Your PBS Tax Dollars Hard at Work – Promoting Anti-Catholic Bigotry In Boston

Phil Saviano : Margery Eagan : Mitchell Garabedian : Michael Rezendes : Martha Coakley

Publicly funded haters (l to r): BishopAccountability's Phil Saviano, dissident Margery Eagan,
contingency lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston Globe's egomaniac Michael Rezendes,
and former Mass. AG Martha Coakley

It was 65 years ago when political thinker Peter Viereck first wrote, "Catholic-baiting is the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals."

That aphorism was fully ablaze the other night when the left-wing talk show Greater Boston, airing on Boston PBS television station WGBH, devoted a half hour under the pretense of discussing the death of Cardinal Bernard Law to brutally attacking the Catholic Church with ugly falsehoods and outright bigotry.

Greater Boston is hosted by Jim Braude, a veteran broadcaster whose thirst to attack the Catholic Church is only outweighed by his own sense of self-importance. And Braude made sure to round up a reliable stable of like-minded Church-bashers who would be sure to hammer the Church over decades-old sex abuse cases. Braude's panelists included:

Jim Braude : WGBH

Carnival barker/host Jim Braude
directs a bigoted assault

And Braude's guests surely kept the hate flowing, with panelists taking turns predictably blaming the abuse scandals on the "all-male priesthood" and the "power structure" of the Church. Saviano chirped that "if there had been a few women in those rectories, there wouldn't have been half the problems we ended up with." (Note to Saviano: Women have been running parish rectories for at least the past 50 years.)

Yet the worst may have come from Garabedian, who, in addressing abuse in the Catholic Church decades ago, raged, "The Church has been doing this for centuries; they've been raping kids at a wholesale pace for centuries; it's a trillion dollar business."

After nearly 25 minutes more of this echo chamber of hate, Coakley unleashed a line which one could only imagine she had been waiting the entire episode to deliver: "This is an institution where they still dress as they did in the 15th century. So what do you expect?" Classy, eh? And this is from a former Attorney General, who is supposed to be fair and impartial.

Double … standard

Step back for a moment. Imagine if a guest on a television program had said that Muslims, Buddhists, or Jews had been "raping kids at a wholesale pace for centuries." Think about it. The rebuke would be rightfully fast and furious. The person who would utter such calumny would likely be fired and banished from mainstream media forever. The same applies for someone who would attack a religion because they "still dress as they did in the 15th century."

This is called "bigotry." But if the topic is the Catholic Church, it is only business as usual.

And the tragic irony here: You are forced to pay for all this through your tax dollars.

Comments

  1. lajmh says:

    So, if there "were" females in the rectories (i.e. becoming "priests"), who's to say there wouldn't be some sex between them?

  2. Jim Robertson says:

     P. You manufacture that I might believe in a God because I hope you are called to task for your lies here. I was hoping for your exposure publicly as the fraud you are.You project your magic beliefs onto everything and then pretend it "might" be me doing it.

    Then we come to the real you with the words "persnickety" and the correction of "'whom' rather than 'who'". What a nebbish! Do you think that the under-educated here, who read your crap will be impressed by your use of the word "whom"?  What a fool! They'll only see you for the pompous poseur that you are.

  3. Publion says:

    On then to JR’s of the 23rd at 925AM:

    The value of JR’s comments – as I have said before – is that it gives us an insight into a mentality that found fertile ground in the Stampede though most of the media downplayed it in order to push their Pure Innocence vs. Pure Evil narrative.

    Thus we proceed to observe how much more of that mentality and its gambits JR demonstrates here.

    First, taking my imagery literally he quickly tries to score himself a point by claiming that I prove that I just put forth “lies” because he is not actually “a sheep who bleats and honks” nor is he anyone who actually “dons wigs”. Thus – he would like readers to think – he hath now demonstrated “one set of [my] lies”.

