Hey, E.J! You dropped your thirty pieces of silver! Don’t worry. MoDo will get them for you.

‘Puter guesses portraying Mr. Dionne and Ms. Dowd as Roman Catholicism’s fifth column is a bit inflammatory, and perhaps a tad inaccurate.  Mr. Dionne and Ms. Dowd are more appropriately described as quislings.

E.J. Dionne continues his epic run for the title of the most self-deluded, self-proclaimed Catholic of all time with his column today in the Washington Post. Mr. Dionne opines that the Catholic bishop’s law suit aimed at overturning
Obama’s contraception mandate is a political stunt, specifically intended in bad faith to target President Obama’s reelection prospects.

‘Puter told you yesterday that this was coming.  We see that Ms. Dowd and Mr. Dionne are united in pressing the same message: the Catholic Church is politically motivated and should be ignored not only by the secular world, but by Catholics themselves.

The Left is Hell-bent on destroying the Catholic Church’s moral authority, as the Catholic Church is one of the few remaining cultural institutions with large enough influence to take on the government.  Further, the Church’s moral authority, while severely diminished, is still far superior to that of the government, no matter which party’s running it. It is apparent to ‘Puter that, based on the Left’s behavior, liberals view the Catholic Church as the last foe to be vanquished in order to usher in the unending reign of their false god, Big Government.

And who better to take on the Catholic Church? Why, two revered liberal columnists who call themselves Catholic, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. What evidence, you say? The evidence is plainly in their thoughts and in their words, in what they have done and what they have failed to do.  We know Mr. Dionne and Ms. Dowd by the company they keep.

So, long way around, but back to Mr. Dionne’s column. As is typical, Mr. Dionne presents his readers the world as he wishes it were, rather than the world as it is.

Let’s start with this howler, that’s at the end of Mr. Dionne’s piffle, but is demonstrative of his delusional state: “For too long, the Catholic Church’s stance on public issues has been defined by the outspokenness of its most conservative bishops and the reticence of moderate and progressive prelates.”

Oh. Yes. Well.  If you say so, Mr. Dionne. ‘Puter guesses that we should just ignore the past 50 years of post-Vatican II hippie horseshit that’s been crammed down the faithful’s throat by disobedient and misguided prelates.  Everything from supine (and likely supportive) bishops ignoring former governor Mario Cuomo’s famous “sure, I’m pro-abortion publicly, but you should see how pro-life I am in my private life” weasel out to the bishops ignoring the homosexual bath house mentality prevalent in the 1970s seminaries.  This leaves aside the travesty that is the current American Catholic Mass (and it’s uniquely horrible music).

To hear Mr. Dionne tell it, the conservative Catholic bishops are on a Sherman’s March through the Catholic state, razing, raping and burning doctrine, dogma and catechism on their way to the sea. Garbage, Mr. Dionne.  If you actually believe this, ‘Puter’d be shocked.  In fact, ‘Puter’s betting you know the truth is the exact opposite of your claim.  America’s conservative Catholic bishops are clawing back the Faith from the hands of those (like you) who have gleefully used it for your own political purposes for years.

Let’s continue.  Mr. Dionne’s argument essential argument is that the bishops pending challenge to ObamaCare’s contraception mandate is an ill-advised political ploy.  Mr. Dionne bases this argument on the following “facts”:

1. Lots of American dioceses chose not to join the suit. 

This fact, while true on its face, tells us exactly nothing. Mr. Dionne intends this fact to mislead his readers.  It is likely that the dioceses’ attorneys determined to use fewer, more powerful and better known Catholic institutions as plaintiffs to maximize impact.  This is a normal and accepted litigation strategy.  Let the stars shine.  How many non-Catholics would say, “Jeez, if the diocese of East Podunkville is fired up, then there really must be something wrong!” Right. No one.  Now substitute for “diocese of East Podunkville” “the University of Notre Dame.” Or “the Archdiocese of Washington.” Or the “Archdiocese of New York.”  Right.  A whole lot more non-Catholics are familiar with these institutions.  They’re the traditional backbone of American Catholicism.

2. Some bishops in California think the suit is premature.

Well, perhaps these bishops are lawyers.  ‘Puter doesn’t know.  What ‘Puter does know is that if you wait until any regulation is implemented, it’s too late.  You’ve lost.  Momentum is on the government’s side at that point, and judges are far less inclined to intrude. Further, ‘Puter’s betting that the unnamed and named California clerics are likely in Mr. Dionne’s quasi-Catholic wing of the Church.  These folks are comfortable with the “come as you are, take what you want” cafeteria Catholicism prevalent since Vatican II.

3. Liberal Catholics have kept quiet about their concerns.

Horseshit. Mr. Dionne and Ms. Dowd, not to mention every Catholic and non-Catholic shrill harpy talking head on MSNBC, have droned on, day after endless day, about how the Catholic Church has been taken over by the conservative wing, and dagnabit, they’re out to get Obama and all of us enlightened Catholics. You know, enlightened. As in those Catholics like Mr. Dionne and Ms. Dowd who choose to ignore the uncomfortable or unpopular or inconvenient Church teachings.  The little ones like transubstantiation and the consistent ethic of life.

4. Mr. Dionne doesn’t like the Fortnight for Freedom.

Well then.  That settles it. Mr. Dionne’s word is law, after all.  And, really, he must be correct.  A religious organization pushing back against a government dedicated to overturning longstanding and fundamental American freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights? And not in some lame Amendment like the Second Amendment that only Tea Party crazies like, but in the uber-cool First Amendment that protects the rights of the press and individuals to speak their minds.  People just like Mr. Dionne and Ms. Dowd.  It’s madness if we let people protect their own rights and freedoms. After all, Mr. Dionne tells us we have a perfectly good government to do that for us.

