A great piece about St. Damien of Molokai and a couple thoughts about AOC

Not long ago, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY 14 – aka AOC), said that a statue in the US Capitol of St. Damien of Molokai, was part of a “white supremecist culture”.

What a foolishly ignorant thing to say.    AOC didn’t have the slightest clue about the person of St. Damien or the person who made the statue.   At least I hope she just stuffed her foot in her mouth out of sheer ignorance.  If she really did have the slightest clue that would be worse.

After pro-abort AOC’s idiotic remarks Fishwrap had a longing puff piece about her, dreaming about the day when the Church will be just like her.  “AOC is the future of the Catholic Church“!

She also dislikes St. Junipero Serra, which suggests that she doesn’t know anything about him, either.

Today Chad Pecknold has a piece at First Things about St. Damien.  HERE   It is worth your time.

I think that everyone who happens to run into AOC in person should simply say to her first off, “St. Damien of Molokai sends his best regards!”

Meanwhile, please, NY-14, I implore you.  Vote for an expired Metro card before of this one!

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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

  1. Kathleen10 says:

    I knew she would be bad news. She is interesting looking and young, so it was a given young people and women would like her. She dresses well. America has become the Land of Superficialities. We want our politicians to be attractive. They aren’t going anywhere if they aren’t. Yes I know she’s kind of odd looking, like a preying mantis, but so are lots of models. The Marxists know the truth doesn’t matter anymore. Whatever she says is true and there’s nobody to counter her. People like her are extremely dangerous and so are the ignorant hordes who support her. We should all contribute to the best person opposing her. She’s a lot like Obama, coming out of nowhere, rocketing to the top, based on nothing. No doubt powerful entities behind her.

  2. teomatteo says:

    I’d rather get my information about St Damien of Molokai from a pineapple than AOC.

  3. MundaCorMeum says:

    Let’s just say that “angry” is a bit of a euphemism for how I felt after reading about this ignorant statement by AOC. The people of Hawai?i — whether Catholic or not — have great respect and aloha for our saint. My family has a particular attachment to him, as he lived with my great-great grandparents while he built St Joseph’s church on Molokai. Saint Damien, we pray for your intercession that the veil of ignorance that clouds the minds of those like AOC may be lifted and they may know the truth.

  4. Charles E Flynn says:

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vs. St. Damien: The Deeper Issue
    Sadly, what is happening in our country and culture is a politicization of race whereby progressives—ironically, in the name of “diversity”—judge people by the color of their skin.

    Dr. Paul Kengor August 6, 2020.

  5. xavier says:

    Father

    I suspect she’s an ignoramus and proud of it. She’s a typical archtype of someone who’s uncurious and indifferent towards knowledge but has opinions!
    She just recites the useless prayers our Lord warned about.
    xavier

  6. WVC says:

    If you want to know the saddest thing about the whole affair . . . the Fishwrap, for once, isn’t wrong. Based on the current trajectory, AOC is, in fact, the future of the Catholic Church in America. Folks who think otherwise should probably take notes on how authentic Catholic folks have tried to survive in the Middle East and, until the Vatican sold them up the river, in China.

    This is what 50+ years of terrible liturgy, terrible catechesis, lukewarm if not malevolent or outright evil bishops and cardinals, and private schools and universities that, much like their secular counterparts, taught children to hate their history, their heritage, and to question their Faith. This crop has been growing a long time. It’s about harvest time.

  7. monstrance says:

    AOC forgot to mention St Damien’s “white privilege”.
    The delicate little flower wouldn’t have lasted 72 hours on that island.
    I read somewhere that he struggled with his priestly studies and was barely accepted.
    It is an awesome work of our Heavenly Father where the least become the greatest in the Kingdom of God.

  8. The Astronomer says:

    I was going to post something about AOC and a Box of Rocks, but I was warned that I could be sued for defamation of character…by Rocks everywhere…

  9. hwriggles4 says:

    @WVC:

    Your comments about higher education IMHO hit the nail on the head. I don’t know how many pundits have said that the university where AOC received her economics degree should refund her money because she learned very little.

    When I talk to friends and family about college, I often say that many colleges today are businesses and the student is the customer. Through my experience as a college student, my opinion is any school can be a “party”, but in the end it’s what the student can make of it. Making good friends, having balance between athletics, academics, social, and spiritual are keys to college. Part of the problem with education (I was guilty of this myself) is many of us got away with “cramming” a day or two before in school (including high school and college) and after a week only remember what grade was made and not much else.

