Lou Dobbs No Pope Fan

I am going to do another post on the somewhat sad comments Congressman Tom Tanceredo made after I make a few more posts more in line with the now concluded Papal Trip Theme "CHRIST OUR HOPE".

As I am writing this Lou Dobbs is again ranting on this topic and being even worse. He has now laid his cards on the table and he has quite a radical view of Church Vs State As I listen at his latest rant, I am reminded of the following from the Papal Mass Homily at Yankee Stadium:

Praying fervently for the coming of the Kingdom also means being constantly alert for the signs of its presence, and working for its growth in every sector of society. It means facing the challenges of present and future with confidence in Christ’s victory and a commitment to extending his reign. It means not losing heart in the face of resistance, adversity and scandal. It means overcoming every separation between faith and life, and countering false gospels of freedom and happiness. It also means rejecting a false dichotomy between faith and political life, since, as the Second Vatican Council put it, "there is no human activity – even in secular affairs – which can be withdrawn from God’s dominion" (Lumen Gentium, 36). It means working to enrich American society and culture with the beauty and truth of the Gospel, and never losing sight of that great hope which gives meaning and value to all the other hopes which inspire our lives.

So we off respect Lou Dobbs go jump in a creek.

The real problem here is that Lou Dobbs who has more radical views on immigration than people realize(It is not just about illegals) is not too thrilled with the Catholic Churches views. We can see that in the rant he did the night before.

Here is transcript from the 17th and I hate to say this is light from what I just watched on TV

DOBBS: Pope Benedict XVI tonight on the second day of his visit to this country, continuing to criticize the United States and Americans. The Pope today blasted U.S. bishops for the way they handled the scandal of sex over child abuse in the Catholic Church. But the Pope then suggested part of that blame for that scandal lies in the nature of American society.
(No the Pope did not say that. The Transcipt of these Speech was widely available even before he finished the Speech. In fact Media(CNN) had it before he even gave it. Pope Benedict is not just isolating American Society as his Speech so clearly showed. Link here. The portion that Dobbs is referring to is:
If they are to achieve their full purpose, however, the policies and programs you have adopted need to be placed in a wider context. Children deserve to grow up with a healthy understanding of sexuality and its proper place in human relationships. They should be spared the degrading manifestations and the crude manipulation of sexuality so prevalent today. They have a right to be educated in authentic moral values rooted in the dignity of the human person. This brings us back to our consideration of the centrality of the family and the need to promote the Gospel of life. What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today? We need to reassess urgently the values underpinning society, so that a sound moral formation can be offered to young people and adults alike. All have a part to play in this task – not only parents, religious leaders, teachers and catechists, but the media and entertainment industries as well. Indeed, every member of society can contribute to this moral renewal and benefit from it. Truly caring about young people and the future of our civilization means recognizing our responsibility to promote and live by the authentic moral values which alone enable the human person to flourish. It falls to you, as pastors modelled upon Christ, the Good Shepherd, to proclaim this message loud and clear, and thus to address the sin of abuse within the wider context of sexual mores. Moreover, by acknowledging and confronting the problem when it occurs in an ecclesial setting, you can give a lead to others, since this scourge is found not only within your Dioceses, but in every sector of society. It calls for a determined, collective response.

Who really disagrees with this? Also Benedict is just not talking about "American Society". He has spoken on this theme before. It is widely acknowledged that the Church's problem is not so much a paedophilia problem but a ephebephilia problem. With advertising and Porn sexual zing very young teenagers and treating them as objects perhaps just perhaps there is a connection to which we see in the rest of society. In fact that is a common theme we hear by secular experts.

Pope Benedict said, "What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" That was not his only direct criticism of the United States today. The Pope also said he detects anger and alienation, increasing violence, and what he called a growing forgetfulness of God. Well, joining me now, three of the best political analysts in the country. We'll find out how the pope is doing. We'll be talking with .(Ditto on the above quote I posted. Also is it not a consistent theme of Lou Dobbs show that Americans are getting very angry and alienated? Does he not talk about violence. In fact does not Lou Dobbs promote this observation for various political points? So is Lou Dobbs saying that answer is to the above is not "Christ Our Hope" but the Lou Dobbs hour on CNN)

LOU DOBBS TONIGHT contributor, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist from the "New York Daily News," Michael Goodwin, Democratic strategist, Julie Roginsky, and New York bureau chief, "Washington Post," Keith Richburg. Good to have you all here. Well Julie, let me start, how's the pope doing? Could he insult anybody else? (Notice Dobbs is not citing Pope Benedict's praise on American Catholics, Americans as a whole, and America as an state. All this of course happened all over the place)

(LAUGHTER)

JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I don't want to insult His Holiness and I know he's infallible, but on this one I got to be honest, there's a big gap for me between watching violence on TV and molesting little kids.(I think Benedict's point as to this as well as medical experts on the topic is much more deep than that)

DOBBS: Yeah.

ROGINSKY: So, I don't where exactly he's coming up with that, but he's the pope and I'm not going to criticize him.


(LAUGHTER)

Dobbs: All right, Keith, he seems to have no reluctance criticizing us? Do you have some forbearance here, or would you think that he's exactly correct in his assessment?

KEITH RICHBURG, WASHINGTON POST: Well, you know, again, I'm not going to go criticizing the pope because I know where that will lead, straight down. But, you know, you can watch violence on television in Italy or any place else in the world these days. I don't think it's a uniquely American phenomenon.

