Sheavings

If my post a little while back got you thinking that I think Mark Shea sounds bad, I misled you. I actually love reading his writing. The post title apologizing for sounding like him was another one of my stupid attempts to respond to something that had never been said yet -- and probably never will be said, and the preemptive response to which only confuses people who don't know what I'm trying to respond to. I meant to blow off anyone who hates the way he tears apart stupid comments.

Enough about that. The point of this post is, I love reading Mark Shea. So much so that I've collected several quotes from him. Not all of these are even the ones he repeats all the time (like "Sin makes you stupid."). It's just whatever stood out to me.

So if you're free to laugh and learn at the same time, read on. For some of them I'll provide some context to make their points more evident, though I didn't record much context because they stand on their own for me.

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At the religious end of the spectrum is the implication that to call the deeds of a men "evil" is to somehow declare that you know his eternal destiny or desire his damnation. This is rubbish.

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One of the stupidities of modern political discourse is the notion that "As long as somebody isn't Hitler, then whatever they do is probably okay."

(Believe it or not, I don't think that was about Godwin's Law... but then I don't remember exactly what it was about either.)
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This is as legal as the Nuremburg Laws, as long as you don't trouble yourself with Augustine's pesky observation that "an unjust law is no law at all".

(On the assertion that since something that would otherwise be obviously gravely immoral was declared legal we needn't worry about the morality of it.)
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Throw off the shackles of the Catholic Faith...
...and make yourself a prisoner of the fear of Intergalactic Alien Attack instead.

(On the silliness of some who want to escape the religion.)
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Every once in a while godless editors look up from their monitors and are astonished to find religion is still there. Then they announce it is "back"--as though it had left.

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Personally, I think it's due, not to the circumstances in which we find ourselves but to the selves we find in our circumstances.

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For the great artist is great not because he makes people feel something no one has ever felt, but because he makes them feel something everyone has always felt.

(And, I note, usually to the effect that we better understand it.)
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And one I give from memory because it stuck with me but apparently never noted down (or noted down elsewhere?)...

The earth isn't sacred because she's a goddess. She isn't even sacred because she's our mother. She's sacred because she's our sister.

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The longer I live, the more the counsel "Save yourself from this corrupt generation" seems like practical common sense and not mere religious enthusiasm.

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If the bishops are interested in listening to actual youth (not to mention the Holy Father), they will note that what youth actually respond to is not bishops trying to disco, but bishops who challenge them to heroism. That's the secret both John Paul and Benedict understand and that's why there is such a disparity between the volcanic response of youth to the Pontiffs and the "Whatever" eyerolls of youth at the trendinesses of the English [and some American!] bishops.

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One mark of progressive dissent is the extreme reverence paid to bureaucratic committees.

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One of the fun things about being Catholic is that you are not only the locus of all evil in the universe for so many different people, but your pure evilness is evil for absolutely contradictory reasons! Sooner or later, you start to wonder (if you are not Catholic but still reasonably thoughtful), "What is this thing that people are so anxious to contradict that in doing so, they do not mind contradicting themselves?"

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That's not, by the way, because our bishops are profiles in courage. It's because the Holy Spirit, the Soul of the Church, is the guarantor of revelation and our arms are too short to box with Him.

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Everybody knows that Christmas is really just a warmed-over Celebration of the Feast of the Sol Invictus

Guess what? Everybody's wrong!

(As this quote makes rather a claim, here's the backup.)
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(On our reaction to grave blasphemies and/or injustices [think last time you got really mad about something]...)

And all of a sudden our barbaric ancestors are revealed to be… people. People who felt exactly the way we feel when we see great evil done.

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I suspect the enemies of the Church who are always banging on about how the Church is all about guilt and shame will suddenly discover that the Church is (like her Lord) scandalously merciful...

(For example, she lets people back who still are dealing with the Holocaust-denying kooks in their ranks...)
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Now that you've read those, I'll make note of the following: he could use some help remembering that the majority of people in the real world are not like the majority of the people on the internet, what with all the stupidity-fighting he has to do on his own blog alone. So, in that interest, I quote myself on a suggestion I recently made...

On a more serious note, sometimes I consider trying to organize a minimovement to reassure Mark Shea that plenty of us out here in the real world are perfectly sane and these weirdos he has to deal with are not the majority of most groups of people. We'd poll all our real-world friends about the issues everybody here on the 'net gets screwed up and report the generally good results back to him regularly. He wouldn't have to blow off steam as often, and we'd get more blogging from him that isn't based on complaining about just how many people are just how crazy. Once the method has been going successfully for a while, it'll spread to other Catholic bloggers who struggle with the same, and maybe even wander out of the blogosphere to help real-world friends who get fed up with the world.

Anyone up for the project?