Fishwrap owes Bp. Finn an apology for their insulting analogy

The writers and editors of the National catholic Fishwrap owe Bishop Robert Finn an apology.

Columnist Phyllis Zagano, whose skills in reading carefully and thinking through argument haven’t been entirely evident to me (for example in this), drew a moral equivalence between five figures.

Testosterone is in the news again from coast to coast. The new reality TV follows the misadventures of over-sexed men, their victims, and their defenders. It looks like a cartoon about a dysfunctional high school.

Reading from the left, in California Arnold Schwarzenegger (football coach), gets a housekeeper pregnant and lies about it for 15 years or so while his wife raises their son, born a few days earlier.

In the Mid West, Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert W. Finn (chaplain) earnestly defends not reading a year-old, four-and-a-half-page Catholic school principal’s memo detailing weird behavior by one of his priests, even after finding pornography on the priest’s computer.

In the nation’s capitol, Congressman Anthony D. Weiner (assistant principal) weepingly admits he is so enamored of his physical endowments that he Tweets photographs of them to total strangers.

And, in New York, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar (language department) strenuously defend against sex abuse claims by hotel maids.

As we watch the stories unfold, we are left sitting in the school cafeteria wondering how these stereotypes got in charge in the first place.

[…]

This is disgusting and unworthy even of the Fishwrap.

Schwarzenegger, Wiener, Strauss-Kahn, Omar and FINN?

National catholic Fishwrap owes Bishop Robert Finn an apology for this insult.

The rest of her column, obvious condoned by the editors, is also an insulting personal attack.

They should not run Zagano’s stuff and nonsense again until she apologizes for drawing a moral equivalence between Bp. Finn and those other three figures.

Stuff and nonsense is one thing, and in stuff and nonsense Zagano’s and NCFishwrap‘s columns will surely abound. We can differ and even bicker about stuff and nonsense.

This was a vile smear.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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20 Comments

  1. For the same reason you refer to them as Fishwrap, they won’t apologize either.

  2. Glen M says:

    Well, she’s right about one thing: her location in the cafeteria.

  3. benedetta says:

    She has chosen to go down with the good ship fishwrap it seems.

    They are the fishwrap because they pretend that the empire they have fashioned to the great destruction of the Church, is not really happening. The apologies are long overdue, and predate by a long shot the day when Fr. Z bestowed the title fishwrap. They are not legitimate. Believers who are led astray by it and all those who legitimately struggle on in faith are their pray. They are big people and have said long ago that they will do what they will and care not for anyone else. The choice of whether to recognize what has happened is theirs, it is totally up to them. Would it really kill them, Zagano, Munson, McBrien, to say, you know, about the abortion thing, maybe what we convinced the “Catholic politicians” to do wasn’t so good for us, for the whole Church, for women in general, for the babies…They are still free as ever to do that. I am sure a lot of people pray for the fishwrap. It doesn’t deny the reality of what has happened, what they have led others to do.

  4. OUChevelleSS says:

    Yep, ironic that a cafeteria Catholic would use that imagery.

  5. Supertradmum says:

    Time for Catholic institutions like colleges, monasteries, parishes and pilgrimage houses to stop buying this rag and pushing it.

  6. Jackie L says:

    I wish Bp Finn would forbid the NCR from calling themselves Catholic, I think that would finally be the death blow that ends their madness as a publication. Take away the name Catholic and they go from appearing to be critics inside the Church to the anti-Catholic protestants that they are.

  7. Dr. Eric says:

    Bishop Helmsing condemned the NCR way back in ’68 and yet they’ve been allowed to continue. The whole lot needs to be excommunicated.

  8. Actually according to Canon Law, no organization can use the name Catholic without Ecclesiastical authority.

    According to Canon Law, no apostolic endeavour or association shall bear the name “Catholic” without the express permission of competent ecclesiastical authority (Canons 216, 300, 803§3, 808). While this norm is not always known or followed, it is meant to protect the faithful against misrepresentation by groups that do not promote the true Faith. Any association bearing the term “Catholic” in its name should have proof of consent by competent ecclesiastical authority.
    Can. 216 Since they participate in the mission of the Church, all the Christian faithful have the right to promote or sustain apostolic action even by their own undertakings, according to their own state and condition. Nevertheless, no undertaking is to claim the name Catholic without the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority.
    Can. 300 No association is to assume the name Catholic without the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority according to the norm of can. 312.

