Dear Bunglehorn,

Time is wondering if Pope Benedict XVI will behave during his trip to Austria. What a scream! I love the imagery of a misbehaving pope. Such a juicy little seed to plant in your patient’s mind. Especially since it blames the Holy See for the murder and mayhem following his “provacative” lecture a year earlier at the University of Regensberg.

Time attributes the ensuing riots as the most significant moment of his papacy. I love how the MSM will forever stain him with the violence of others. With insidious pleasure, I expect an entire body of Catholic apologetics required to counter our perpetual myths about what Pope Benedict actually said and did. Most people will fail to recognize their own prejudices. They blame the hapless pope on the premise that Muslims are inciteable, incabable of rational dialog, so why bother. How silly are the believers!

Deeper down, the article criticizes the pope for not acknowledging forced conversions on indigenous people of Latin America. Hysterical. Time fails to acknowledge that the Catholic Church has never condoned forced conversions. Time also disregards the universal apology by the pope’s predecessor, which Benedict surely helped craft as Cardinal Ratzinger, and the proclamation that religion cannot be forced without violating free will.

There are examples of the spread of Christianity by the sword, and I’m proud to say those were generally driven by our own hand in misguided zeal. Nonetheless, one can look to the Barbarians to see examples of the conquerors becoming converted to early Christianity. Since so few people study history, it’s quite easy to continue propogating lies and half-truths over the span of centuries.

And while Time openly critizizes the spread of Christianity in the Americas hundreds of years ago, other religious zealots are forcing conversions as we speak. The MSM’s silence is bliss. We’re convincing the world that martyrdom is the taking of life, not the giving of life.

Don’t miss the article’s finalé. With scarcely a word on the celebration of the 850th anniversary of the Marian shrine of Mariazell, the reason for the pope’s trip, the article recalls allegations of sexual abuse by the Archbishop of Vienna Hans Wilhelm Groer. After picking these scabs, Time concludes, “Indeed, some will consider the trip a success — even if a quiet one — if Benedict can simply heal old wounds rather than open new ones.” Spot on! Can they be anymore offensive?

Catholics may be surprised to see such harsh criticism in an enduring and popular periodical like Time. After-all, the famous red-border covers and world-class photography have become pieces of Americana as much as the subjects it covers. And in recent years, it has brought pro-Christian pieces I detested, especially, Hail Mary, a pro-Marian feature that helps clarify our Mary-worship myths and marvels at her growing allure to Protestants.

Even on the subject of Mother Teresa, Time has been especially charitable. They featured her on the Dec 29, 1975 cover, “Living Saints: Messangers of Love and Hope.” In 1999, she received a hero’s accolades in The Time 100, an article that blasts the media for pidgeonholing Calcutta as a dysfunctional dying city and describes it’s citizens as “vociferously in love with Mother Teresa.” Seeing the streets lined with throngs of mourners during her funeral procession confirms this.

In fighting for the dignity of the destitute in a foreign land, [Mother Teresa] gave the world a moral example that bridged divides of culture, class and religion.
Bharati Mukherjee
Time, June 14, 1999

 

Today, Time has shifted toward the provocative. Compare for example, Crisis of Faith, where they find Mother Teresa guilty of hypocrisy. Mukherjee predicted this in his own Time article just a few years prior. “It is the fate of moral crusaders to be vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy or have the arbitrary selectiveness of their campaigns held against them.”

The irony is, Time, who hints at self-contradiction in Mother Teresa, is guilty themselves. Dinesh D’Souza, the emerging Catholic writer and pundit, countered the hit piece easily in his brief article. Is it really so difficult to imagine that someone immersed in such loneliness and suffering of others would cry out from the wilderness? You and I can take comfort that D’Souza’s response has a fraction of the visibility of Time.

Time interprets the anguished ruminations of Mother Teresa of Calcutta as a “startling portrait of self-contradiction” as if Mother Teresa was one person in public and another in private.
Dinesh D’Souza
Mother Teresa’s Dark Night of the Soul

 

I suggest your patient subscribe to Time pronto. Better yet, find a colleague, a tempter of your patient’s friend and suggest she buy a subscription for him. He’ll be less apt to cancel such a magnicent gift.

Warmest Regards,
Wigglebrick

3 Comments to “Time Will Tell if the Pope Misbehaves”

1. 1

   My Dear Wigglebrick,

   Yet again, you have condensed a great deal of information into a small space that should be valuable to any of our junior tempters.

   We should never let our patients realize the existence of that which our most esteemed colleague, Screwtape, termed “the law of undulation.” That is, those in spiritual troughs should be encouraged to believe they will never emerge from this state. Also, those Christians having a “mountaintop experience,” as distasteful as these are for us while they are happening, should be encouraged to believe this state should also be permanent. The inevitable tumble into the valley is thus all the more delicious.

   Above all, Christian apologists should always apologize for the Church, the Enemy, His gifts and graces, and suggest believers should have a perpetual fire, and never become tired or weary of working for the Enemy. The resulting shame at the inevitable loss of energy is ripe for innumerable exploitations by an alert tempter and is certainly one of the best amusements humans have to offer.

   By all means, keep up the good work.

   Warmest regards,

   Slickrake

   Slickrake
   September 11th, 2007 @ 3:50 PM

2. 2

   @Slickrake – Excellent points! Fatigue and loss of hope are powerful weapons indeed.

   Wigglebrick
   September 11th, 2007 @ 4:16 PM

3. 3

   How delicious – Time is now wondering if Pope John Paul II was euthanized?! This from a doctor with evidence she gathered from television, the press and a book. What a gas!

   I had no idea we had infiltrated this popular magazine so heavily. Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, JPII’s personal physician, issued a poignant response, but we all know how much attention the secular press will give him. The idea that a hypocritical Catholic Church murdered it’s own Holy See is too tantalizing! Somebody call Dan Brown & Steve Berry!

   Deep Six
   September 26th, 2007 @ 6:02 AM

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