5. Mr. Dionne doesn’t like the Vatican’s smackdown of the hard left ladies who lunch and otherwise form the membership of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

Of course Mr. Dionne hates the Vatican’s smackdown of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.  It’s an obvious sign of the Vatican’s rededication to enforcing its doctrine at all levels, whether ordained or lay.  The LCWR has been far afield of Catholic doctrine for a very long time, much as Mr. Dionne and Ms. Dowd have been.  Of course nominal Catholics don’t like being told to shape up and shut up, or get the [heck] out.  It’s got to be disconcerting, particularly when you’ve been liturgically dancing to the beat of a different folk group drummer for going on 50 years now.  But too danged bad.  Rules are rules, and should be followed.  And if the good sisters don’t like it, they should go Protestant.  Despite ‘Puter’s appreciation of the opportunity afforded by Mr. Dionne to revisit his smackdown of the LCWR, ‘Puter fails to see the relevance of this point.

6. A single bishop cried to a noted leftist Catholic rag that he really and for true doesn’t like the bishop’s lawsuit.

America is a well-known hard left Jesuit rag, famed for putting forth positions at odds with the Church. And so to is Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, the cited bishop of Stockton. Further, the Bishop may have an axed to grind with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’  hierarchy, as he lost the a recent election to chair an important committee because of claims he ignored the sexual abuse of children by priests under his supervision. ‘Puter finds this interesting, as Mr. Dionne has been known to excoriate his claimed Church for ignoring child sexual abuse by priests. But, any port in a storm, right Mr. Dionne?

7. The lawsuit is political.

Of course it is.  By nature, the lawsuit must be.  The government charged with protecting and defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help them God is attempting to ignore the Constitution’s mandates itself.  What the heck else did Mr. Dionne expect it to be? The lawsuit happens to be against the Obama Administration because they’re the only administration stupid enough to ignore the religious freedoms of a mainstream religion big enough to punch back.  Whatever one thinks of Obama’s contraception mandate, one must admit it was colossally stupid for the Obama Administration to take on the Catholic Church.  This one decision may spell the end for Obama’s presidency.

8. Some bishops are going to ignore the Fortnight for Freedom.

So what?  The Catholic Church is a big tent, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has no authority to force a bishop to take any action whatsoever within his bishopric.  Only the Vatican may do so. What exactly does this have to do with anything?

9. Catholics were united against the contraception mandate in February. Why damage the unity?

Catholics were united against ObamaCare’s contraceptive mandate in February because conservative Catholics shamed liberal Catholics into it.  Liberal Catholics couldn’t even pretend that requiring Catholic institutions to pay for employees’ birth control wasn’t a gross violation of the First Amendment.  Upon realizing that they’d massively screwed up and alienated an important constituency, the Obama Administration, aided and abetted by liberal “Catholics” like Mr. Dionne, set about creating a fig leaf so that liberal Catholics could claim the issue was resolved.  The Obama Administration’s compromise, the one Mr. Dionne cites for its Solomonic wisdom? The compromise is to permit religious organizations an additional year before imposing the exact same mandate on them.  Some compromise.

10. The Great and Wise Obama fixed everything with the compromise anyway, so why are you complaining?

If you can’t see E.J. Dionne for what he is after reading today’s column, then you have actively chosen to ignore fact.  Mr. Dionne is a willing shill for the Obama Administration posing as a Catholic. Mr. Dionne is also an apologist for all nominal Catholics who want to ignore the Church’s millenia old doctrine, dogma, catechism and Magisterium and still claim they are in any meaningful way Catholic.

Cardinal Wuerl summed it up quite nicely in his column in yesterday’s Washington Post.  You should really read the whole thing.  The bishops’ lawsuit is not anti-Obama.  It is pro-freedom. The suit is dedicated to re-establishing the endangered (yet bedrock) principle that people in America are free to worship as they see fit, without government interference. That’s it. Nothing more.  Here’s some choice words the good Cardinal.  ‘Puter defies you to find error in them:

The Catholic Church has not picked this fight. We are simply trying to defend our — and other faith groups’ — long-standing rights. While the administration wants to regulate religion, we are not trying to force anything on anyone. Allowing religious organizations to serve the public does not violate the separation of church and state. Conscripting us into advancing government objectives against our conscience does.

This struggle is all about the Bill of Rights. You don’t have to agree with the Catholic Church and its teachings to agree that the government shouldn’t force us to violate our beliefs. People of all faiths or no faith should cherish the right to follow one’s conscience. We do not want to tell the government what it must do. We simply ask the same of them.

This is exactly why Mr. Dionne, Ms. Dowd and their comrades on the Left hate the Catholic Church and work to discredit it from within and without.  The Catholic Church stands four-square opposed to government diktats. A shorter synopsis of the Cardinal’s column might read, “Get out of our way, leave us the Hell alone, and let us get on with our work, as we’ve done for 2,000 years.” The Left can’t tolerate independence.  It’s dangerous to government supremacy when people think and act for themselves, even collectively, without government control.

Again, it’s time to pick sides.  Who do you stand with? Mr. Dionne and his leftist compatriots arguing for government control of every area of your life? Or do you stand, like ‘Puter, with the Catholic Church and those of us who believe in limited government and personal responsibility.

Choose.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.