Robert Spencer: Juan Cole is as ignorant of Catholicism as he is of Islam

In "Juan Cole and Ivory Tower Anti-Catholicism" in Crisis Magazine today, I discuss the Leftist propagandist and pseudo-scholar Juan Cole's howling ignorance of Catholicism, and his similar abysmal willful blindness regarding Islam:

Hand-in-hand with the Hollywood portrayals of Catholic priests and devout believers as evil, stupid, cruel, or unhinged is the academic Left’s long-established hostility to the Church. But the academic setting of its critiques doesn’t make them any less false and cartoonish.

The recent controversy over public funding of contraception, as well as Rick Santorum’s presidential candidacy, have given rise recently to a good deal of tendentious and ill-informed comment on the Catholic Church. Ironically, one of the most outstanding examples of this faulty and false commentary appeared in “Informed Comment,” a blog written by Juan Cole, a Leftist history professor at the University of Michigan. Cole clearly intended his piece, which he entitled, “Top Ten Catholic Teachings Santorum Ignores,” to be revealing of Santorum’s supposed hypocrisy; all it actually reveals, however, is Cole’s ignorance, and that of the Leftist academic establishment of which he is a part....

Exhibit A for Cole is this: “So for instance, Pope John Paul II was against anyone going to war against Iraq I think you’ll find that Rick Santorum managed to ignore that Catholic teaching.”

In this Cole commits the basic error of assuming that everything a pope says about any topic binds the consciences of Catholics. In reality, of course, it’s essential to distinguish between prudential advice of a pope and the actual teachings of the Church. Cole could have consulted the Catechism of the Catholic Church to discover the tenets of the faith, and he wouldn’t have found a single article of faith pertaining to the war in Iraq....

Cole assumes that American Catholics are bound by every position that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops takes. He is obviously unfamiliar with the words of Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, as recounted by Italian journalist Vittorio Messori: “The future Benedict XVI told me that among the unforeseen and contradictory effects of Vatican-II was the diminution in the importance of bishops, which on the contrary, the Council wished to re-emphasize. In fact, however, the autonomy and the freedom itself of a bishop over his own diocese were caged in and co-opted by the establishment of national bishops’ conferences. These conferences, Ratzinger pointed out, have no theological basis; they are not part of the Church structure as are parishes, dioceses and the papacy. They are simply institutions, of recent origin, which were created for practical reasons but which have gradually created a weighty structure of their own, becoming in effect ‘little Vaticans.’”

The point here is not the merits of the various positions that Cole thinks Santorum should endorse but is not doing so. Nor is it Santorum’s positions in general. The point is that Cole, a respected university professor, is basing the bulk of his case for Santorum’s hypocrisy on institutions of recent origin that have no theological basis and no actual authority. Cole’s abysmal ignorance of the nature of authority in Catholicism is analogous to his ignorance of Islam. In both cases, Cole manifests a surprising misapprehension of what constitutes authoritative teaching and what doesn’t. In the case of Islam, he downplays or outright denies the texts and teachings of Islam that exhort believers to violence and supremacism, and presents as reliable Western Muslim scholars who dissemble about those teachings and their authoritative character.

It is an indication of the highly politicized state of academia in America today that a scholar as sloppy and careless with the facts as Juan Cole could hold a professorship in an American university. It is apparently less important to his superiors at the University of Michigan that Cole’s analyses are accurate than that he hold the acceptable politically correct opinions: a warmly positive stance toward Islam, despite its institutionalized violence and oppression of women and non-Muslims, and a hostility toward Catholicism, even as dimly as Cole understands it....

There is more.

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salah | April 9, 2012 7:53 AM | Reply

This guy knows something about Catholicism..
34 thousand billion watts, Michael Voris.
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.ca/2012/04/he-is-risen-il-est-ressuscite.html

Chris | April 9, 2012 8:42 AM | Reply

“So for instance, Pope John Paul II was against anyone going to war against Iraq I think you’ll find that Rick Santorum managed to ignore that Catholic teaching.”

My understanding is that if he declared that the war was was wrong as a Papal Bull then indeed all Catholics should follow it. Papal infallibility would mean that this was in effect the word of God decreed through the pope.

As it was just given as advice this does not come into play and Catholics are not obliged to follow it - though most would give it serious consideration.

venerablebede | April 9, 2012 9:48 AM | Reply

Chris, a Papal Bull is a diplomatic communication between the Pope and a Catholic head of State. There hasn't been a Papal Bull since about 1825 because there are no longer any Catholic heads of state.

Papal Infallibility only occurs when the Pope defines a doctrine in matters of faith or morals on behalf of the whole church, ex cathedra (from the seat of Peter. This has only been used twice once around 1870 to define Papal Infallibility and secondly in the 40s or 50s to define the Assumption of Mary.

The reason why Papal Infallibility is so unpopular with Liberals is because it limits the power of the Pope and he cannot change any old doctrines, for example the Pope could never declare that there were five people in the holy trinity.

What you are thinking of is a Papal Encyclical a letter from the Pope to a bishop or a church. However no one every reads them or takes any notice of them.

R X | April 9, 2012 10:38 AM | Reply

Juan Cole does not sound like he necessarily has a strong grasp of Catholic concepts and fundamentals.

But cannot one posit the question as to whether Robert is necessarily on sound ground either?

Catholic teaching regarding abortion and contraception clashes with our American development of Constitutional jurisprudence. If Islamic teachings are expected to be modified to conform to the Constitutional strictures we presently enjoy, then doesn't the Catholic Church have to change its teachings as well in order to be in compliance with our present-day Constitutional norms?

Women cannot receive holy orders in Catholicism nor Eastern Orthodoxy. Are these normative teachings expected to be modified to eliminate any hint or suspicion of sex-based bias or 'oppression of women'?

And what about slavery? The U.S. use to have constitutionally approved slavery before it ended it.

AJack | April 9, 2012 11:56 AM | Reply

Hitchens appropriately described Cole as "minor nuisance on the fringes of the academic Muslim apologist community."

Incidentally, Cole is married to a Pakistani and has been behaving like one for quite a while - yes,the same kind of Pakistanis, 76% of whom would be thrilled to murder apostates, and 82% of whom are anxious to stone adulterers to death.

