I rarely think “comedian” Jon Stewart is amusing. He has, as a matter of fact, contributed to the coarsening of our culture and he should be ashamed of himself. He is also deeply anti-Catholic, though he hides his bigotry behind excuse of being “funny”.
Check out The Catholic League on Mr. Stewart’s anti-Catholicism. (WARNING: There is some really offensive material there.)
I saw the following video some days ago and hesitated to post about it because of the content. I changed my mind when I saw that the Fishwrap‘s nearly-always-wrong Michael Sean Winter’s (whose regularly levels ad hominem attacks on the undersigned, btw) got something right in writing about it (HERE). I’m happy to give credit when due. Winters got it right when he pointed to the fact that Sr. Simone Campbell, of the Nuns On The Bus and a poster sister for the LCWR sort of woman religious, allowed herself to be instrumentalized in what is nothing other than an attack on the Catholic Church and on the dignity of human life.
We expect Steward to be a crass bigot. It is scandal and shame that Sr. Campbell cooperated.
Her motive was clearly to run down the Church’s hierarchy.
And listen for her obvious lie at 0:42:
“The Vatican says we work too much for the needs of those who live in poverty.”
Don’t watch this if your are easily upset by coarseness.
Thanks, Sr. Simone.
Thanks for helping Stewart to degrade Holy Church for the entertainment of the young nitwits who are his main audience.
What a class act.
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Thankfully, not all youth are young nitwits who enjoy crass, crude, or course humor… Most are, but there are some holdouts.
As the old saying goes, the ends, don’t justify the means…While working with the poor is a good, to take advantage of them, and promote contraception and abortion is wrong.
I stand with the Catholic Church – these fallen away nuns will be nothing but a distant memory in a few short weeks. I will pray for them.
Father, I already have high blood pressure and you just raised it some more! :)
The cloistered, habited Carmelite nuns in Santa Fe give me hope for nuns; as do the nuns of the FSSPX!
‘Sister’ Campbell and others like her fortunately are self destructing. Hopefully her TV appearance will come back to bite her.
I have to admit, I like “feminunzie.”
This seems pretty “public” to me…..Canon 915?
Unborn babies are poor. They’re not even allowed to keep their own lives.
Shameful, but the joke will be on Sr. Simone. Her support for Obama Care will come back to bite her when Obama pulls her plug!
While I do see the value in calling out this kind of nonsense, I think I’ll skip this one knowing the source (Stewart and Nuns on a Bus crowd). At a certain point, we have to be good stewards of our ears and eyes and not giving in to so much negative information on the Faith and those so called ministers. The same strategy applies to repeated and frequent viewing of information that goes against or contrary to the Faith.
It says “Sorry, this video is unavailable from your location”. Lucky me?
I was having trouble even up to ” Captain golden hats ” , BUT had to pull the plug at that point because I had just eaten. How very sorry. :(
“Know thy enemy” if you want to defeat them.
As much as we dislike it, we have to be aware of videos like this. If it wasn’t for organizations like the Catholic League monitoring the current milieu and threatening litigation, we would all be experiencing an even greater anti-Catholicism than already exists today. . . and it’s pretty bad.
I find Jon Stewart’s sort of humor to be passive-aggressive, intellectually dishonest, and
utterly predictable. It’s not satire, it’s propaganda. It’s not funny, it’s just boring.
As for the antics of Sr. Simone, I can only say that she represents an opportunity for me to
wrestle with the paradox of sincerely trying to pray for someone when I feel little for them
besides contempt.
I did not watch the video, but I have to say that this really scandalous. It seems to be really shameful, even for the LCWR types.
I have shared Father Z’s opinion of Jon Stuart for as long as I can remember Jon Stuart, whom I have never found funny. I knew things were going south in the U. S. when people began to take his manic schlock seriously–as political commentary.
I am easily upset by coarseness, but since I am also insanely curious, I just had to watch it. :(
I am told that the Religious are the ones that can discipline Religious. Is there no one to discipline this nun for this atrocity?