    Thus fortified, he then presses on to try to establish “another of [my] lies”, i.e. that actually it was his hand that was forced down the (alleged) perp’s pants and not vice versa. In the context of the discussion here, this is a tomayto-tomahto distinction. I stand by the point I made in regard to the incident(s).

  4. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on JR”s of the 23rd at 925AM:

    But wait. There’s more.

    On the basis of that bit, JR will then riff on further, to surmise that I must be making this mistake purposely which proves that I “always lie”. Nope, it’s just that JR’s story bends and twists so frequently – as the record on this site shows  – that it’s hard to keep everything straight. And as I have said, it’s only a tomayto-tomahto type of point that JR is trying to go for here anyway.

    And that second paragraph proceeds along with further riffing that need not detain a rational mind.

    Thus to the third paragraph where JR – donning the pose and Wig of Frustrated Honesty and Integrity – now honks that he hath “asked” me and “told” me … to “shut up”.

    But wait. There’s more.

    He hath done so not because I am “accurate” but rather – but of course – because the poor thing simply “cannot bear” that “everything I say about him is a lie” (recalling his podmate ‘Dan’s signature histrionic wail of “lies, lies, lies”).

  5. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on JR”s of the 23rd at 925AM:

    Pressing on with his agenda – i.e. that I am a “liar” – JR then tries to go for the idea that since there are now “2 people from very different belief systems” (which is characterizing the both of them far far too generously, I would say) who “call [me] a liar again and again”. So therefore … what?

    If two people such as JR and ‘Dan’ call me a “liar” then … what?

    JR continues weaving his skein here: since two people who “aren’t connected in any of our viewpoints” (except their “outrage” against child-molestors” and so on) say I am a “liar” then … what?

    As I have said several times before, JR and ‘Dan’ are two peas in a pod, united (or “connected”, if you wish) in their tendency to blame anyone or anything except themselves for their present condition. Next to that profound similarity, the fact that ‘Dan’ poses as the Mind and Mouth of God and JR poses himself as the heroic, innocent and utterly truthy ‘victim’ fades into functional insignificance.

    And the Stampede provided fertile ground for their efforts and willing audiences for their performances and poses.

  6. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on JR”s of the 23rd at 925AM:

    As to what JR then claims that he and ‘Dan’ “both know” … readers may consider as they will.

    And he tries to bring it all home with a further baseless assertion (i.e. that I too know that I am “a liar”) merely in order to finish it up with the “trifecta” bit.

    But wait. There’s more.

    JR then demonstrates his strategy and his proclivities: I don’t have a “fan club”, doncha see? Because for JR – and the Stampede – it was all really just a matter of surfing  (aided by a media largely slurping up the ‘stories’ provided by the torties and SNAP) the gullibility of people, who – apparently to JR’s satisfaction – allow themselves to become a “fan club” for the Stampede.

    As if such a “fan club” were a reliable indicator of veracity.

  7. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on JR”s of the 23rd at 925AM:

    But wait. There’s more.

    Like an industrious bird weaving whatever it can find to build its nest, JR then asserts that I am “a liar as judged and known by the majority of posters on this site” (including – marvelously – me).  JR proffers nothing in the line of what should be easily ascertainable evidence to support his claim here. But ‘evidence’ isn’t his thing; nor was it a thing for the Stampede and the tortie stratagem that underlay the Stampede.

    And he brings that bit to its rollicking conclusion by asserting that “democratically” I “lose”. As if it were a game or a popularity contest (which is how torties view their cases when they figure how best to get cash for their clients).

    And thus, finally, building (to his own satisfaction, at least) upon the ‘logic’ of my being a “liar”, JR tries the old I’m Not/You Are bit in regard to sociopathy. We can be assured of the accuracy of his bit here because – had you been waitttinggggggggg forrrrrrrrrr ittttttttttttttt? – JR “has never lied about this subject” and he’s not a liar.

    He’s just JR. Whatever could be problematic about that?