Apart from his apparent dual loyalties (to Islam versus the US), Cole has been accused by both Joffe and Karsh of openly anti-semetic tendencies.

Further, it is quite possible that Cole's nomination for tenured teaching at Yale was rejected due to the bigotry he displays in his blogs.

From http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/may/21/20060521-102935-2861r/

[...one Yale professor notes, “He hasn’t written a book of original scholarship since 1998, and while he’s produced a lot on his web site, blogs lack fundamental cornerstones of academic research, such as footnotes, sources, and critical review.” (Mr. Cole could not be reached for comment.)

...His writings are marked by an endless cavalcade of errors. Flagrant, jaw-dropping errors. He regularly makes bold claims backed by precious little substantiation. And hell hath no fury like a Juan Cole scorned; ad hominem is his weapon of first resort. ]

Kepha replied to comment from R X | April 9, 2012 12:15 PM | Reply

Take this from someone who is neither Muslim, Roman Catholic, nor Eastern Orthodox, but a hard-core fundamentalist Presbyterian.

The difference between revealed doctrine and US Constitutional jurisprudence is that the latter understands that it is fallible. One Justice of the Supreme Court held that a dissent is an appeal to the wisdom of a later generation. And, indeed, Justice J.M. Harlan's 1896 dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson in which he speaks of a "color-blind Constitution" has become the received wisdom of US Constitutional jurisprudence sine Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS (1954).

At present, there are quite a few of us who believe that the US Supreme Court of the 20th and 21st centuries can be and has been just as stupid, narrow-minded, arrogant, and foolish as the gentlemen who gave us Sanford v. Scott in 1857 and Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. It has come to believe that any theistic community needs to bow to the infallibility of those who believe that God Himself needs to fear the U.S. Government rather than the other way around. This is a sentiment with which Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Jiang Zemin, and the Kim family of Pyongyang would find quite congenial, but which the founding fathers of the US government would have found horrifying--that is, if Jefferson was sincere in saying, "I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just".

Further, our current jurisprudence on theological matters--and, for that matter, your suggestion that our blog host is in error and as against our Consitution as any Muslim--is a far cry from Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, in which he, for all of his failure to join a church (we'll ignore his regular attendance of the New York Avenue Presbyterian church with Mrs. Lincoln for the sake of argument), expresses a profound sensitivity to the presence of a God far greater than the government which Lincoln headed in its awareness that the purposes of the Almighty may be quite different from those of the two sides that habitually called on Him during the Civil War. Indeed, I hear very strong echoes of the Prophets of Israel in that speech.

Hence, we fight against the Roe v. Wade decision. If the right of a woman to become an ordained cleric of any religious denomination, regardless of its beliefs or hers were to become a "right" discovered in the "penumbras" of the Constitutional text, a lot of us would fight that, too.

Religious liberty in America was not designed to allow the Christian minority to convert to the views of the statist/materialist majority while protecting the latter from any challenge to its viewpoint from the latter. Powell's dissent in Abington Township shows a residual awareness of this when it reminds the rest of the Court that the Founders didn't intend to establish "secular humanism" as the national religion, either.

We today are up against a government--and,speaking as a teacher,an educational system--that is very often in profound rebellion against much of what the founders believed about the relationship of the individual to the state. Their differences with their heirs are far more profound than their having accepted slavery (at least the Southern Founders). The US founding documents reflect the belief that a government is a compact between citizens and government, in which one of government's jobs is to protect the lives and liberties of the citizens. These rights, according to the Declaration of Independence, and a line of thinking deeply embedded in Western Christendom, are not grants by the state, but given by the Creator--and the state's failure to respect that can be the cause of just rebellion (as in 1776, so in 1638, 1689, etc.).

Funky Child | April 9, 2012 12:56 PM | Reply

As a Baha'i, Juan Cole's story is a particularly excruciating one for me to contemplate. He did very honourable work in the late 1980s and early '90s to fight against illiberal and authoritarian interpretations of Baha'i scripture on the part of the Universal House of Justice, who are sort of like the 'Pope' of our Faith. I agreed with him strongly in his viewpoints then -- he was fighting for against a prohibition on top-level female leadership, and against a ban on active community participation by partnered gay couples. As your standard centre-lefty, I thought he was absolutely right in his work back then and it hurts my heart as a Baha'i that he and his small group of dissidents lost that fight.

But what he's gone on to do is positively reprehensible. Our Faith recognizes Muhammad as a prophet of equal station to Jesus and Moses (as it does Buddha, Zoroaster and Krishna), and our teaching advises individual Baha'is against anti-Muslim prejudice. It also holds that the Qur'an is a Divine document, and that its truest possible interpretation is humane and nonviolent. But it doesn't call for wholesale denial of human rights violations by Muslims or whatever Muslim scriptural basis there may be for these. And Professor Cole's denials and evasions are so extreme that, coupled with his super-harsh anti-Israel rhetoric, it fills me with a profound contempt for him. I wish he'd spent his post-Baha'i years doing something other than apologizing for cruelty and barbarism.

This is a serious problem among Baha'is -- we are very philo-Islamic, having been born out of Ithna'Asheri Shi'a Islam the way Christianity was out of Judaism or Buddhism out of Hinduism, and the Founder and all subsequent leadership have had a warmly positive attitude toward Muhammad. Even when we're being persecuted by Muslims, as we are in Egypt, Morocco, Indonesia, Afghanistan and Iran, we don't ever speak ill of Muslims or Islam in even the smallest particular. Which is noble, on the one hand, as an example of Christian-style 'turning the other cheek', but it puts us at a supreme disadvantage in trying to accurately assess the real reasons why we're so vociferously attacked.

We also generally aren't supposed to participate in contentious or partisan political debates, so you'll find that Baha'i readership at a place like this is rather small, and it's probably inconcievable that a Baha'i Simon Deng or Joseph Nassralla would emerge to speak eloquently on the experiences of Baha'i persecution under Islam. We're far too peaceful and accommodating for something like that. But, speaking as a lone individual Baha'i who knows the truth of these matters, I thank you very much for your work, and I regret very much that one of my latter-day Baha'i heroes has proven so deserving a target of your ire in that pursuit.

gravenimage | April 9, 2012 1:05 PM | Reply

Robert Spencer: Juan Cole is as ignorant of Catholicism as he is of Islam

Hand-in-hand with the Hollywood portrayals of Catholic priests and devout believers as evil, stupid, cruel, or unhinged is the academic Left’s long-established hostility to the Church. But the academic setting of its critiques doesn’t make them any less false and cartoonish.
......................................