That video is beyond offensive.
I think Stewart lands more than he misses, but when he misses, it’s cringeworthy.
When he or one of his ‘team’ take on issues like abortion, it’s always infantile and stupid. I admit that I can’t watch Stewart anymore because of segments like the one above. It’s too bad, too, because he can sometimes totally call out the nonsense with an amazing sense of precision. I usually just wait for a friend to email me a juicy bit he did, but otherwise, I leave him alone. Too many instances of nonsense like the one posted above.
I’d say the *real* problem of Stewart is that he’s sometimes spot on. If he were just a daft loudmouth with nothing interesting to say *ever*, he wouldn’t have a following. Even the nitwits would tune him out. But he’s right often enough that those who don’t know any better think he’s *always* right.
He’s so disappointing because he sometimes sacrifices his razor sharp wit, a wit that can sometimes speak to an issue with such clarity, to tow the unthinking liberal line on social issues like abortion. So frustrating.
Ugb. Stewart, you’re smarter than that!
On the bright side, the Catholic Church finally is being persecuted for the RIGHT thing:
Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, UNTRULY, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice for your reward is very great in heaven. (St. Matthew 5:11-12, DRV – emphasis added)
This is much better than being persecuted for the sins committed by some of our clergymen!
Now if only the bishops will start acting like men.
Thanks, Michelle F. I couldn’t watch the whole thing, it was so crass–but very similar to the mocking at the Crucifixion.
Too bad it was made by so-called “catholic” representative; the investigation must be getting to them.
Stewart’s bigotry against Christianity is out there now, so he will grate on people’s nerves in my opinion. He will appeal to atheists, an odd collection of cranks and crabs if there ever was one. But I think Jon Stewart has peaked and is on the other side of his popularity. That said, this is an over the top insultingly blatant bit of junk, offered just because he can. He and his network must have enjoyed being current and thought naughty and hip. Sometimes you wonder if complaints to these knuckleheads serves our purpose or fires em up for more. I don’t know anymore. It’s the Bizarro World.
Sr. Simone. Huh. A Catholic nun. Participating in a mocking bit against the Vatican, the Holy Father, the Catholic faith. Yes indeed, can anyone pull the plug on these nuns? They certainly ought to, in my humble opinion. I hope Bishop Levada is paying attention. More evidence that these nuns do more harm than good.
The whole “nuns on the bus” thing, which Sr Simone described as retaliation against NETWORK Lobby being named in the CDF Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR, has proven to be a pretty clear and very visible illustration that the CDF was right. A lot of the support for the “nuns on the bus” was unambiguously anti-Catholic.
There are photos online of a grinning Sr Simone very proudly showing off her satin “Bad Habitz” jacket at a prayer service at a Methodist church. http://www.iaumc.org/galleries/detail/166
Thanks . . . I had missed this. I TiVo Stewart and Colbert but often don’t get a change to watch.
Did anyone happen to notice that this was satire? [Ummmm…. yes.]
Wow! What a surprise! A secular Jew spits on the Catholic Church. Again. Captain Golden Hats was offensive, but I’m frankly surprised that the now-standard Nazi Pope theme wasn’t trotted out.
Beating up Mother Church is like mugging my dear grandmother. She’s real big, real old, and real slow. She is an easy target. So this kind of filth is cutting edge? It is speaking the truth to power? Oh how very brave you are, Mr. Stewart! (And I’m sure there’s nothing that tickles folks’ funny bones like a gen-you-wine real live nun playing straight man [?] to four minutes of good old-fashioned poopoo-kaka profanity-laced infantilism.) Pathetic.
“Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered.”
Actually, I think that Jon Stewart often goes to the heart of an issue and does so with good humor. There is no doubt that he is unsympathetic to Christianity, so I am not surprised, though disappointed when he lashes out…especially with such bad taste as in this bit.
But Sr. Simone! She revealed her true self in this video. Sadly, she comes off as one who has let her new found celebrity go to her head. This was such an overreach that I think she may have even offended some of her fans. Let’s hope that it backfires.