  8. Publion says:

    On then to JR’s of the 23rd at 843AM (which appears on the site list after his 0925AM comment):

    Here, he has to create something I didn’t say in order to have something to toss plop at. I pointed out (in my comment of the 22nd at 315PM) that he had first made a statement that might indicate he believed in God, but from which possibility he then immediately backtracked away by appending a “Maybe”, so as – however ineffectually – to prevent that “Maybe” from making him appear to acknowledge the existence of God.

    My “exposure publicly” … ? If my ideas are weak or unsupported or my conclusions and assessments are faulty, then would that not constitute the necessary exposure?

    Not for JR, because for him it all really is just a popularity contest (sort of like the old Queen for a Day’ TV show), which is actually just a nice term for the Stampede/JR gambit of hoodwinking enough folks so as to make it appear – by some sort of (undemonstrated) ‘counting’ – that if so many folks went along with it then it must be true.

    There is sociopathy built into that plan from the get-go.

  9. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 23rd at 843AM:

    As to what “magic beliefs” I do “project” … JR provides no example and that’s no surprise at all.

    And – looking to see what other scraps might serve his purposes – he goes on about “persnickety” and the grammatical correction of “who” to ‘whom’. And he riffs on, working himself up to the huffy conclusion that readers here will not be impressed by my correcting his grammar.

    As if all I proffered here was the occasional grammatical correction.

    As to who here might qualify as a “pompous poseur”, I am, as always, quite content to let readers judge for themselves.

    • Jim Robertson says:

       Believing in a  Redeemer God is a magic belief.

      Believing in a blood sacrifice of that God to that God is a magic belief.

      Believing in a life after death is a magic belief.

      Believing n a hell is a magic belief.

      And believing that no one notices you're lying all the time is your biggest magic belief of all.

  10. Publion says:

    On then to ‘Dan’s most recent crop, trying to come up with a comeback and winding up merely demonstrating again his scam.

    On the 23rd at 223PM he simply tries to pretend that my “pristine and unsullied” characterization was not satirical but rather factual, thus opening his path to honking on yet again about the Church (or, rather, as ‘Dan’ would have us see the Church if we care to share his self-serving fever-visions).

    I would agree, however, that whether anyone – myself included – goes along with his stuff “is not really [his] problem”. Surely, he has far more problems about which he should be concerned.

    Nor is it at all accurate for him to claim that his “truth” “comes from the Lord’s Word”. As we have so very often seen, ‘Dan’s stuff comes from his own whackery and his ongoing self-serving effort to pass that whackery off as “the Lord’s Word”.

  11. Publion says:

    On then to ‘Dan’s of the 23rd at 247PM:

    Trying to evade my characterization of his material (as a “lusty deployment of God’ll-getcha bits” and so on), ‘Dan’ can merely toss up epitheticals of the myah-myah variety to the effect that he’s got the inside Divine take on it all.

    Thus readers may consider who is a “deceiving and disingenuous creep”, as they may also consider the actual provenance of his God’ll-getcha epithetical.

    Then – slyly and deceptively – he tries to skate by the fact that his demonstrably false assertion about scream-caps in a pericope … ain’t but a thang and nothing-to-see-here-folks.

    As to “the meaning of the verse”, I have already explicated what would be the best Scriptural take on it. ‘Dan’ prefers his own self-serving whackery in regard to the pericope and no surprises there.

    Perhaps one might say that ‘Dan’ will try anything to shoehorn God’s Word into his own whacko and self-serving agenda.

  12. Publion says:

    On then to ‘Dan’s of the 23rd at 323PM:

    Here ‘Dan’ will try to salvage something for his ‘theology’ in regard to “Vengeance and God’s wrath”.

    But it fails for this reason (to repeat my original point in this regard): Paul is saying that the whole matter of vengeance is God’s concern and not humans’, even Christians’. Rather, Christians should leave the whole “vengeance and wrath” thing up to God and simply focus themselves on doing good rather than abandoning themselves to trying to speak-for-God (or, more specifically, to speak-as-God), which Paul sees as a species of “evil” in itself.