True. Of course, Catholics are fair game. Unlike Muslims, they don't threaten to murder their critics, no matter how unfair their charges may be.

And despite the fact that so many minorities and immigrants are Catholic, it has never had the same "multicultural" cachet as Islam has for the PC crowd. Too many Catholic Irish and Italians, I guess...

It is an indication of the highly politicized state of academia in America today that a scholar as sloppy and careless with the facts as Juan Cole could hold a professorship in an American university. It is apparently less important to his superiors at the University of Michigan that Cole’s analyses are accurate than that he hold the acceptable politically correct opinions: a warmly positive stance toward Islam, despite its institutionalized violence and oppression of women and non-Muslims, and a hostility toward Catholicism, even as dimly as Cole understands it....
......................................

So true. I'm frequently shocked by the poor level of actual scholarship among academics these days. But, as with Juan Cole, so often ideology trumps all...

R X | April 9, 2012 1:16 PM | Reply

Interesting points, Kepha, though I fear that there still remains a host of problems and difficulties with this subject matter. Without going into detail, I don't think the premises of the nation are particularly Christian, nor that 1776 was simply some noble uprising against tyranny. I think one could forgive committed Christians of the late 1860s, who, having witnessed what had just concluded, must have wondered whether George III wasn't so bad after all.

I'll leave you with this. If the Constitution and its attendant jurisprudence is as potentially fallible and flawed as you recognize, it seems dubious to expect adherents of Islam or any other religion to have to modify their religious beliefs to conform to it.

R X | April 9, 2012 1:21 PM | Reply

Funky Child,

Informative to hear from a Baha'i adherent such as yourself. This may be asking much, but could I ask you to leave an email address on this thread, with which I could contact you directly for more discussion about your religion?

LemonLime | April 9, 2012 1:55 PM | Reply

R X writes:

If Islamic teachings are expected to be modified to conform to the Constitutional strictures we presently enjoy, then doesn't the Catholic Church have to change its teachings as well in order to be in compliance with our present-day Constitutional norms?

ecosse14 replied to comment from LemonLime | April 9, 2012 2:40 PM | Reply

Fail to see why a church as old as the Church of Rome has to change its beliefs and doctrines just to fit in with shiny new modern fads. If RCs don`t like the teachings of the Church then as i understand it they are free to leave without death sentences etc. I don`t believe it is any countries right to interfere with a religious body unless it is inimical or hostile to that country. I do not believe that Christianity comes into that category or Judaism Buddhism or Hinduism.In fact I can only think of one large religious body that fits that description but its name escapes me at the moment.

LemonLime replied to comment from ecosse14 | April 9, 2012 3:07 PM | Reply

ecosse14,

Something happened on the way to the Forum. After I quoted R X in my comment above, I then typed my commentary beneath that quote; but now I see my commentary has vanished.

Here it is restored:

If Catholics were ramming planes into our buildings, blowing up our trains and other public places, shooting our people on our soil, and plotting further horrors and terrors some of which would be far worse than 911, then I'd be bothered to worry about Catholicism. Since they're not, I'm not.

ecosse14 | April 9, 2012 3:13 PM | Reply

Hi I have read your posts for months and i know what position you take. My apologies I was realy replying to the comment youy pasted. No offence.

classicus replied to comment from R X | April 9, 2012 3:27 PM | Reply

How could you have misunderstood Mr. Spencer? You’re being deliberately contentious as well as fallacious in your thinking. Moreover, if you had read what venerablebede has stay, you wouldn’t be confused about Robert Spencer’s points and the broad sketch of what makes for authority with regard to the Pope. Venereablebede’s prose is well-written, easy to understand, and true. There is nothing difficult in it.

You write, "But cannot one posit the question as to whether Robert is necessarily on sound ground either?

No, one cannot fairly posit such a question; not unless one is determined to reason as if one were a blind man reading Braille through an oven mitt.

The Church has long understood the difference between spiritual and temporal power; and the Church also knows what its proper role is in a civil society. Catholics are not attempting to impose their teaching on others. Nor are they trying supplant the U.S. Constitution with Canon Law. You know this or you should know it. In contrast, committed Muslim supremacists want to impose Sharia everywhere they can; and many of them have said so publicly. Their desire to see Sharia in force over all other law, is justified, they believe, by what is written in the Qur'an and other Islamic texts. Juan Cole ignores this, if he ever knew it.

Your argument is a red herring; one of the many fallacies of relevance. By the looks of your writing, it seems as if you must have a Ph.D. from Cole and Company to misunderstand things so completely.

P.S. Read Kepha’s post again if you’re still confused; though I don’t think you really are, because your posts are like a troll's. A troll, very like a troll.

R X | April 9, 2012 3:28 PM | Reply

LL,

So do I understand you correctly, that you have no qualms with any Christians pursuing and succeeding in enacting bans or tightened restrictions against abortion, embryonic stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, contraception, pornography, alcohol, dancing, Sunday commerce, free speech, secular governance, etc. so long as they're not plotting nefarious and sundry undertakings against planes, trains, and automobiles?

classicus | April 9, 2012 3:31 PM | Reply

@Kepha
Χριστός ἀνέστη!

Good to see you again. I hope you had a joyous Easter.

ecosse14 replied to comment from R X | April 9, 2012 3:38 PM | Reply

This is a total red herring. Abortion is a separate issue as many people of many faiths believe it to be state sanctioned murder ; therefore many people oppose it and would restrict/ban it. The other issues are mainly moral and should be left to the individual either to do or not to do.