  9. can312 is as follows
    Can. 312 §1 The authority which is competent to establish public associations is:

    1° the Holy See, for universal and international associations

    2° the Episcopal Conference in its own territory, for national associations which by their very establishment are intended for work throughout the whole nation;

    3° the diocesan Bishop, each in his own territory, but not the diocesan Administrator, for diocesan associations, with the exception, however, of associations the right to whose establishment is reserved to others by apostolic privilege.

    §2 The written consent of the diocesan Bishop is required for the valid establishment of an association or branch of an association in the diocese even though it is done in virtue of an apostolic privilege. Permission, however, which is given by the diocesan Bishop for the foundation of a house of a religious institute, is valid also for the establishment in the same house, or in a church attached to it, of an association which is proper to that institute.

  10. nanetteclaret says:

    Just another example of why they should be called national catholic birdcage liner. Bird poo in, bird poo on.

  11. benedetta says:

    No, she and they are not even in the cafeteria. They are elsewhere. They are outside the cafeteria. The cafeteria assumes that all the choices are equally legitimate, valid, edible. Do they want to sell their twinkies and other junk food products in the cafeteria? Yes they do. Which why we should not buy and should protest.

  12. Mundabor says:

    This is beyond pathetic.

    I love to compare abortionists to Nazis but hey, Nazis ***were**** abortionists!

    Finn is not a philanderer, nor is he accused of rape, nor is he a lewd poster-boy of the liberals…

    Mundabor

  13. ContraMundum says:

    At this point, I doubt it is worth monitoring the Fishwrap for any reason. I suppose there may be recent converts or immigrants who are not yet familiar with its contents, but on the whole (1) I do not think it is very widely read , and (2) its readers know what they will be getting. Sounding the alarm that the Fishwrap contains every kind of dissent is as pointless as warning readers of a Wiccan newsletter that it contains occult material that contradicts the teaching of the Church. That being the case, it would probably be better for your blood pressure, Fr. Z, to simply ignore that rag.

  14. Supertradmum says:

    Sadly, there are parishes London and my list of Catholic places above which push The Tablet. Some student friends of mine try to hide the copies under piles of papers. To throw the copies out would encourage the pastors to buy more. And, sadly, I know many supposedly educated lay persons who regularly read TT. This all started when TT came out against Humanae Vitae and help create the Catholic culture of dissent.

  15. RichR says:

    Why does the NFW article put “(chaplain)” after Bp. Finn’s name?

  16. anna 6 says:

    Phyllis Zagano is the Maureen Dowd of NCR (how’s that for a moral equivalence?)

    For the sake of entertaining her fans, she consistently vents her disdain for men in a knee-jerk fashion… while playing loose with the facts.

  17. s i says:

    Bishop Helmsing condemned the NCR way back in ’68 and yet they’ve been allowed to continue. The whole lot needs to be excommunicated.

    @Dr. Eric – agreed!!!

  18. Calypso says:

    Father, this is PRECISELY the reason some of us in Kansas City are organizing a High Mass and big procession (complete with a police escort and an honor guard from the Knights of Columbus) next Saturday, June 18th — to show our support of Bishop Finn amidst this big scale and unfair negativity in the media. If Bishop Finn isn’t a good bishop… I’d like to know where we’re going to find one much better for Kansas City? People like to rattle off their mouths and create controversy, and dive on any opportunity for attention, without concern for the real picture or the results of their actions — or how it even might effect the Church as a whole. I hope we have a lot of support for our bishop by this procession!

  19. Supertradmum says:

    Father,
    As many bishops read your blog, could you not have a poll as to the taking away of the name Catholic from the NCR?

  20. Liz says:

    God bless, Bishop Finn. Calypso, that sounds like a wonderful idea!

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