Sean Forrest at the Boston Catholic Men's Conference

I'm speechless beyond, "What an asshole."

UPDATE: It's been pointed out that the Forrest speech was a minor part of the whole day, that his talk was not centered on the subjugation of women, that the Herald is playing headline games, and that it was 5000 men gathered to hear a variety of speeches, one of the best of which "[P]ulled no punches on homosexuality and gay marriage, on contraception...."

I retract my earlier nearly-speechless declaration.  I should have said, "What assholes."

UPDATE UPDATE: An outraged (presumably former) reader and fellow blogger is striking me from his blogroll for what he perceives as my Catholic bashing.  I answered him in comments, but I'll move my response up here: "Anti-Catholic? Nope. Anti-multiple extremist speakers urging 5000 men to subjugate their wives and deride homosexuals. I have no idea what the 5000 men actually thought about that, but to the extent they support those goals, then they're assholes, too."

    Does that make Catholicism bad?  Catholics assholes?  I don't think so.  That's certainly not my belief and it was not my intent to so imply.  It makes assholes assholes, whether they are Catholic, Muslim, or Jewish.

    As for Joe Sherlock's taking me off his blogroll, it's his blogroll; he will remain on mine.  Go give him a read, even if he hates me.

Comments

[Joe]

I was taught that the word "Catholic" means universal. So the Catholic Church is supposed to be the Universal Church, yet they continue to issolate people through the words and deeds of it's members and leaders. This guy isn't a priest or church officer, why is he giving a speach? And it they all home school their kids, who will pay tuition at all the existing Catholic schools? Or do they plan to rent them like in New York, and then dictate what can and can't be taught inside?

[Joe Sherlock]

"What assholes." That's your reaction to a religious conference where the Catholic Church's unwavering position on gay marriage, homosexuality and other teachings was affirmed? These are doctrinal issues, integral to the Catholic faith. You may not agree with them but where do you get off referring to believers as "assholes"?

I consider your posting to be anti-Catholic and defamatory. Shame on you. I'm removing your site from my blogroll.

Joe Sherlock
The View Through The Windshield

[carpundit]

Anti-Catholic? Nope. Anti-multiple extremist speakers urging 5000 men to subjugate their wives and deride homosexuals. I have no idea what the 5000 men actually thought about that, but to the extent they support those goals, then they're assholes, too.

[Shawn]

Catholic extremists have the right the make Taliban-like statements...we (the civilized people of United States) have the right to call them stupid. They are not assholes...assholes are not dangerous, they're just annoying. These people are plagues that are simmering in the dark parts of our country. We need to keep an eye on these dangerous extremists to make sure our country does not become a theocracy.

[Shawn]

It's funny that Joe was offended by our criticism of extremism instead of the extremists. I guess it's no different than the Muslims protesting a cartoon while they mock other religions in the same matter. It's a sad, sad world.

[Chris "reformed Catholic" Clarke]

I consider your post to be anti-Catholic. Thank you.

Not really as much as I would have liked, true. It contained no references to child molestation or building extravagant cathedrals in ghettos or "strangling the last capitalist with the guts of the last priest". But it'll do for now!

[eeka]

Here are a bunch of Catholics who support marriage equality. Clearly being homophobic isn't an integral part of being Catholic.

http://rcfm.org/petition/index.php

There are several Catholics who will be in our wedding. They haven't interpreted Catholic teaching to mean that they need to treat us, or anyone else, like second-class citizens.

[Josh]

Being Catholic (or Jewish, or Hindu, or whatever) isn't an excuse for bigotry. If bigotry is, as Joe Sherlock says, "integral to the Catholic faith," then Catholics of good conscience are faced with a hard choice - either toe the party line and accept criticism for standing behind asshole positions, or break with doctrine in the name of fairness and equality. It's no more anti-catholic to say that homophobia and sexism are stupid than it is anti-semitic to criticize stuff that the Israeli government does, so long as the criticism is substantive. Carpundit doesn't object to Sean Forrest *because* Forrest is catholic; he objects because Forrest is mean-spirited. Resorting to accusations of anti-catholicism is an easy way to avoid defending the substance of what Forrest said.

[JP]

Just for the heck of it, I'm about to blogroll you.

Because that's how I blogroll. Or something.

[Didymus]

The anti-Catholic responses here are pretty typical of people who strike first without getting the whole message. If you had bothered to see/listen to Forrest's talk and have any knowledge of how newspapers operate, you might have been able to offer an informed opinion.
The photo was used way, way out of context. And each of Forrest's points was chopped up by the writer (a female at a men's conference, by the way) to inflame every person who has an axe to grind against the Church. In fact, he bent over backwards to explain that this wasn't an opportunity for men to lord their authority over their wives.
Extremist? You're laughable. The Church has been teaching that for 2,000 years.

[Augustine]

Didymus is on the money. Only an anal orifice himself would make such harsh and absolute judgments of others based on the level of knowledge had by carpundit.

But when you've got an axe to grind like carpundit obviously does, who cares about getting the story correct before issuing condemnations and epithets?...sounds a bit like an *inquisition* mentality. Actually, no, that would be unfair....to the Inquisition!

Verdict first, trial later.