    Indeed, if one were to apply the ‘Dan’-verse ‘theology of prophecy’ here, one might claim that Paul here is ‘prophesying’ ‘Dan’ and all his pomps and all his whacky works. I wouldn’t say that; Paul is simply pointing out with great insight a predictable – because general – human “evil” and trying to pre-empt it. In ‘Dan’s case, clearly, Paul’s efforts have not at all borne fruit.

    • Dan says:

      Porky would like everyone to grab an extra handful of his artificially buttered popcorn for this one, the comedy show's about to begin. He somehow is under the impression that he has now become the Christian who is going to explain to us how "Christians should leave the whole 'vengeance and wrath' thing up to God and simply focus on doing good." Aside from the fact that he's under the impression that his lies here "focus on doing good", or maybe he's just suggesting this is how Christians should act, not himself, realizing he's a catholic non-Christian. Those who are traveling down a crooked path, need to know about the wrath of God, in hopes that they could come to their senses and change their life. As humans we sometimes find it very hard to turn from the sins we enjoy. God wanted us to know His vengeance and wrath as an extra incentive for us to change, that there is a price to pay for refusing the free gift of His Son. Otherwise, He would have never mentioned Hell as much as He did through His prophets. The Word gives you it all, the good, the bad and the ugly. Read it often and learn His Truth, it will never disappoint. Only the unrepentant wicked have to worry about hearing the Lord's Truth, in fact they'd rather close their ears to listening to it.

  13. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 23rd at 323PM:

    ‘Dan’ then gives it away when he huffs about “from what [he’s] seen” … well, given ‘Dan’s rather whacky eyeglasses, what ‘Dan’ hath “seen” simply is what it is.

    And he brings the performance home with his bray assuring us that he “will continue”. Of course he will. He has no other choice, unless he wants to face up to himself … and that is precisely not his game plan.

    • Jim Robertson says:

      Your contempt for truth. Your willingness to lie. Your disrespect. Your own words condemn you. If you don't know you are lying you are an idiot but you do know you are lying (and you are still an idiot).

      Well fellow readers are you as bored and disgusted with he'eth who dareth not speakth his own name as ameth I?

        Forsooth yonder lies the palace of the King, P's Goddy Father. In such a palace P will live forever in bliss while I and Dan and everyone who is not P will dwell in lesser marbled halls than he. Why some of us will even burn for eternity, according to your silly fancies, while this fraudulent baboon will have a seat near the sacred throne for doing what? Smearing shit on innocent people?. Is shit smearing what all religion boils down to?

      Do you really think your imaginary diety supports behavior like P's?  And if you do, could you give one example where either of your Gods (per or fil) G the Dad or G the son ever supported any behavior comparable to P's behavior here?

  14. malcolm harris says:

    On the 23rd somebody called 'Lajmh' made a comment about "females in  the rectories". And then suggested that there might be sex, even between female priests?. Hmmm….I guess some of us have  one-track minds?   Well…… many have never heard of a French phrase that roughly translates to "divine castration".  It means that the usual urge for sexual gratification is suppressed, or diminished, by holy orders. But the godless cannot comprehend this, as it relates to the divine, which the godless says does not exist. Instead they rely upon projection to decide what to think. Because celibacy is beyond their own capacity, they assume it is beyond all of us. They bolster this with the usual fever vision of deviant priests molesting small boys. Something that this former altar boy never saw or even heard of.

  15. Jim Robertson says:
  16. malcolm harris says:

    JR's comment on the 25th, at 10.34 am, spoke of "magic beliefs". Yeah, clever words… but reality always  bites. Have read that in World War I, they had a  saying …"there are no atheists  in the trenches". Also recall a quote from an experienced blue water sailor…"there are no atheists, in a small boat during an Atlantic storm". More recently have been told that in a general hospital,  the chaplain is as busy as anybody. Meaning that when people fear for their lives… they turn to God. Makes me wonder whether JR will be so sarcastic about "magic beliefs"….. should he himself comes face to face with the grim reaper?