  10. mike cliffson says:

    Along the línes of Charles Flynn above, only moreso
    This is t o further Totalitarianism on a skincolour basis. Cf Mark Steyne on. eg Eastern Europe as,was.
    Lenin’ s who- whom is to the ONLY QUESTION,the only cr iterion
    The guy is describable as white and male.Thats enough. We can take Native Hawians as the the whom,so just by existinglet alone being there, the Saint is evil.
    Folks describable as white are now a minotity a under 16 USA. divide and rule . In the very near future, polarize and divide people enough by skin colour and you re home and dry.
    Truth and Holiness are worse than irrelevant in this horribly practical mentality.AOC is just a youngish example.
    ” Yes but he did good” is the sort of response they want.They should get
    The truth :
    Because he was with Jesus and in Jesus and Jesus was was in him , he lived and died for the other, outcasts.
    You are atacking almighty God and his holy church in the person of this alter Christi and canonized Saint.,etc to get untramelled power,weild it , and keep it.
    Fasting
    Prayer.
    They may kill you for these. The anger they showis not theirs.

    Cf Btw la pasionaria.She loved god as a teenage girl and had great gifts.

  11. Charles E Flynn says:

    Prof. Anthony Esolen has a new piece about this topic. The email message from The Catholic Thing has a blunt synopsis:

    Anthony Esolen: To say Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the future of the Church is stupid. She is not the future of anything that has a future, because she is stupid.

    Ideology Makes You Stupid
    By Anthony Esolen

    SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 2020

  12. Semper Gumby says:

    Sterling article by CC Pecknold.

    “The future of the Catholic Church is Jesus Christ, to whose image Damien was perfectly conformed. It is Christ who offers us true resistance—resistance to sin and error—and true reality.”

    St. Damien of Molokai gave his last full measure of devotion in the vineyards of the Lord. By contrast, a 11 November 2019 photo of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and “Sasha Velour”:

    https://www.twitter.com/sasha_velour/status/1194125094190223360/photo/1

  13. Semper Gumby says:

    Charles E Flynn: Thanks for your two comments and article recommendations. The Astronomer’s humorous comment appears to blend in with the title of Esolen’s piece. The Kengor quote regarding progressive racists recalls a recent Christopher Caldwell article.

    In his article, Caldwell takes a look at Boston University history professor Ibram Kendi, author of this year’s best-seller ‘How to Be an Antiracist.’ Ok, you may ask, how? Kendi will tell you how: Fight racism with more racism, and you’re racist if you disagree.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/08/10/ibram-x-kendi-prophet-of-anti-racism/

    Caldwell: “[This book] is the credo of an activist, not a scholar. Undisciplined in its arguments, audacious in its demands, ‘How to Be an Antiracist’ bears the hallmarks of the ethnic-studies departments from which it arose.”

    Fighting racism with more racism means Kendi will fit in just fine in the Jurassic Park of “progressive” racism, among the other velociraptors such as Margaret Sanger, Malcolm X, Adolf Hitler and Presidential candidate Joe “You Ain’t Black” Biden.

    There is a track record of socialists and racists walking together, or as this photo shows, sitting together:

    “George Lincoln Rockwell and members of the American Nazi Party attend a Nation of Islam summit, 1961”

    https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/george-lincoln-rockwell-attend-nation-islam-1961/

    Going a bit further back, during WW II the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and other Islamists visited Nazi Germany on numerous occasions. The various delegations met with Hitler and visited concentration camps, during one visit Himmler presented the Mufti with a sword.

    https://www.histomania.org/photo/9266/78_amin_al-husseini_the_grand_mufti_of_jerusalem_salutes_bosnian_muslim_troops_of_the_13th_waffen_ss_handschar_division_1943

    And:

    https://www.cufi.org.uk/spotlight/photographs-emerge-of-palestinian-grand-mufti-visiting-nazi-camp-in-1943/

    All this, from Ibram Kendi to Margaret Sanger to Joe Biden, brings up a quote by historian Michael Burleigh: “The Third Reich became the first state in world history whose dogma and practice was racism.”

