Off with their heads!

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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15 Responses

  1. jacobus says:

    “P.S. Andrew links yet again to this picture which makes Benedict appear to be hiding. It is at once a picture which evokes a sense of mystery and a sense that the pontiff must be concealing something sinister. And this argument isn’t at least partly about aesthetics?”

    Indeed, he often used to use this picture too:

    http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/12/what-benedict-a.htmlReport

  2. Josh says:

    I’m happy to give him the benefit of the doubt (shoddy journalism on the part of the New York Times or any mainstream news outlet isn’t real hard to swallow), but Levada is not exactly a disinterested party here himself.

    I’ll give Sullivan the benefit of the doubt, too, that he’d be after John Paul II as well, were that pope still alive and in power. If a lot of anger is falling on Benedict now, isn’t it sort of because he’s the pope now? And because, whatever his involvement in or awareness of the abuse cover-up, he (and the rest of the church’s defenders) probably could have apologized a lot better? I guess I sorta think when a child-abuse scandal rears its head, one’s default position ought to be “OH GOOD LORD I AM SO SORRY, SO SORRY, SO SORRY, WHAT CAN WE DO TO FIX THIS?”

    I mean, that’s the default position when you’re a restaurant manager and a server spills red wine all over a customer, and this seems like sort of a bigger deal.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Josh says:

      I agree very much with this.

      At this point, the only thing that will work is transparency.

      The Catholic Church is an opt-in dictatorship… it only works if people opt-in and those who have opted-in do not decide to opt-out.

      Speaking as a nihilist, this is a public relations disaster and they need to do some cleanup quick. The cover-up is keeping this stuff in the public light. They need to throw some bodies to the wolves and quickly!

      Speaking as an atheist who believes in a moral fabric to the universe, the Catholic Church is undermining not only itself but Christianity in general by treating this as something similar to a public relations event rather than by something evil that happened by its own agency (however removed from the Vatican itself the evil was). They need to say what happened, be honest about it, and quit acting like, say, Nixon would. Or Bush. Good Catholics need to not treat the victims like, oh, Juanita Broderick was treated. The whole right/wrong thing is very clearly delineated here and “damage control mode” is not only resulting in more superficial damage, it wouldn’t surprise me for a second if it was resulting in even more harm.

      And whether those screaming the loudest are screaming about it in good faith isn’t even friggin’ close to a concern yet.Report

  3. Francis says:

    “And this argument isn’t at least partly about aesthetics?”

    Nope, it’s about power and responsibility (and submission to civil authority).Report

  4. Joe Carter says:

    Furthermore, Andrew still has not yet addressed exactly how Benedict is responsible for the cases of abuse his accusers are condemning him for, and has glossed over entirely Benedict’s many contributions to the fight against sexual abuse in the Church.

    And he never will.

    I can’t for the life of me understand why people still take Sullivan seriously. Every position he takes is based on pure emotion. Sometimes he tries to add a post hoc coating of reason on his “arguments”—but its been a long time since he’s even done that.

    Seriously, aside from the fact that he still (inexplicably) gets a tone of traffic, why should anyone care what he thinks?Report

    • Josh in reply to Joe Carter says:

      Well, dude, I mean, I still think he generally makes a lot more sense than you.Report

      • Joe Carter in reply to Josh says:

        Um. . . do you even know who I am or are you just another Sullivan fanboy who believes its there role in life to attack anyone who besmirches their hero?Report

        • Josh in reply to Joe Carter says:

          Uh, Joe? The stuff you post on the World Wide Web? Everyone can read it. Even people who don’t know you! In fact, actually knowing you is not at all germane to the question of whether one thinks you make any sense. It might even sway the analysis if I did.

          But for the record, no: I actually stopped reading Sullivan regularly awhile back, because he wrote one too many things that just drove me up the wall—things that he was too emotional about, in fact! Assumptions, man. Come on. I really just think, based on my reading of him and my reading of you, that he tends to make more sense. That said, I jumped on you out of nowhere, and even here in the anything-goes Octagon that is the comment section, I’m not sure that was kosher. Sorry about that, seriously.Report

          • E.D. Kain in reply to Josh says:

            I’m not sure that comparing who makes more sense is very productive, actually.Report

          • Joe Carter in reply to Josh says:

            The stuff you post on the World Wide Web? Everyone can read it. Even people who don’t know you!

            Well, yes, I meant do you know me from reading the stuff I’ve written on the Interwebs, not do you know me in some existential sense.

            Now if you’ve read the stuff I’ve written and came to the conclusion that I just make no sense at all, then I can respect that. But since you gave no examples, I just assumed you were a Sullyfan (which are only slightly less rabid than Ron Paul fanboys).

            You don’t really need to apologize. I don’t mind getting sucker-punched in the Octagon if its a clean shot and from someone who is respectful enough to say “Yes I’ve read your stuff. You suck. Seriously, you do.” I don’t mind being accused of not making sense if someone is making it based on evidence.

            (I will admit, though, that the fact that you think Sullivan is off-the-charts emotional and yet I make even less sense is a bit disconcerting.)Report

            • Josh in reply to Joe Carter says:

              Philosophically I tend to agree with him, but I frequently take issue with how he presents his thoughts. And at one point about six months ago, he wrote something I found so intellectually dishonest that I just had to quit cold turkey for a long time; I don’t remember what it was. I read him every so often now.

              Anyway, thanks for saying I don’t need to apologize, but it was still a cheap shot, and I am genuinely sorry. Off to bed. ’Night!

              @E.D.: What? We’re only allowed to be unproductive on the Internet during normal working hours, like most people?!Report

            • Mike Schilling in reply to Joe Carter says:

              I’ve got to agree that Sullivan is over-emotional, and once he imprints on a hobbyhorse (e.g. Sarah Palin’s obstetric history), he can never climb back off it. Having said that, I value his honest revulsion for torture far above any of the “But 99, we have to torture prisoners– we represent all that is wholesome and good in the world!” rationalizations, no matter how intellectual they might be.Report

  5. Roque Nuevo says:

    “I have to wonder why the world so loved John Paul II, under whose watch far less was done to combat sexual abuse in the Church than has been done under Benedict’s watch.”

    That part of the world that was raped by Maciel did not love JPII. Neither did the part that felt any empathy at all for Maciel’s victims. Just the opposite: we (I’m included in this group) were disgusted by all the rampant JPII worship, which included bald-faced stonewalling the plethora of accusations against Maciel and protecting him by giving him a nice apartment at the Vatican where he could live out the days of his perverted life in peaceful “reflection”.Report