LemonLime replied to comment from R X | April 9, 2012 4:10 PM | Reply

Christians can and may pursue attempts to change laws legally; but there is not sufficient likelihood they would succeed in succeeding with regard to the only things that concern me in your list (abortion, pornography (there's already way too much of it available on the Net anyway even for my liberal sensibilities in this regard), alcohol, dancing, Sunday commerce, free speech and secular governance) to worry me. The only way they could manage to succeed would be through violence; and that's not the way they roll. It is, however, the way too many Muslims around the world roll -- and their acceleration is only increasing in this regard.

R X | April 9, 2012 4:27 PM | Reply

You seem rather perplexed and somewhat ill-informed, classicus, so let's examine the facts and have you respond to them.

The Catholic Church teaches officially and essentially, infallibly, that abortion and contraception are grave sins that nobody may commit. Moreover, it is clear in Church teaching that governments are obligated to legally curb and curtail these evils for the good of society. That clashes with and contradicts our current American constitutional jurisprudence. What part of that is so difficult for you to comprehend? That's not trying to impose their teachings upon others? Of course it is. How about actually giving us a thoughtful studied response to it instead of glossing and gliding over it, desperately hoping that some stray insults will somehow do the trick?

The Church has long 'understood' its role in society and temporal/ecclesial distinctions? From your evidently secularized perspective? To put it kindly, you must be joking. Seriously, dude. Please remove your blinkers or whatever you're wearing. Please show me in the history of Catholicism from the 4th century to at least the middle of the 20th century where you come up with such claptrap. Why not give us a scholarly exposition of the 1953 Spanish Concordat and how you apparently think it is in full accord with our Jeffersonian hootenanny of a Constitution? That's not 1353 or even 1853, but 1953.

Not to mention taking a close look at some contemporary thinking among the Eastern Orthodox in places like Serbia and Russia, and Orthodox Jews in Israel, where we won't exactly find the most strident and ringing affirmations of a non-religious state among religious believers.

R X | April 9, 2012 4:41 PM | Reply

LL,

You say that Christians can and may attempt to change laws legally in accordance with their theologically grounded mores. So does that also apply to Muslims? If not, why not? And why is it allegedly some kind of stealth jihad when Muslims attempt to do it - legally and peaceably - but nothing near as nefarious as that when Christians attempt to do it?

You say that Christians have little prospect of success in any of these matters, through legal peaceful efforts. So it doesn't worry you. Does that then mean that if Muslims have little chance of success through strictly legal and peaceful efforts that you will not be concerned with their efforts either?

And if Christians somehow did have the prospect of success through legal, peaceful means, then what? I think I've noticed here the chattering with understandable nods about the need to take 'illiberal' action in order to perserve 'freedom', putting the ontological lie to the whole notion to begin with. What say you?

ecosse14 replied to comment from R X | April 9, 2012 4:43 PM | Reply

Oh dear oh dear; I thought Robert had made it quite clear that Papal infallibility only occurs when the pope speaks "ex cathedra" and this has only happened twice in 150 years.

ecosse14 replied to comment from R X | April 9, 2012 4:52 PM | Reply

I say we have unearthed another troll. I do not see owworking through democratic means to stop/restrict abortion can be compared to those people who will use violence to impose sharia law .

R X | April 9, 2012 4:52 PM | Reply

Oh dear, ecosse14, is right. I guess I will actually come to Robert's defense on this one: he said no such thing.

And papal infallibility isn't the only kind of infallibility in Church teaching. And infallible teaching isn't the only kind of teaching that makes a binding claim on Church members.

And while we're at it, your notion that somehow an alleged Constitutional right is somehow not that or not quite that when a lot of people from differing faiths disagree is a defective approach to our jurisprudence, that will lead to the unraveling of all sorts of minority rights if taking to its logical conclusion.

And your separation of abortion from other issues is simply arbitrary. If I can legislate in the bedroom regarding abortion, nothing wrong with legislating regarding contraception.

ecosse14 replied to comment from ecosse14 | April 9, 2012 4:59 PM | Reply

What i do or do not do in my bedroom concerns no-one unless I am infringing some-one elses rights. If you kill some-one in your bedroom then the law is obliged to stop you. Can`t see many police forces busting you for using a condom but would hate to see your bedroom after an abortion.

Annie Oakley | April 9, 2012 5:05 PM | Reply

"Cole assumes that American Catholics are bound by every position that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops takes."

Cole is an idiot. As an American Roman Catholic, I can safely say that the vast majority of us do not feel bound by the pronouncements of some foreign priest (no matter how elevated his station in life).

We do, however, view the rantings and pronouncements of the popes as a source of entertainment and an opportunity to test the limits of papal cardiovascular health. Are the papal blood vessels still nice and stretchy-bouncy, or is the pope's brain going to explode as we American Catholics relentlessly ratchet up his blood pressure?

The best summary of American Catholic attitude was uttered years ago by Left-leaning American priest and author Father Andrew M. Greeley. Father Greeley was being interviewed on a television talk show & was asked why American Catholics remain in the Roman Catholic Church if we are so disatisfied with the Vatican's leadership. Father Greeley thought about it briefly and then replied that we remain Catholics simply because it is so much fun to fight with the Pope. It's one of my favorite quotes.

Juan Cole and his ilk will never be able to understand that we just like to fight with the Pope. As a result, Cole will never be able to successfully predict our reaction to various papal edicts. We don't care too much what topics we fight about, either. I suppose that's only to be expected when you let so many Irish-Catholics into America (my family included). ;)

R X | April 9, 2012 5:06 PM | Reply

Ecosse14,

If you have a list of people in the United States who are attempting to impose Shariah laws through planned use of violence and law breaking, have you reported this to the authorities? If not, why not?

Also, when you assert the claim that what you do in your bedroom concerns nobody else, that may be the Americanist thinking of our time, but there are a number of religions, not just Islam, that would assert otherwise.

R X | April 9, 2012 5:09 PM | Reply

Annie Oakley,

Thought-provoking post. But don't count on being named a Papal Knight any time soon. :-)

LemonLime replied to comment from R X | April 9, 2012 8:03 PM | Reply

"You say that Christians can and may attempt to change laws legally in accordance with their theologically grounded mores. So does that also apply to Muslims? If not, why not?"