Very sad to watch. This seems like one of the worst cries for help yet. I wonder how many in his audience will think she is an actor, though.
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“Did anyone happen to notice that this was satire?”
frjim4321, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t qualify as satire. Satire is grounded in truth, which is
where it gets its comedic power. Will Farrell’s portrayal of President GW Bush on SNL was
satire because he took the president’s habit of mangling the english language and ran with it.
It was funny because it was based in truth. Gulliver’s Travels was satire because Swift was
pointing out ridiculous aspects about the society he lived in, and it was successful satire
inasmuch as it was true.
But this? No one who has been following the CDF’s investigation of the LCWR would honestly
say that the reason Rome is concerned is because the sisters of the LCWR are doing too much
for those who live in poverty. Sr. Simone lies, and basing this skit on a lie takes it from the
realm of satire to the realm of a smear-job. Michael Sean Winters is right to call her out on it.
Imagine for a moment that Mr. Stewart had chosen to do a skit about how ‘all Catholic priests
molest little boys’. You and I both know that’s a foul, blackguard lie. Would such a skit be
satire? And what if a real cleric actually played in the skit, and repeated the lie for laughs?
Would you still be so complacent? Would your response still be to ask if everyone was aware
it was just satire?
As explained in WIkipedia Jon Stewart is not from the Catholic branch of the Stewarts. Rather, he was born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz and changed his name.
Errrp! Woops, sorry Father, I just puked in your combox. Wow, she obviously has way too much time on her hands. She must not be looking in enough places to keep herself busy with “helping the poor”.
Speak up, Sister
Is Sister Simone willing to speak out on moral issues like abortion?
At 0:58 “It’s not our mission.”
But criticizing the pope?
At 2:59 “The Gospel says it’s our job to speak up.”
Sr. Simone’s willing participation in this shows not disobedience over a matter of conscience–which might be valid–but contempt for the Magisterium and for her vows. All the more for the crudity of the “interview.”
I didn’t watch the video-this computer tends to go slow or crashes when it comes to that-but I don’t need to get aggravated this early in the morning.
It’s also another reason why I don’t have a functioning TV. I use it only to watch tapes and DVDs, either from my own collection or from the library. But if the set WAS working, and I saw this on it, I’d either hit the mute button, change the channel, or throw a pillow at the screen.
Bravo to the Irish pit bull Bill Donohue, and to the Catholic League, for exposing this ‘nunsense’!
@ ipadre: I’m with you! ‘Sister’ Simone is going to have this bite back at her, indeed!
Her appearance on The Daily Show may prove to be Sr Simone Campbell’s “You didn’t build that” moment.
This is a good example as to why I have taken a pass on that second collection that comes up once a year for retired “nuns”.
Stewart is using Ms. Campbell for his own ends. She, now flattered with the attention and the coverage she is receiving , and naive enough to think she really matters enough to be on TV, is stooping to an all time low, where her 15 minutes of fame have become more important to her than any shred of truth or decency she had left. The TV powers that be , who now throw her a few crumbs of attention, will soon lose interest and discard her. But the time will come when she will have to answer for all this. Or perhaps she doesn’t believe that anymore either.
Clinton, I totally agree with you on Stewart but even more, the difficulty of praying for someone like this sad woman. Jesus always gives us challenges that, if we choose to work on them, ultimately help ourselves and others. Who ever said it would be easy? :)
I haven’t been impressed with the media’s coverage of the so-called LCWR crackdown. A large part of this is liberal bias against the Church. But a similarly large, if not larger, part of this is that our bishops have not done a great job of explaining the crackdown, and the sisters have done a good job of lying about the nature and cause of the crackdown. I don’t expect secular liberal Jewish comedians and journalists to understand the theological errors for which the LCWR is being disciplined. I do expect (or should be able to expect) the sisters to not lie about it – to be honest that this is because of the sisters actually preach a different theology.