    Which brings us back to the Paul Kengor quote on progressive racists mentioned at the beginning:

    “Sadly, what is happening in our country and culture is a politicization of race whereby progressives—ironically, in the name of “diversity”—judge people by the color of their skin.”

    So, in 2020, “progressives” are on the march again, with different clothing and vocabulary, and regressing to the same old playbook.

    A curious footnote, from Christopher Caldwell’s recent article on Ibram Kendi:

    “As the first fires were being lit in Minnesota, Boston University announced it would offer Kendi, 38, the most prestigious tenured chair at its disposal, making him only the second holder of the Andrew W. Mellon Professorship in the Humanities. The chair has been vacant since the death of the novelist and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel four years ago.”

  14. Tom Ormon II says:

    I had to click on the link to NCR, and got an ‘ever-so-accurate’ popup assessment. [Darn those clairvoyant algorithms :-( ]

  15. Semper Gumby says:

    A 9 July 2019 Washington Free Beacon article on AOC’s then-Chief of Staff, Saikat Chakrabarti:

    AOC Chief of Staff Wears T-Shirt Supporting Nazi Collaborator

    “Bose met with Hitler in 1942, later praising Hitler’s rule in 1944, saying that India’s government “should be a synthesis between National Socialism and Communism.” According to the Times of India, Bose “fancied himself as a world leader like Hitler and Mussolini.””

    https://freebeacon.com/politics/aoc-chief-of-staff-wears-t-shirt-supporting-nazi-collaborator/

  16. Semper Gumby says:

    AOC is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. DSA was formed when a faction of the Socialist Party of America (1901-1972) later merged with another radical leftist group. The DSA is influenced by, among others, Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Communist who wrote about “Cultural Hegemony” and influenced the later “Long March Through The Institutions” movement.

    At the DSA convention last summer, the DSA’s Libertarian Socialist Caucus passed a resolution establishing a “National anti-Fascist Working Group”:

    https://www.twitter.com/dsa_lsc/status/1157725300895170565

    Also a member of DSA is Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). In February 2019 Tlaib delivered the keynote address at a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) meeting in Chicago. CAIR is problematic.

    On 8 August CAIR-Oregon tweeted in support of Antifa and the Marxist BLM. This particular “nightly protest tweet” appears to have been deleted, but can be seen via Andy Ngo here:

    https://www.twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1292354515044143105?p=v

  17. JesusFreak84 says:

    AOC already had her primary and won it, and winning the primary seals November in her district, so the only way that used Metro card gets its day is if NY DOES lose a seat in the Census (everyone else, fill out yours to ensure that happens!) and her district is eliminated because she’s ticked off the NY Democratic Party to THAT degree.

  18. Semper Gumby says:

    From the travel diary of future president John F. Kennedy, who travelled in Europe in 1938-39 (at that time JFK’s father was FDR’s Ambassador in London) and again in the summer of 1945 after the surrender of National Socialist Germany. Two sources:

    “John F. Kennedy – Among the Germans. Travel diaries and letters 1937-1945”

    “Prelude to Leadership: The Post-War Diary of John F. Kennedy”

    Pre-war:

    “The Nordic races appear to be superior to the Romans.”

    “The Germans really are too good – therefore people have ganged up on them to protect themselves.”

    Post-war (after JFK visited Berchtesgaden and the nearby Eagle’s Nest- several months after its capture by the “Band of Brothers”):

    “Who has visited these two places can easily imagine how Hitler will emerge from the hatred currently surrounding him to emerge in a few years as one of the most important personalities that ever lived.”

    “Hitler had boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him.”

  19. Semper Gumby says:

    “Last year, Sandia National Laboratories—which designs America’s nuclear weapons—hosted a 3-day reeducation camp for “white males,” with the goal of exposing their “white privilege” and deconstructing “white male culture.”

    “I’ve obtained exclusive whistleblower documents revealing that last year, the national laboratory sent its white male executives to the La Posada luxury resort to undergo a mandatory training called “White Men’s Caucus on Eliminating Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in Organizations.””

    https://christopherrufo.com/national-nuclear-laboratory-training-on-white-privilege-and-white-male-culture/

    “Critical race theory is spreading rapidly through the federal government. Last week, a whistleblower sent me a trove of documents about a divisive “diversity training” at the Treasury Department.”

    https://www.twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1283472620558536710/photo/1

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