DOBBS: Right.Well Michael, I don't want to put you in jeopardy of either perdition or hell, itself. So, I will gamble this, may I?

MICHAEL GOODWIN, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Go right ahead.
(Here is the very outrageous part)

DOBBS: The idea that the pope would come here and criticize the United States this way, I think is, first of all, bad manners. And I don't care in you're infallible or not. So that's bad manners, and No. 2, it's absolutely, out of all proportion with the world scale. This is the most welcoming, nation, the most generous nation on the face of the earth and for this pope to have this attitude and to make these comments, is in my opinion, absolutely repugnant.(see above !!!!!
Where does the Pope criticize the United States in terms that Dobbs is trying to portray. He did not and in fact went out of his way to heap praise. However if you were not following the Papal visit and just relying on Dobbs you would come to the opposite conclusion. The real problem as I mentioned above is that Lou Dobbs is not thrilled with the Pope's views on immigration. He is also not thrilled that the Pope has not given him ammunition to use against him and thus the reaching or perhaps just downright deception. In the Bishops Speech and else where he talks about generous American is and welcoming. Why Dobbs ignore this? Dobbs is repugnant not the Pope)


GOODWIN: Well, so I think...


DOBBS: So, I'm on my way to Hell before you.


GOODWIN: I'll get out of your way. Yesterday, I believe, the pope did say very nice things about America, about its history of welcoming people and I...



DOBBS: So, we should have made it a one-day visit.

( I hope all Christians got that)



GOODWIN: Well, I think he's getting even today. But, I think also, it's important to remember who the audience is. And obviously the audience, the prime audience, is the Catholic church and the members, many of whom, I think, are looking for strong leadership in the church or...

DOBBS: Couldn't he have sent out an e-mail to the church membership if he wanted to do that? Because he's being covered on every cable channel, all electronic news, print -- I mean, come on.
(How about this Lou. How about every time you misrepresent the Catholic Church or you go on a Rant you send out a email to your viewers and just leave it off the air. Fair Right? Again Dobbs concerns are really that the Holy Father might be listened too and this might conflict with Dobbs other positions. I would be very curious to look at the ratings. I am willing to bet that Catholic and Non Catholics were tuning in great numbers to have a break from the same ole political stories they had to endure for now months.)

GOODWIN: Well, but that's going to be covered around the world. There are 65 million Catholics in the United States, so almost 20 percent of the population of the United States is catholic. And the pope, I think, is really trying to reach them all with a forceful message about what the church stands for, the morality behind the church. So, I think that's what he came here to do.

ROGINSKY: I'm going to join you in hell, I'm going to just say this. He's the pope and the buck stops with him. He's the head of the church and if there is a sex -- child molestation scandal that's been going on and it was going on for quite a long time and the Catholic church knew about it and didn't do anything about it, ultimately it was up to him and his predecessor to have done something about it. So, for him to criticize I think is a little hypocritical.


DOBBS: Yeah, it seems to me that one is going to reach to the level that he did, you have to have some moral standing for it and what has been happening to the church, and I'll speak only of the Catholic church in this country for the last decade, its seems to leave open his standing, cleaning up his own house. I don't know if there's a scriptural reference there, but it seems to me that glass houses, stones, whatever it may be, it's just bad manners. We can always go back to that one. Let's talk about bad manners. Julie, the debate last night.

There is only point that I can find that Pope Benedict went into length about possible parts of American Society that might present a problem. Unlike Dobbs that just makes stuff up I will post this question put by an American Bishop:

1. The Holy Father is asked to give his assessment of the challenge of increasing secularism in public life and relativism in intellectual life, and his advice on how to confront these challenges pastorally and evangelize more effectively.
I touched upon this theme briefly in my address. It strikes me as significant that here in America, unlike many places in Europe, the secular mentality has not been intrinsically opposed to religion. Within the context of the separation of Church and State, American society has always been marked by a fundamental respect for religion and its public role, and, if polls are to be believed, the American people are deeply religious. But it is not enough to count on this traditional religiosity and go about business as usual, even as its foundations are being slowly undermined. A serious commitment to evangelization cannot prescind from a profound diagnosis of the real challenges the Gospel encounters in contemporary American culture.


Of course, what is essential is a correct understanding of the just autonomy of the secular order, an autonomy which cannot be divorced from God the Creator and his saving plan (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 36). Perhaps America’s brand of secularism poses a particular problem: it allows for professing belief in God, and respects the public role of religion and the Churches, but at the same time it can subtly reduce religious belief to a lowest common denominator. Faith becomes a passive acceptance that certain things “out there” are true, but without practical relevance for everyday life. The result is a growing separation of faith from life: living “as if God did not exist”. This is aggravated by an individualistic and eclectic approach to faith and religion: far from a Catholic approach to “thinking with the Church”, each person believes he or she has a right to pick and choose, maintaining external social bonds but without an integral, interior conversion to the law of Christ. Consequently, rather than being transformed and renewed in mind, Christians are easily tempted to conform themselves to the spirit of this age (cf. Rom 12:3). We have seen this emerge in an acute way in the scandal given by Catholics who promote an alleged right to abortion.



Is this bad manners? Is this not what various Protestant and Evangelical Preachers(absence the Vatican II Reference) say? Why is Dobbs so offended that Th Pope is giving Frank advice to his Bishops that overlook the American Flock? Why is he offended that the Pope is trying to get Catholics to Think Like Catholics? Why does he Care? Why did he spend all this time on a meeting that was purely Catholic Business in nature and nothing to do with his interaction with the U. S Govt as Head of State?