The American Spectator

Reader Mail

The Tall Cardinal

4.13.05 @ 12:01AM

HAMMERING BACK
Re: Ben Stein's The Truth About DeLay:

Thank you for the fine article by Ben Stein in defense of Mr. Tom DeLay. Please see to it that more articles are published in this fine man's defense. THANK YOU!!!
-- Robert Davis

Ben Stein, as usual, nails it in his April 12 missive "The Truth About DeLay." We now learn that certain "Republicans" are tempering their support of DeLay as the media-created firestorm surrounding him starts to give off heat. Shays (predictably) and Santorum (less predictably) have made public comments in the last few days distancing themselves from DeLay. As one very angry supporter of the Republican Party, who has already seen our "leadership" cave on Specter's chairmanship and apparently on judicial filibusters as well, I've got a real simple message: If the Republican Party does not start hammering back at the Democrat hacks and leftist media and "save" DeLay, it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. If it makes no difference electing a
Republican President and a Republican majority in Congress, then I've got better things to do on election day!
-- Dave Mills
Rolla, Missouri

I just read the article written by Ben Stein about supporting DeLay, and I have to say that I'm finally going to let you guys know how much I enjoy reading him. He's great, and I hope to read more by him.
-- Jason

While reading Ben Stein these past few months, I keep hoping to find a temporary glitch in my sarcasm meter... but it is not meant to be. Mr. Stein sounds like the demon spawn of Doug and Wendy Whiner (of SNL fame). It seems as though he was traumatized by his run in with Johnny Law a while back. Mr. Stein, up your dosage of Prozac and find someone or something worthy of defending... DeLay does not qualify!
-- Ben Berry
Washington, D.C.

There's a quick way to stop Demos from attempting to take down top Republicans: When they succeed, put forward an even more conservative candidate. They'll get the message soon enough.
-- David Govett
Davis, California

Excellent article. I think Ben Stein has been reading my email.
-- Mark Landrum

THE FRUITS OF CHURCH LIBERALISM
Re: George Neumayr's Protection Racketeers:

The advocacy media being inconsistent and morally relativistic? Please, say it ain't so. Next you'll be saying that they're liberally biased and mostly secular -- and even fabricating stories out of whole cloth. Oh, dear.
-- C. Kenna Amos Jr.
Princeton, West Virginia

I just read your article on Cardinal Mahony. Finally, I understand why, in 1986, I could not get the Los Angeles Times to touch anything to do with the lawsuit I filed against the Archdiocese for five years of priest abuse that happened to me as a child (the priest is still a priest and a psychiatrist in the Bay Area). The local TV stations had some stories on the lawsuit, but not one peep from the L.A. Times. I always thought it was because the publisher of the Times was a Catholic, but it makes much more sense to me that the L.A. Times would protect Mahony because of his liberal stances. And it's disgusting to me that reporters at the Times are still sucking up to that horse's ass. Thanks for that enlightening article!
-- Joan Mounteer

Unaccustomed as I am to defending Cardinal Mahony, first class air-fare is probably justified. He is 6' 4", and on a previous return from Rome in coach developed a blood clot that ended up in his lung.
-- Ed Alhsen-Girard
Eglin AFB, Florida

Once again, George Neumayr has done an outstanding job at pointing out something largely missed or worse, malevolently ignored, by members of the liberal elite media and dissenters within the Roman Catholic Church. The telling line in Mr. Neumayr's analysis in his article, "Protection Racketeers" is: "Unlike Law who had serious reporters on his heels, Mahony has long benefited from the somnolent coverage of West Coast media liberals willing to excuse his protection of pedophiles in gratitude for his political and doctrinal liberalism."

The tragic and dirty truth in this point is something that I know Mr. Neumayr knows -- that there is a deep philosophical and moral connection between the libertine secular humanism and morality promulgated and practiced by the secular liberal elite, and the "Catholic lite" teaching (a term coined by Papal biographer, George Weigel) of dissident "Catholics." Catholic lite is really only libertine secular humanism dressed up in sacred vestments.

The total embrace of the most morally libertine aspects of the sexual revolution of secular liberals really paints them in a moral corner on the question of child sexual abuse. Secular liberals have pushed for a variety of cultural, legal, and legislative issues that pretty much allow for sexual stimulation and sex itself on demand. All that is required is consent -- and many members of the secular liberal camp have worked tirelessly, in one form or another, to lower the age of consent. This has occurred through the constant promotion of contraceptives in schools -- which assumes that those below the age of 18 are consenting to sexual activity with one another -- why else would they need contraceptives? What about sex education? It is usually really nothing more than sex promotion, dressed up with a smattering of medical facts, but never moral reflection, concerning sexual activity. The list goes on and on.

Doctrinal liberalism is really nothing more than an attempt to theologically justify the sexual revolution in Catholic circles. Thus the secular liberal media has to give even a protector of pedophiles a break, because their libertine sexual ethic ultimately has no sound reason to reject even predatory sexual behavior--other than a generic appeal to some sort of psychological pragmatism. Unless, of course, there is consent. To attack Catholic dissidents who allow even pedophilia, a horrendous sin and crime, to occur would be to imply that there are some limits to the libertine ethic embodied in the sexual revolution. Revolutions and revolutionaries don't like to be limited and the sexual revolution is no different. Secular liberals defend even the worst excesses (if you can get them to call it that) to preserve the core program --sexual freedom without limit. In a system where potentially everything is permitted in the name of choice and consent, how can they, or we, be surprised that everything has been committed and enabled? Add a little disingenuous "Christian compassion" to the mix and you've got a kinder, gentler sexual revolution with a "Christian" stamp of approval.

Letter to the Editor

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