Waiting for Godot to Leave

There is awash in the world today a kind of idealism that’s loosed from its moorings. I suspect this is because the cynicism against which the idealism reacts is so strong and entrenched that it’s provoking reactions that are unrealistic. A case in point is James O’Keefe, a young man who spoke at this year’s American Chesterton Society Conference. O’Keefe is best known as the video journalist who brought down ACORN and who exposed the racism inherent in Planned Parenthood’s abortion agenda by means of undercover videos in which he posed as a pimp or a racist, and elicited responses that were shocking enough to cause a few tremors. He struck us at the Conference as a quixotic idealist carrying on against the windmills of corruption while under assault from the mainstream media, lawyers and other nasty bugbears. However, it was a bit disturbing when, in the Q & A session following his speech, O’Keefe was asked, “How do you justify your technique? You lie to people in your undercover ...

Yesterday I posted what ended up being my most controversial post in two years on Facebook. It was simply a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “A good intention (for example, that of helping one’s neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny [slander], good or just. The end does not justify the means” (CCC 1753). In less than 24 hours, this post has generated 138 comments. Some of them from conservative Catholics who are angry at what the Church teaches. Now, seeing that, and knowing what a firestorm we're in on the internet over this issue, I would like to summarize a few things and then make a new point. The issue has arisen over the undercover video sting techniques of James O'Keefe and Lila Rose, aimed at exposing Planned Parenthood. This is a highly charged issue, as it appears to many people that Lila and James are being attacked or judged; it appears as if the voices of caution are standing in the way of ...

MRS. WASHINGTON: George, did you chop down that cherry tree? GEORGE: I can not tell a lie. Then again, maybe I can. How authoritative are the teachings in the Catechism? Aren't there conflicting traditions on this? Doesn't Scriptue itself encourage lying? Isn't the whole issue just too much for a common man to grasp? Let me get back to you on that, Mom.

OK, here we go. Sean Dailey has made this case in the Gilbert Editorial despite my telling him he was going to far, but he was right and I was wrong. Here's Sean's latest comment at the ACS website: *** Finally, the worst part of Live Action’s lies is that those lies had the effect of leading the Planned Parenthood workers deeper into sin, of undermining their-God given free will to choose good, if given the opportunity. CCC 2489 speaks of “charity and respect for the truth.” Yes, now we know that Planned Parenthood aids and abets teen prostitution and teen abortion and contraception. Is it really any surprise? In other news, water found to be wet. But if the Live Action actors had entered the PP facilities with “charity and respect for the truth” in their hearts, rather than intending to commit evil so good may come from it, how much more might they have accomplished? Could they maybe have converted a soul or two? As I wrote in my editorial, we are called to be salt and light...

A scene from the Riot in the Cathedral, where protesters attempted to stop the appointment of Juan Barros as bishop of Osorno. Conservatives are rightly angry at liberal bias in the media.  There's a lot of it. But the game works both ways.  There's a huge conservative bias as well, and it follows a pattern. The pattern is typically this.  Someone in the Church does something horrifically awful and outrageously embarrassing, something that can't possibly be defending or excused.  For several days the truth is out there and none of my DC (Defensive Catholic) friends comment on it either here or on Facebook or elsewhere.  An awkward silence falls and the truth is simply ignored. Then (typically) the Catholic Defense League or an organization like Catholic News Agency pipes up with a defense of the situation that is a real stretch of the imagination, but that provides a handy template for the reactionaries to use, and suddenly comboxes are filled ev...

If atheists are right, and there is no God, then let's burn down all the churches, for they're all monuments to lies.  If Catholics are right, and there is a God and He is who He says He is, then when He says, "Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" ( John 8:32 ) we'd better realize He means it.  That much, at least, Catholics should have in common with atheists: a devotion to the Truth. But if we are too scared to be loyal to what is True, then we will also fail in being faithful to what is Beautiful and what is Good.  The prince of Lies and the God of Truth don't really mix that well. I write a lot about Unreality on this blog, by which I mean a religious attitude that is divorced from the reality of life.  Unreality is a form of idolatry, of using the things of God for your own small-minded purposes, of leaning on the Church to support your tottering house of cards, of being contrived and artificial, of adopting airs and affectations, o...

Deacon Jim Russell is trolling the internet claiming that G. K. Chesterton supported lying for a good cause. He bases this on a Chesterton quotation taken entirely out of context which I addressed three years ago, and the points I made then Deacon Russell continues to ignore now. In brief ... The entire point of Chesterton’s quote and of the English tradition since the execution of the Jesuit martyrs is that equivocation is wrong because it is lying about lying; it is a double lie. Equivocation is not wrong because lying is right; equivocation is wrong because lying is wrong, and to play games with words is to lie twice. Read what Chesterton actually said about lying here. And please pray for people who get sucked in to the irrationality that rules most of the internet. Personally, I need a break. *** And, by the way, something else that Deacon Russell and the "We Like Lying" crowd have ignored for years is the mass of evidence that the Ordinary Magisterium ...

On Monday I returned from nearly two weeks on the road, our Great North Tour, in which we gave 15 performances of 7 scripts in 13 days in 6 states – from Grand Forks, North Dakota, to Holt’s Summit, Missouri. In all of that wonderful chaos God gave me the great blessing of being away from the internet . And two weeks away from the Lying for Jesus issue was very therapeutic. But as therapy ends and Lent begins, I’d like to conclude my thoughts on the firestorm that swept us all up into the single most divisive issue I have encountered in ten years as a Catholic. My Role in This Back in August, James O’Keefe was invited to give what amounted to the keynote address at the American Chesterton Society Conference in Emmitsburg, Maryland. O’Keefe electrified the crowd by telling us that he was inspired by G. K. Chesterton (he did not mention his other role model, quasi-Satanist Saul Alinsky) and that he, James O’Keefe, was willing to live a monk –like existence harassed by leftists and...