Because

1) too many Muslims mix seditious violence in with their Islamic needs for sociopolitical change,

and because

2) in addition too many Muslims who are not overtly involving seditious violence are not responding in good faith to concerns and questions about their uncomfortably high numbers of co-religionists who are

and because

3) there are mountains of evidence pointing to grounds in Islamic holy texts, Islamic legal texts, and writings and statements by influential authoritative mainstream Islamic clerics all of which indicate that the problem of #1 is systemic and instrinsic to Islam and not, pace the protestations of #2, extraneous to Islam.

None of these kinds of problems are manifested among Christians, or Hindus, or Buddhists, or any other religious group on Earth today anywhere near to the degree that even begins to distantly approximate the far outer edges of the far vicinity of the ballpark of even being remotely comparative to the problem manifested by Muslims in this regard.

Dan Weddle | April 9, 2012 8:09 PM | Reply

You've got to admit: The catholic church has more than it's fair share of perverts and child molesters.

Buraq replied to comment from R X | April 9, 2012 10:54 PM | Reply

Roll on the day, R X, when we can chew on our buttered toast and chat amiably about the number of angels on the head of a pin.

However, until the murderous ideology of Islam is defeated, your nit-picking about the differences between the US Constitution and Roman Catholic theology are superfluous.

Juan Cole's attack on the Roman Catholic Church is another barrage designed to blow a hole in our defences for CAIR and other fellow travellers of the violent ideology of Islam to storm through.

You'd do *yourself* a favor by manning the ramparts, not sneaking off behind everybody's back to prime Cole's cannons.

You're a clown!

Buraq replied to comment from Dan Weddle | April 9, 2012 11:08 PM | Reply

Yes, indeed. The RC Church does have quite a few 'child molesters', as you put it.

But this point reveals a world of a difference between Islam and the RC Church.

Child molesters in the RC Church can be prosecuted and put in prison for molesting a child, but Islam praises those who molest children by saying they are imitating their paedophile prophet.

There are no child brides in the RC Church, but there are millions of molested little girls all across the Islamic world.

You're a clown!

Dan Weddle | April 9, 2012 11:18 PM | Reply

yes, by all means, let's cover up the TRUTH about the catholic church so CAIR can't use it against us!
Are you all really so blind to the 100 year brutal, murderous rampage and crimes committed and then covered up (thereby condoned) by the catholic church? Where do you think the islamists learned their brutality?
Here is one member of the catholic church who is not afraid of the truth -One who is not willing to live the lies that many seem perfectly happy to cower beneath!

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/religious_controversy/chapter_23.html

Dan Weddle | April 9, 2012 11:27 PM | Reply

New Page 1

Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys

Catholic Priest's molestations of 200 deaf boys CONDONED by church. By covering it up, they condone it. There is a special place in Hell for these bastards!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html?pagewanted=all

Champ | April 9, 2012 11:54 PM | Reply

Troll Alert ...

Poster "Dan Weddle" is making similar noxious comments on another thread about Catholic Priests:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/04/chag-pesach-sameach-1.html#comments

Note his comment @ 7:57PM, towards the bottom of the thread.

classicus | April 10, 2012 12:20 AM | Reply

Champ, do you remember fairuzfan? He is back as RX.
You're right about Mr. Weedle. The trolls are here today.

Buraq replied to comment from Dan Weddle | April 10, 2012 12:24 AM | Reply

Nobody's saying cover up anything. In fact, let's have it all out in the open - Islam's approval of child molesting and the RC Church's condemnation of it!

You refuse to admit that child molesting is condemned by the techings of the RC Church, but promoted and lauded by Islam's imitation of their self-styled prophet.

So, you're a clown!

classicus | April 10, 2012 12:31 AM | Reply

[f]ariuzfan, you’ve returned under the name, “RX,” and you’ve brought your soggy old games with you. Well, well. You question Mr. Spencer’s understanding of Catholicism just the way Mr. - “more Catholic than anybody else” - fairuzfan did. You drag out references to pre-Vatican II documents that have nothing to with the United States, just as you did before when went by your old screen name.

In nearly every post you made before Roland Shirk banned you in February of 2011, you tried to cloud the issues, and bewilder others; and you are again attempting to confuse the Catholics who visit Jihad Watch.

You were a belly crawler then, and you’re a belly crawler now. (1)

I’ve sometimes wondered whether or not you are actually Imam Rauf. Your prose resembles his, and you seem as revoltingly unctuous and condescending as that dead-eyed Muhammadan liar is. I suppose you don't use your real name because if you were refuted by Mr. Spencer your reputation would be well damaged.

Everything you’ve written into the thread today is a red herring.

You write:

Why not give us a scholarly exposition of the 1953 Spanish Concordat and how you apparently think it is in full accord with our Jeffersonian hootenanny of a Constitution? That's not 1353 or even 1853, but 1953.

Why not? Because it’s irrelevant. The Concordat of 1953 was an agreement between Spain and the Vatican giving the Catholic Church privileges in Spain.

Hootenany of a Constitution? That’s an interesting word choice. You’re not from southwest Virginia or the Shanandoah, or anywhere in West Virginia or the Appalachians. There are very few Americans alive who would use that term in the sense that it was understood in the early 20th Century. You’re really stretching there Mr. RX.

You write to escosse:

if you have a list of people in the United States who are attempting to impose Shariah laws through planned use of violence and law breaking, have you reported this to the authorities? If not, why not?

And:

“Americanist” is another interesting word. Your language gives you away, just as it did before. Americans rarely use the word “Americanist.” It would be an unusual American who did; and while you are unusual, I don’t think you were born in the US. You're a naturalized American if you’re an American at all.

I also see that you've added the colloquialism, "dude" to your vocabulary. That’s a nice touch; you don’t sound quite as dry as you did before, but you’re going to need more than that.

Here you are in Jan. of 2010:

Although, I suppose, one can give 'Tom' credit for his deft little slick rhetorical tricks and sleights of hand like conflating and collapsing"radical Islam's war" into ideas like "Islam cannot be appeased". If bait-and-switch is an Army MOS, Tom should be instantly made a 4-star general.

And today:

How about actually giving us a thoughtful studied response to it instead of glossing and gliding over it, desperately hoping that some stray insults will somehow do the trick?

