Monday, April 12, 2010

Chicago Clergy Sacrifice Unity At The Altar

Shown in the picture is the subject of the post, Father Michael Pfleger, and his good pal, Calypso Louis Farrakhan, noted race-baiter, Jew-hater, and White-basher. Farrakhan comes from a cultish version of Islam, but what about Pfleger? Well, according to the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese, he's an admirable Roman Catholic.

To date, the Chicago Archdiocese has gone all wobbly on abortion, guns, socialism, illegal immigration, and thug voting. That pretty much only left racial harmony, and the Archdiocese didn't disappoint. Chicago Cardinal Francis George recently celebrated with other religious cuckoos the lifetime achievements of Father Michael Pfleger. And George isn't just any cardinal. He's the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. And Pfleger isn't just any priest, either. He's the close pal of two other great theologians--Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The award praised Pfleger for his "service in pursuit of dismantling racism, injustice and inequalities on behalf of African Americans and all people of color." Well, I suppose that's one way of putting it. I would have given him the award for worst minstrel-show white man attempting to turn black right in front of the audience (or congregation). Or perhaps the Pope Lawhawk Award for pretending that liberation theology isn't really communism in disguise. Or maybe even the Black Panther community-organizing, vote-protecting, elimination of those rotten white people in the name of Christ award.

This Unholy Trinity has somehow passed under the radar of the Chicago Archdiocese. Perhaps cardinals aren't allowed to watch television, or read newspapers, or hop onto the internet. Or maybe they're just deaf and blind. Even my cat has managed to notice the shenanigans of the rhyming, race-baiting, Christian-hating terrible triad. But somehow Cardinal George must have missed them. Or maybe he just doesn't recognize white priests acting like caricatures of minstrel-show whites-as-African-Americans, only without the humor.

He might have missed Father Pfleger's sermon at Rev. Jeremiah Wright's United Church of Christ [sic] in which he channeled that white harridan, Hillary Clinton. "I really believe that Hillary just always thought 'This is mine. I'm Bill's wife. I'm white. And I jes gotta get up and step into the plate. Oh, damn! Where did you come from (referring to Barack Obama, beloved messiah of the triad)? I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealin' my show (feigns sobbing).'" As the congregation roared, hooted and clapped its approval, Pfleger concluded with "She wasn't the only one cryin'! There was a whole lotta white people cryin'!"

Now I know it's not up to the high-standards of Steve Martin sobbing that "I was born a poor, black child." But it's close, and at least Martin was kidding. What the hell is this crazy priest thinking? What does his sermon have to do with Christianity? What is this Catholic priest doing in an un-Christian church preaching the same thing you could hear at any black supremacist gathering? Why is a Catholic priest roaring from the pulpit of a church that preaches hatred of America and hatred for white people? Does Pfleger's edition of the New Testament include the words "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel (except to white devils)?" And the biggest question of all is "is this what Cardinal George thinks is 'dismantling racism?'"

Of course, maybe Cardinal George thinks Pfleger's sermon proclaiming "America is the greatest sin against God" is a statement right out of St. Paul's letter to the Romans. It appeared at one time that Cardinal George might have realized that this guy is nuts when he suspended him from Catholic pulpits for a whole two weeks after the Wright church sermon. But this award is a strange way of saying that the Catholic Church disdains race-baiting, and an even stranger way of saying the Church doesn't know that the suspension was because Pfleger is not a racial healer. It also appears that the cardinal doesn't remember that the Catholic Church's official stand against abortion doesn't include Father Pfleger having crazed former singer Harry Belafonte show up at Pfleger's parish, St. Sabina, to denounce president George Bush for his pro-life stance.

For the sake of full disclosure (and for those of you who don't already know this), I am an old-school Lutheran. But I've said on a few occasions that I would trust the Bishop of Rome over the Lutheran Bishop of the Sierra-Pacific Synod any day in the week. Even as a mainline Protestant, I can spot a heretical priest. Maybe it's because I am a Lutheran, now that I think about it. And if a Catholic cardinal can't, it's time for the Pope to instruct him.

Wayward pastors in the Protestant denominations are not precluded from being Protestants. But one of our objections to the Church of Rome was the concentration of theological power in the hands of one man. From my outsider's point of view, a priest who defies the Pope on the issue of abortion is a priest who is in need of serious pastoral guidance from above. Instead, a prince of the Church lauds a priest who defies Papal authority, flaunts his racial self-hatred, and demeans himself and his religious denomination by appearing with black liberation theology pastors and Nation of Islam leaders.

It simply seems to me that it's time for the Catholic Church to instruct Father Pfleger on Catholic theology and Papal authority, or defrock him. Awards from Catholic cardinals for such doctrinally lawless behavior are the antithesis of what Pfleger should be facing.

18 comments:

StanH said...

Pfleger & Farrakhan a couple carnival barkers conning the weak minded in a weekly flim-flam (worship) using this poor populace for their own self aggrandizement. There’s a special place in Hell for creeps like these whatever their politics happen too be.

IMO this is another example of media malthesence in the vetting of Barry the Boy King. If a Republican had even the slightest association with hatemonger’s like thse you’d never hear the end of it.

Writer X said...

I've become so disillusioned with the Catholic Church. There are too many in charge who aspire to the "do as I say, not as I do" doctrine. It's disheartening. And yet I know there are many fine priests who do good work. Unfortunately the good ones need to find their vocal chords.

AndrewPrice said...

It just stuns me that people whose job it supposedly is to point out evil when they see it continue to celebrate people who do nothing but hate and espouse race hatered.

BevfromNYC said...

First, why are they allowed to flout the IRS by preaching politics from the pulpit? Isn't that grounds to remove their non-profit status? And if they are allowed, then why are conservative churches being threatened by the IRS?

