Just another pitiful example of the spirit of Dutch Liberalism?

Ashin Ellian is a professor of "Social Cohesion, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism" at Leiden University, one of Holland's most ancient and prestigious universities. He also maintains a weblog for Elsevier, a Dutch online news service and commentary. Elsevier is part of the Reed group of companies.

I generally find Elsevier Online a reliable and balanced source of information on political Holland, though I would never trust just one media outlet. This morning's bulletin has heralded a dramatic departure from the usual balance. This professor of "social cohesion" etc has entered a blog entitled: Christ is not funny, but his spokesmen are.

The title of his piece says it all. In one short pithy sentence Ellian has characterised the whole of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, reaching back two thousand years, as uniformly ridiculous and stupid. If this is not an example of cavalier shoot-from-the-lip bigotry, I don't know what is. The probability of it is unimaginable, apart from anything else. If readers think I am reading too much into the title, then I have to inform you that it gets worse, a lot worse. Ellian goes on to draw sloppily on the anti-Catholic fantasies that are the usual sources for lazy bigoted journalists.

Holland is really bad on this - I mean, the media blithely repeating fantasy on the assumption there will be no challenge. It's like a bunch of half-boozed blokes in a bar giggling about their mutual prejudices, something I have had occasion to observe many times through the years. I think it has to do with the captive ideological state of the Dutch media, and the language curtain that shuts out the scrutiny of people who would go to town on this sort of thing if it were served up in the English-speaking world. But I will leave such pondering for another time.

What has provoked Ellian's casual throwaway bigotry is the report recently in the media that the Vatican has made a list of modern sins. I have already commented on the appearance of that report peddled by an Australian television station. That comment was on errors of fact, without my knowing the background to the media reports - as I do now. And I will come back to that. This is the way Ellian responds to those media reports.

A very remarkable report appeared on this [Elsevier] website that the Vatican was going with the times. That in itself is a source of worry. Because you never know what they are going to modernise: [the] Inquisition, inhuman punishments?

Can this professor at one Holland's most respected universities be serious? This is the sort of stuff the demented Left propose on their websites instead of reasoned argument. So, we Catholics are inclined to set up inquisitions or support those setting them up and to contrive unspeakable punishments that those inquisitorial bodies apply to those condemned unjustly. We are really just a mob of nasty cruel people, aren't we? Ellian has been reading too many lurid comics or spending too much time in the university bar. He goes on:

After 1500 years they want to modernise the list with [new] sins. Of course you hope that a number of prohibitions and commandments are removed. I have my own little list that I will formulate in Wilders-type terms. [Geert Wilders is a politician that the PC-class in Holland hate.]

1500 years? He has the bigot's book of history at his elbow. On further reflection, we will see that Ellian is implicitly recommending that the Vatican replace certain prescriptions and prohibitions with his own prescriptions and prohibitions. Naturally his political and moral vision is infallible, as it is with the PC-class generally. His ingenuousness is endearing. I ask conservatives not to lose concentration as I present this list. I know, you have heard it all before ad nauseam. But I have worthwhile comment. Here is the list with my comments:

Remove that miserable prohibition on homosexuality!
Now we open the vast scenario of homosexual activism. The liberal Ashin Ellian is telling us to lie down, deny our political principles, and slavishly accept his opposing ideas. Accept being homosexualized. Very liberal, indeed. But, excuse me, we won't do that. As long as we live in a democracy we will claim our democratic rights and give full expression to our political philosophy and oppose those we think inimical to our present society. But, then, it's likely Ellian cannot conceive of someone entertaining a philosophy that departs from his own. Fortunately the 2000-year-old Catholic Church has no choice but to maintain its views on the nature of homosexuality.