You don’t realize how much you reveal about yourself. Did you think that you wouldn’t be recognized? Doesn’t Teheran have any money to teach you people any tradecraft for your US operations?

[By the way, do you really know what an MOS is? Do you know that civilians who work in government agencies have similar classifications? Some of them read this site.]

You’re fond of alliteration and sibilants. They're poetic, sometimes giving a touch of the anguine; and with you, it seems like a matter of form matching content. They identify you.

On the day you were banned from JW, you attacked Roland Shirk as you attack Mr. Spencer now. Then, as now, you brought out your peculiar understanding of the Catholic Church. In this quote, you are trying to tie the Church and the State together again; you're also accusing Roland Shirk of being a liberal, and you claim that he will be in part responsible for the decline of the West:

"Nor can we predict happier times for religion and government from the plans of those who desire vehemently to separate the Church from the state, and to break the mutual concord between temporal authority and the priesthood. It is certain that that concord which always was favorable and beneficial for the sacred and the civil order is feared by the shameless lovers of liberty."

"I certainly see JW reflected in these apt words from Pope Gregory XVI's Mirari Vos, reflecting perennial and authoritative Church teaching. Time for us to renew what the West really stands for. Otherwise we may well be headed for serious and grave decline. And then, Mr. Shirk, it will be time for you to write about your own share of culpability."

Here is Roland Shirk on Feb. 7 of 2011, followed by John C. Barile:

RolandShirk replied to comment from John C. Barile | February 7, 2011 8:05 AM | Reply

Precisely true. And our patience has been exhausted. We shall respect fairuzfan's preference for an unfree press, restrictions of public opinion, and the silencing of heretics, by banning him forthwith.

John C. Barile | February 7, 2011 8:06 AM | Reply

Bottom line--fairuzfan merits contempt because he fundamentally distorts and misinterprets Catholic capital-T Tradition. This world belongs to Christ--purchased with His Blood--even so, Christ's Kingdom is not of this world, but of the next.

There is no need to address your obscurantism and your moral equivalency. You’ve been caught out as a previously banned poster. You haven’t changed a bit. Busted. Dude.

Be gone Muhmmadan, Teheranian fairuzfan, RX, Rauf, or whatever your real name is.

(1) See Paradise Lost, Book 9, lines 524-531.

Champ replied to comment from classicus | April 10, 2012 12:46 AM | Reply

Good catch, Classicus! Yes, I do remember fairuzfan ...hey thanks for the heads up.

Champ replied to comment from classicus | April 10, 2012 1:03 AM | Reply

Classicus ...

Here we have our beloved "Hugh" giving fairuzfan, aka RX, a much deserved spanking. Enjoy!

Hugh writes:

"Hard to know if he's one of those antisemitic Richard-Williamson Society of Pius X types, even further beyond the pale than Bishop Lefebvre (incidentaly, despite Lefebvre, I think there's a lot to be said for not jettisoning the Latin Mass, and I'm glad it's here and there coming back, on Robert Frost's aesthetic theory that "some mystery becomes the proud"), a real throwback and fanatic, or if he's merely a Muslim decking himself out as an antisemitic richard-williamson type. I asked two friends of mine, both supernumeraries in Opus Dei, and very much amused by the question, what they thought of this "fairuzfan" -- that is, whether they thought he was a Muslim masquerading as a "Catholic" or was indeed a Catholic of a peculiar kind, and the two of them came down on opposite sides of the question, one thinking he must be a Muslim and the other thinking he was merely one of those williamson clones (yes, I am aware that some people think everyone in Opus Dei is a fanatic, because Dan Brown has made many think so but, at least in this country -- and I know a few in Spain too -- it most definitely isn't so), the kind who are nostalgic for father-feeney, formerly of Central Square, in Cambirdge, and have a deep interest in denouncing Jews and Judaism, and who, therefore, have a natural interest in, and natural sympathy for, Muslims, as people who will not look askance, but welcome, their pre-existing mental condition that others will, among those in the educated Western world, any longer tolerate.

It really doesn't matter what "fairuzfan"'s background is; what is of note is the difficulty he has understanding American Constitutional Law and the history of its adjudication.. His understanding of the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses is crudely absolutist -- akin to those people who think that the guarantee of Free Speech is similarly absolutist, for they have never heard of any time, place, and manner restrictions, have never heard of the Holmes-Brandeis "clear and present danger" test, have never heard of the modifications and then the final jettisoning of that test with Brandenburg, and do not realize that interpretations of constitutional clauses and their application are not set in stone, not even in harlan-stone. His, fairuzfan's, view of the Tenth Amendment is simply bizarre.

If he felt like educating himself,he could. He could start, say, with the works of the late Professor Robert McCloskey, who wrote for the general reader, and who taught undergraduates at Harvard College -- taught them brilliantly -- rather than at Harvard Law School. You can still find his anthology of major Supreme Court cases and his discussion of them. He could go back further, to Corwin say, or Alexander Meiklejohn. He could read Alexander Bickel, at Yale Law School, a contemporary of McCloskey (who died, unforgettably and tragically, of a ruptured spleen). There is the great big book, Tribe on American Cosntitutional Law, written by him with a lot of help from a whole tribe of anonymous Harvard Law School students who considered it an honor to slave away, at slave wages, for Tribe), and then fairuzfan, if he wanted to -- I suspect he doesn't want to, anymore than he really wants to read about Islam from thsoe who are not simply apologists, but scholars or witnesses -- to bring himself up to speed and up to date with the shepardizing and searching for cases that in antediluvian pre-Internet days took forever, but now can be done with flying fingers and a subscription to Lexis-Nexis or WestLaw, or both.

Then he could find out where things stand as to both the Free Exercise and the Establishment Clause, though neither he, nor anyone else, can discover what the Supreme Court will accept as the definition of a "religion" because they haven't yet addressed that question. And Islam, that Total Belief-System, fairly begs to have that question answered."

Here @ 7:23PM on 3-10-2010:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/03/jihad-jane-arrest-raises-fears-of-homegrown-terrorists-but-no-one-really-wants-to-do-anything-about.html

Champ | April 10, 2012 1:11 AM | Reply

Hugh gave fairuzfan / RX quite a FEW spankings on that thread ...