  17. Publion says:

    I’ll proceed not chronologically but in the order the comments appear on the site.

    Thus to JR’s of the 25th at 1034AM:

    In a nice demonstration of what passes for analysis with him, JR merely takes some major points of religious belief and declares each of them to be “a magic belief”. No demonstration or explication; you can just take his word for it.

    This may seem a rather thin and even deficient manner of establishing a claim or assertion, but it worked for him nicely enough in his own Stampede case so perhaps he thinks it will work again.

  18. Publion says:

    On then to ‘Dan’s of the 25th at 1008PM:

    Readers may review my comment of the 24th at 323PM, wherein I work with Paul’s text (the pericope chosen by ‘Dan’).

    What will ‘Dan’ do?

    After strewing some snark around, he completely ignores what Paul clearly said (and I quoted); ‘Dan’ does so – of course – because the pericope he himself selected clearly doesn’t suit his agenda (although how he hadn’t realized that to begin-with is anybody’s guess).

    Instead, ‘Dan’ will try to make it seem as if it is only my own thought – and not what Paul has written – that contradicts the preferred ‘Dan’-verse agenda.

    And from that parlous presumption he then riffs on, larding in assorted bits, including the humdinger that I am “a catholic non-Christian” (thus declareth ‘Dan’, the Mouth and Mind of his bathroom mirror).

  19. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 25th at 1008PM:

    Paul’s entire point – to repeat – is that it is not up to Christians to take upon themselves an obsessive concern with  God’s vengeance and wrath – God, as Paul has said, will manage His own vengeance and wrath as He sees fit.

    Does ‘Dan’ find that point of Paul’s uncongenial to ‘Dan’s preferred modus operandi? Let him take it up with Paul.

    Indeed, ‘Dan’ gives his own scam away when he says that “God wanted us to know His vengeance and wrath”. But God will demonstrate His vengeance and wrath as He sees fit and He doesn’t require ‘Dan’ or anyone else to be doing that job for Him.

    But ‘Dan’ had rather fancied himself to be speshully-deputized to sorta do that bit for God. And – really – it’s just so much fun to be able to hurl thunderbolts and claim that in doing so you are merely doing the Lord’s work.

    Paul sagely saw into human nature, and saw just how tempting such a pastime could be. And he sought to nip it in the bud.

  20. Publion says:

    Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 25th at 1008PM:

    ‘Dan’ then tries to fortify his preferred position by noting that “the prophets” mentioned Hell rather often.

    This bit, of course, requires that a) ‘Dan’ be considered to be one of “the prophets” and that b) one politely ignores Paul’s primary concern, i.e. that Christians should be concerned first for the integrity and nurturance of Christian “good” in their own lives, rather than distract themselves by arrogating to themselves the far-too-seductive role of official thunderbolt-hurlers.

    “Let he who is without sin …”, as Jesus superbly stymied those who were quite happy throwing rocks, ostensibly in God’s name. Although perhaps this saying of Jesus doesn’t register with ‘Dan’ since ‘Dan’ considers himself to be (aside from the “occasional mistakes”) rather beyond sin himself.

  21. Publion says:

    On then to JR”s of the 25th at 1028AM:

    Here, JR demonstrates his game rather nicely: he ticks off several charges, but proffers no demonstrations or evidence. Then, having tossed out the undemonstrated charges, JR quickly moves on to one of his favorite pastimes, i.e. huffily declaiming (“your own words condemn you”) and larding the declamation with epitheticals.

    Taking another tack, JR then addresses “fellow readers” with honeyed words, inquiring if they are as “bored” and “disgusted” as JR is.

    And then in the third paragraph … well, readers can consider the paragraph and judge as they will.

    Might as well toss the fourth paragraph into that consideration too.

    Although the third paragraph does reveal the basic method in the madness here: did you see how JR manages to slyly insert that commercial for himself as “innocent” … ?