Finally finish the work in getting rid of those miserable "child terrorists' in the Church
This prescription is truly astounding directly following Ellian's support for homosexual activism. Ellian obviously does not know that the great majority of sexual abuse cases involving Catholic clergy concerned homosexual priests! They are about homosexual priests abusing pubescent boys. Homosexual clergy established networks within the Church structures that blocked orthodox young men from attending seminaries, some of which were known as the 'pink seminaries'. There is a great deal of literature on this now. What the Vatican should be concerned with, indeed, is removing homosexuals who do not accept its teaching. They are, on the evidence, the ones who put young Catholics most at risk. Below I will provide links to relevant websites. I also refer the reader to the comments I have already made on homosexual activism and await those I am preparing.

Spread condoms free of cost in Africa!
This is another strange one. Someone should whisper in Ellian's ear that even if the Church changed its teaching on sexual behaviour, it's not the Church's practical role to act as an agent for the multinationals targeting African countries. The Church's views on condoms flow from its moral teaching. There is no battalion of weaponed clergy in bedrooms to drag African Catholics off to jail if they slip a condom on. This is altogether different from the monstrous atheistic regimes that took French Revolution materialism as their standard and went on a orgy of murder such as the world has never seen before. And it's more than a bit strange that Ellian suggests the prohibition on condoms would be oppressing those who think nothing of committing adultery. As for those who are faithful in marriage, yet exposed to AIDS, at the centre of Christian belief is forgiveness. Again, quite different from those regimes with their variation on French Revolution materialism. Heads off for their "malefactors".

Forbid Opus Dei!
Oh, dear O me, not the old Opus Dei trick? (Apologies to Maxwell Smart.) Opus Dei is a favourite Gothic fantasy of the anti-Catholic bigot. Ashin Ellian, grow up, and read a bit of reliable literature on this subject.

Forbid the immigration of priests unsympathetic to women from Third World countries.
Another example of Ellian's illiberal liberalism. The reason (I am presuming) he discriminates against Third World priests is that they (in his eyes) subscribe to political and moral principles that deviate from his. You have to wonder at Ellian's front. It's embarrassing. Of course, there may be other illiberal reasons: Third World priests are not good enough for white Dutch women?

Forbid that miserable book The Old Testament!
You mean, ban a book? Wasn't book banning one the greatest sins the Catholic Church committed in the eyes of the ever so pure-minded liberal?

This is all too silly for words. And the rest of the piece is no better in terms of ignorance and reasoning. For example, he makes a connection between the Church and Colombian drug runners. He takes from the media reports that the Catholic Church has made a new sin out of drug dealing.

The prohibition of drug dealing...is on the late side. The world is swarming with Catholic drug dealers from Colombia and other South American countries. Yes, well, with a little healthy understanding those drug dealers should have realised a long time ago that it's a sin.

But now that the Vatican has codified the sin, drug dealers who have already died can say to St Peter: I appeal to the legality principle, because when I was still alive drug dealing was not ticked as a sin. Sins and law cannot work retrospectively...

Be careful, Ashin, you'll spill your drink. At this stage you cannot distinguish between a faithful Catholic and a cultural Catholic. All jokes aside, this comment, no doubt considered hilarious by Ashin's mates at the bar, is based on false media reports. According to Catholic teaching, a sin is always a sin, something that hardly needs repeating. The irresponsible reporting that has spawned Ellian's comments and others has been dealt with competently on other websites. I suggest readers who want to gauge the full depths of the Leiden University professor's ignorant bigotry go to the links immediately below.

Sensationalist reporting muddles Catholic Social Teaching

Irresponsible reporting on religion is dangerous

An appropriately named website devoted to irresponsible reporting on religion: http://www.getreligion.org/

For more information on clerical sexual abuse and the homosexual connection, go to:

Sexual abuse allegations, real and unreal
A sobering analysis

Clerical sexual abuse in Catholic Church the lowest
Prelate at last speaks out about the media's bias in reporting sexual abuse cases

Report: Pedophilia more common among 'gays'
Research purports to reveal 'dark side' of homosexual culture
Pedophilia and homosexuality

Sexual abuse in social context: Catholic Clergy and other professionals
The facts about sexual abuse among Catholic clergy

Comments: gerardwilson01@optusnet.com.au

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