone disagrees with a black candidate, it must be because he is black.
I do not know, nor have I ever heard of this Greely before this campaign (nor Pfleger), and I hope to be lucky enough to never hear from or about them for the rest of my life.
October 15, 2008 at 5:28 pm
The bucks stops with His Eminence and his two predecessors who failed to put the old coot back in the pickle jar along with the other adored apostates, e.g., Fr. Pfleger. Yes, these guys will vanish into eventual obscurity and natural mortality…but in the meantime, they are at liberty to damage more minds and souls.
October 15, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Score one for New Yorkers. If a guy can spend his entire adult life seeking the public eye, write TWO books about himself by the age of 45, brag about being a blank canvas for other people’s perceptions and hopes… and STILL have people wondering who in blazes he actually is? Well, then.
October 15, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I’ve never meant more racist people than old white liberals. They can’t see any person as anything but a skin color. It’s as if they’re not capable of seeing the world in any other way.
October 15, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Well in his previous columns he has basically called anybody who won’t vote for him racist.
October 15, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Brian Walden said…
I’ve never meant more racist people than old white liberals.
Personally, I would’t say this because I have come across many racists in my life; pretty much from every ethnic group (including my own). But I would say that I have come across many “old white liberals” who are simply clueless or in denial of their racism. Many of them have devoted their entire lives to fighting everyone else’s racism except their own.
I will say this (at the entire risk of my post being deleted) that the most racist people I have personally come across in life are in no particular order a) Jews b) Muslim Arabs c) black Muslims d) white Mormons.
October 15, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Yes, they are predictable. I had my share of (surprising) discussing with liberals on my blog recently, and it is always the same story: they know better, and when you prove them they’re wrong, they call you names and say you offended them. One such guy called my anti-Christian when pointed out Church’s position on homosexuality is clear so he could either stop calling himself Catholic or get to at least know what his Church teaches. Same goes with other things – no reason(ing), just emotions, emotional responses and screaming as argument. The worst part: it mostly works.
October 15, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Andy said… The worst part: it mostly works.
…with people who have already made up their minds anyway. But to be fair, the likes of the obesely belligerent druggie Rush Limbaugh are just as bad. No substance, just pure emotion (i.e. hate).
If McCain looses this election, we will have the fat man to thank in small part, since he has urged many of his followers to vote for Obama just to get a “real” conservative in the White house in another 4 years. If that isn’t the highest classification of a traitor, I don’t know what is.
October 15, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I was surprised to see that he actually does wear a collar, at least in the photos on his website.
October 16, 2008 at 4:27 am
Be nice to Fr Andy. In 1979 the Conclave had two opportunities to give him a job equal to his self-estimation, never been the same since. :- )
I’m from the Chicago Archdiocese he is not going senile he has been putting that stuff out years. But he has been more circumspect with the new Cardinal. It seems that prior to that he wrote and article in which he called the Cardianl a fool or some such.
October 17, 2008 at 1:44 pm
This is what the Church requires of a priest in Canon Law.
Can. 278 §1. Secular clerics have the right to associate with others to pursue purposes in keeping with the clerical state.
Can. 285 §1. Clerics are to refrain completely from all those things which are unbecoming to their state, according to the prescripts of particular law.
§2. Clerics are to avoid those things which, although not unbecoming, are nevertheless foreign to the clerical state.
Can. 287 §1. Most especially, clerics are always to foster the
peace and harmony based on justice which are to be observed among people.
§2. They are not to have an active part in political parties and in governing labor unions unless, in the judgment of competent ecclesiastical authority, the protection of the rights of the Church or the promotion of the common good requires it.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__PY.HTM