Unknown said...

StanH: There seems to be a whole lot more radical social engineering going on in those churches than anything faintly resembling religion.

Unknown said...

WriterX: Over the past couple of days, I've heard the "Pfleger has done a lot of good for his poor parishioners" argument. "What profiteth it a man that he gain the world but lose his soul?" Church outreach to the poor is an integral part of the Christian religion, but that is not supposed to be the ultimate goal of the church. Save the body so that the soul can be saved. The second half seems to be missing from pretty much everything the unholy trio are doing.

Unknown said...

Andrew: I can even understand a church preaching against social injustice and racial oppression. There is no doubt that vestiges of those still exist. After all, the churches were instrumental in the fight against slavery (which these guys conveniently forget). But stirring up racial hatred instead of preaching racial healing is the exact opposite of Christ's message.

Unknown said...

Bev: That's a question many of us have been asking for years. The words "selective enforcement" come immediately to mind. The concept of preaching a particular doctrine that appears to lean toward one party or the other has always been a delicate line, but singling out specific candidates (as Pleger, Wright and Farrakhan all did) does seem to cross that line rather clearly.

Joel Farnham said...

Pfleger's preaching doesn't bring that many converts to his church. He sounds more like a bible-rowser instead of a preacher. As a sky-pilot he flies too low to the ground.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, My point exactly. The church should be a beacon of truth and justice, pointing out everything that is wrong and gently pushing society toward doing the right thing.

They should not be promoting racial hatred or giving a platform to people who will.

HamiltonsGhost said...

Lawhawk--The Catholic Church has enough problems with the big attack on pedophile priests. It seems a shame that a great religion can't solve a simple problem like a wayward priest such as Pfleger and get it out of the way in order to restore the reputation of the church at large.

Unknown said...

Joel: Pfleger may or may not be increasing the size of his congregation (I haven't seen any actual statistics). But either way, he is completely out of sync with Christian doctrine in general and Catholic doctrine in particular. America hasn't seen this kind of thing since Father Coughlin's antisemitism in the 30s. Let's hope Pfleger never reaches as large an audience as Coughlin.

Unknown said...

Andrew: Agreed. What surprises me is that unlike so many Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church has strict rules of obedience to authority. If the cardinal had removed Pfleger from the pulpit, defrocked him, or merely moved him to another parish where he couldn't do any further damage, this whole thing could have been stopped in its tracks. Instead, he gave him a minor slap on the wrist last year, and now rewards him for spewing hatred from Christian pulpits (one of which isn't even a Catholic pulpit).

The United Church of Christ is about as Christian as the IRS, so there's little the organization could do to shut Jeremiah Wright up. Not true of the Catholic Church. Either the cardinal agrees with Pfleger, or he is operating under the delusion that making deals with the devil will cause him to come around to a more Christian way of thinking. Instead of saying "get thee behind me Satan," the cardinal has said "here, old buddy, have an award."

Unknown said...

HamiltonsGhost: The pedophile priest scandal is a very sad chapter in the history of the Catholic Church. It took years to develop and it will take years to heal it. The big difference here is that Pfleger's running off at the mouth could be squelched immediately, leaving Pfleger with the choice of obeying or leaving the Church entirely and becoming a preacher for the UCC or Nation of Islam.

The pedophile priest issue will take boldness and time to rectify. And unlike the Pfleger issue, the Catholic Church shares this problem with a great many other churches,as well as any entity where an adult is put in charge of children (such as teachers at schools). It's just easier for the MSM and the anti-Christians to concentrate on a church where they can point the finger at one single, powerful leader.

CrisD said...

My family ( of origin)left the Catholic Church a few years after Vatican2.

It seemed to have descended into cafeteria Catholicism, heresy from the pulpit and, surely, at its Universities. We have all found ways of dealing with this loss.

I married an Episcopalian-he's a former Catholic- (not much comfort in w/ Episcopalians) and baptised the children as Episcopalians.

I can at least say that I have not led my children toward listening to Father Pflager preaches or anything his enabling bishops allow.

Believe me, it is a great loss for those of us who would like to see reform in the Catholic Church.

Unknown said...

CrisD: I once called the Episcopalians "Catholic Lite"--50% less guilt (in The Weekly Standard, August '97). I love the Episcopalian ceremony, but they lost me when they did the "we don't throw the book at you" TV ad. The United Methodist Church's TV ad showing blacks and gays being excluded from church got close to preaching hate against other denominations, but didn't quite have Pfleger's chutzpah. Let's get theology back into the pews and the pulpits and leave the misplaced social engineering and divisive messages to the secularists.

"The book" (the Bible) needs to be thrown a lot more in nearly every mainstream denomination these days. But even when I disagree with form and substance with other denominations, I still respect them. I only object strenuously when they preach hate. Wright and Farrakhan preach hate regularly, but only Pfleger could be disciplined for it. My disappointment with the Catholic Chicago Archdiocese is its failure to do so.

CrisD said...

Just searched the archives and couldn't find an article on religion! Would have loved to have read it ;)
We, lapsed Catholics like to say that the Episcopalians took Jesus off the cross and put him on a lounge chair--but I guess you've heard that chestnut...

Unknown said...

CrisD: I was just a lowly stringer who contributed filler material for the comments, and occasionally letters to the editor when they needed fill-in. TheStandard wasn't either as huge or influential as it is today. My name didn't appear much of anywhere, though I think it did on that one. Ah, well, I'll never be famous. I might still have the old hard copy, since I tried to save them for awhile while I still had delusions of becoming a big-deal political writer.

Our inside joke about our fellow ELCA Lutherans is that they're like Unitarians--they believe in one God, at least. With a Catholic mother and a Lutheran father, there was plenty of banter around my house as I was growing up.

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