Kepha replied to comment from classicus | April 10, 2012 1:44 AM | Reply

He is risen indeed!

Thanks for the greeting, even though as a Puritan, I do not follow the liturgical calendar. I hope you are having a blessed time, too!

Kepha | April 10, 2012 1:57 AM | Reply

I'm going to make another observation about Juan Cole, Islam, and modern American thinking.

Perhaps people like Cole are sympathetic to Islam because they've been raised as modern American statists, and recognize in Islam a similar kind of monster.

Islam is a state before it is a church. It's major crisis has been loss of supremacy briefly during the age of European colonialism and the abolition of the Caliphate, an institution that Muhammad ordained to carry on his work of conquest and plunder. What we're seeing today in the Islamic world is an attempt by Islamic clergy and masses to throw off the last vestiges of Kufr colonialism in the form of Code Napoleon-based laws imposed by either colonizers or modernizers and the idea that the human person is an individual before he is a member of some millet.

Similarly, since the early 20th century, many Americans, elite and otherwise, have grown tired of their experiment in self-government, and are looking to an omnicompetent state. However, as heirs of Marx, Feuerbach, Schopenhauer,the Wiener Kreise, and similar characters, they think they are abolishing God rather than replacing him with the state.

ecosse14 replied to comment from R X | April 10, 2012 3:03 AM | Reply

I am fairly unlikely to have a list of USA jihadists as i do not live in the USA and have never been there. You can rest assured that if any of the above come through my wee town in Scotland then you will be the first to know.

darmanad | April 10, 2012 6:05 AM | Reply

My, oh my - this thread has morphed more than most, from a comment on Cole's ignorance of Catholicism (and general lack of character) to an exegesis of US Constitutional law and comparative religion to a fascinating Sherlock Holmesian deduction regarding the true ID of RX. Wow! I do have a comment on all of this which follows shortly.

I'm no expert on Cole though I corresponded with him briefly when I invited him to publicly debate with RS (agreeing to underwrite his expenses). His reply was so supercilliously irrational that it just confirmed a lack of credibility demonstrated more amply by his factually flawed diatribes against Israel and Islamic apologizing. And what is with all the Omar Khayyam poetry translations of late. One wonders whether Cole has gone off the deep end. I submitted a "roses are red, violets are blue, Islam is weird, and so are you" comment consistent with his curious poetic erudition, but it wasn't published. I guess that's because as Mr Cole so supercilliously warns, he was editor of an academic paper for five years and expects contributors to have done their homework in order to have their comments published on his site. Of course, it helps if you refrtain from taking any position contrary to his.

I am passingly familiar with the US Constitution and by coincidence recently read Sanford v Dred Scott, Plessy v Ferguson (dissent included)) and Brown v Bd of Ed. Isn't wonderful that the founding fathers drew up a constitution sufficiently flexible to adapt to changing social mores as civilization develops? Quite unlike the Koran which purports to be infallible and immutable. It would have never gotten past Dred Scott.

I have no great interest in exposing the true ID of RX. I'm not sure I support banning the mnessenger unless it was an extreme case. I'd be more inclined to ban the message if it were appropriate.

Here's my comment. I don't give a rat's ass what the Catholic Church's official position is on jackshit. I don't believe in a supernatural, omniscient, omnipotent deity ala Christianity, Judiasm or Islam. God is a make believe friend for grown-ups, but as these belief systems help adherents deal with the human condition - mortality - I have nothing against them to the extent and only to the extent they do not actively harm others and infringe on commonly accepted human rights. Reasonable people can, in good faith, argue how to define "harm others" so, for example, there is acrimonious debate about abortion and the death penalty. Our (US) society's developing mores have led to the current legal status. I think the status of current law is fine. I will understand if you disagree.

On the other hand, I will not understand if you shoot a doctor at an abortion clinic. It is not right to enforce one's personal (religious) beliefs if it harms innocent others. While there may be some minor harms committed by strict adherents of the Christian and Jewish (and other) faiths, such harms pale in comparison to the harm being wrought by pious (not fantaical) Muslims. It's not even close. The core tenets of Islam are provide for a misogynistic, homophobic, theocratic society in which apostasy and blasphemy are punishable by death, which punishes pre and extra-marital sex with stoning death, one in which unelected religious figures trump decisions made by popular elected legislators. Islamic sharia law prescribes a totaliatarian belief system which mandates conversion and/or subversion of non-believers, one which mandates jihad to achieve such a "god-forsaken" society. Because of this Islam is a threat to human rights that have become accepted in modern society in a way that other religious faiths are not.

In conclusion, there appears in the April 5 edition of the New Republic Paul Berman's review of the book Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide by Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, (Oxford University Press, 448 pp., $35) which review appeares on line at
http://www.tnr.com/article/books/magazine/101716/islam-blasphemy-freedom-speech?page=0,0
I confess that I don't read many books these www. days and I won't get around to reading this one, but the review itself was incredibly informative and interesting. It should be read by as many people as possible and I have forwarded it to many in my electronic address book, even those who appear to have shunned me because of my outspoken views on the subject.
The first comment appearing in The New Republic on this review was tremendously incisive, and bears full repeating here, to wit:
The toughest thing in writing about radical Islam is to figure out a style of composition which allow readers, who don't want to acknowledge the gravity of the situation described here or are even hostile to being informed about it, to process the information given.
Berman does a superb job here. He is a master writer who translates difficult information into a language that can be easily assimilated.

RS also does a great job helping his readers grasp the key issues. Keep up the great work Mr Spencer. (Go easy on us "leftists" - some of us are on your side.)

Champ | April 10, 2012 10:59 AM | Reply

"I'd be more inclined to ban the message if it were appropriate."

And the only way to do that is to ban the messenger. I mean Hello!

classicus replied to comment from Champ | April 10, 2012 12:21 PM | Reply

Thank you for the links to Hugh Fitzgerald's posts about fairuzfan. I had almost forgotten about what a drubbing they were. After what Fitzgerald wrote, fairuzfan returned for more, like an obstinate theocrat and Pecksniffian moralist who is also a masochist. Oh, the pain he suffers for Islam.

RX-fairuzfan will likely continue his trollish behavior; throwing sand, bringing up red herrings, constantly trying to obscure and confuse, until, eventually, he is banned again. When that happens, I hope he'll be gone for good.

I miss Hugh Fitzgerald. I wish he still wrote pieces for JW. Occasionally, I read his work at the New English Review, but it's not quite the same.

Champ replied to comment from classicus | April 10, 2012 1:05 PM | Reply

You're welcome, Classicus; and good catch in spotting RX as ole fairuzfan; yeah it's hard to believe that he remains addicted to the hatred and lies perpetrated by islam and company. Like a bad, toxic drug, he just can't kick the habit ...

gravenimage replied to comment from Dan Weddle | April 10, 2012 1:46 PM | Reply

"Dan Weddle" wrote:

Are you all really so blind to the 100 year brutal, murderous rampage and crimes committed and then covered up (thereby condoned) by the catholic church? Where do you think the islamists learned their brutality?
................................

What utter crap. What "murderous rampages" have been committed by Catholics over the past hundred years? Specifics, please. Or perhaps they were "covered up" by the Church so thoroughly that we have never heard of them at all?

As for "islamists" being inspired by supposed Catholic crimes of the past 100 years, I can think of few assertions more ridiculous.

Instead, Jihadists regularly cite Islamic texts, the examples of the "Prophet" and his companions, and the blood-soaked spectacle of Muslim history as both justification and inspiration for contemporary atrocities.

gravenimage replied to comment from classicus | April 10, 2012 1:53 PM | Reply

Good sleuthing re R X, Classicus—I believe he likely is one and the same as Fairuzfan. Good posts from you and from Champ.

Champ, thanks for reminding us how Hugh Fitzgerald could absolutely demolish trolls who showed up here.

Stuart Parsons | April 10, 2012 2:20 PM | Reply

I thought we were jihad watching ? We appear to be trying to defend the indefensible. Islam is to say the least an unpleasant religion, Catholicism is much less unpleasant but Christianity in general is as false a religion as Islam.

While Christianity is peaceful and calls for one to love thine enemy, Jesus (like Muhammad) probably never existed and the Gospel stories are a rehash of the Osiris-Dionysus myths. There are many books on the subject. For example 'The Jesus Mysteries' by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy Spend a little of your treasure at Amazon books or some other bookseller.

May we now return to opposing Islam please.

LemonLime | April 10, 2012 3:23 PM | Reply

Champ,

Thanks for that old quote from Hugh -- it was as acutely pertinent as a laser-dot on the forehead of a troll!

LemonLime replied to comment from darmanad | April 10, 2012 3:33 PM | Reply

"...Paul Berman's review of the book Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide...I confess that I don't read many books these www. days and I won't get around to reading this one, but the review itself was incredibly informative and interesting."

In about 2002, I was impressed with Paul Berman's concern for and knowledge about "radical Islam" -- but that was mainly because I myself had not graduated along the learning curve sufficiently to see how Berman was perpetuating the hypothetical distinction between "radical Islamism" and Plain Old Islam. I hope in the last 10 years Berman has graduated along the learning curve -- or is it only we unpublished unacademic peons who have that strange, and (alas) still rather uncommon (though one would think, perfectly unremarkable and sensible) ability...?

classicus replied to comment from gravenimage | April 10, 2012 4:10 PM | Reply

I could be wrong; but even so, RX is still a troll.

Champ replied to comment from LemonLime | April 10, 2012 4:53 PM | Reply

You're welcome, LemonLime and Gravenimage! :)

dumbledoresarmy replied to comment from Stuart Parsons | April 10, 2012 10:06 PM | Reply

If you knew anything at all about Christianity - and if you had even a faintest grasp of what pagan Greeks and pagan Egyptians believed about the world, as opposed to what the Hebrews/ Jews believed about the world and god and humanity - you would never say anything so silly as to claim that Jesus is nothing but a rehash of Osiris and Dionysus.

*I* have some reading for *you*: David Bentley Hart, "The Beauty of the Infinite" in which among other things there is a sustained discussion of the radical difference between Christ and Dionisius. And there is more in his other book 'Atheist Delusions: the Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies" - which he should simply have called 'The Christian Revolution' - or even more radically, 'The Hebrew Revolution' - but never mind...

He knows the Gnostic texts. He knows the Biblical texts, and he *knows* early, early Christian history. And he is adamant that you simply cannot derive the core content of the Christian confession, from anything that was floating around at the time in the ancient near east and greco-roman world. Christianity enters that world like lightning from a clear sky.

You have to abstract from, ignore or deliberately remove everything that really matters in the Gospels and in Christian theology, in order to force that profoundly-Jewish rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth into the Procrustean bed of Greek and Egyptian pagan practice and belief. Just as it is fundamentally impossible to pretend that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Holy One of Israel, the I AM, is the same kind of thing as Zeus or Ra.

dumbledoresarmy replied to comment from dumbledoresarmy | April 10, 2012 10:22 PM | Reply

Small correction:

when I wrote "you simply cannot derive the core content of the Christian confession, from anything that was floating around at the time in the ancient near east and greco-roman world"

I should probably have clarified just a little, "you simply cannot derive the core content of the Christian confession, from anything that was floating around at the time in the ancient pagan near east and pagan greco-roman world"...for there is of course a deep continuity between Christianity and Judaism, such that people like the Romans at first assumed that Christians were just another variety of Jew (which, in a sense, they *were*, especially since all the original Christians - the twelve apostles and others - were Jews born and bred).

Champ replied to comment from dumbledoresarmy | April 11, 2012 12:23 AM | Reply

..."you would never say anything so silly as to claim that Jesus is nothing but a rehash of Osiris and Dionysus."

Brava, DDA! ...he either needs to educate himself about Jesus Christ or shut the hell up; since spreading falsehoods about Jesus will not be tolerated. The very idea!

Kepha replied to comment from dumbledoresarmy | April 12, 2012 6:07 PM | Reply

Excellent post, DDA. When I was young and foolish, the sorts of arguments you demolished seemed oh-so-intelligent to me. But, being misled by them for a season and then actually going to the Scriptures myself to examine things further, I found God gracious and my eyes opened.

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