In today’s politically correct culture, marching in the establishment lockstep, not ability, is what gets you ahead. The mainstream media lionizes people not because of their particular acumen, talents or intelligence, but because they parrot the establishment line that the media wants the public to adopt: contempt for America, hatred for Israel, disdain for Christianity and the Judeo-Christian tradition, and endless justification for Islamic supremacists and jihadists.
A prime example of this, yet again, is the shallow and callow Islamic supremacist Reza Aslan, a Board member of a lobbying group for the bloodthirsty and genocidally antisemitic Iranian regime. Interviewed at the BBC about Obama’s meeting with Pope Francis, Aslan claimed that the “founding philosophy of the Jesuits” was “the preferential option for the poor.” Well, let’s see. The Jesuits were founded in 1534. According to the California Catholic Conference, “the popular term ‘preferential option for the poor’ is relatively new. Its first use in a Church document is in 1968 from a meeting of the Conference of Latin American Bishops held in Medellin, Columbia.” So Aslan was only 434 years off — recalling when he called Turkey the second most populous Muslim country, which was only about 100 million people off.
To be sure, the 1540 Constitution of the Jesuits does say that “since we know by experience that no life is happier, purer, or more apt to aid its fellow than the one most removed from all contagion of avarice, and close to holy poverty, and since we know that our Lord Jesus Christ provides necessary food and clothing for his servants seeking the kingdom of God, let each and all vow eternal poverty, and not to acquire any civil right, either personally, or for the maintenance or use of the society to any property, wherever situated, or to its income, but to be content with the use only of what is given them for meeting their own necessities.” But the vow of poverty, which the Jesuits have quite often honored in the breach, is not at all the same thing as the “preferential option for the poor,” which the California Catholic Conference explains involves making “economic decisions in an increasingly globalized free market economy. Every economic decision…must take into consideration how it impacts the dignity of the human person. Take the California budget, for instance. How does each decision impact the poor? Are they helped or made poorer? Do the rich gain more than the poor?” In other words, the “preferential option for the poor” is about governments forcibly redistributing wealth through taxation, which is a far cry from voluntary poverty.
So once again we see this arrogant, foul-mouthed clown not knowing what he is talking about. (Another “typo,” Reza?) Despite the fawning he constantly receives from the mainstream media, Reza Aslan is such an intellectually formidable scholar that he writes “than” for “then” and apparently thinks the Latin word “et” is an abbreviation. He writes “clown’s” for “clowns”; and refers to “the reincarnation, which Christianity talks about” — although he later claimed that one was a “typo.” In yet another “typo,” he claimed that the Biblical story of Noah was barely four verses long — which he then corrected to forty, but that was wrong again, as it is 89 verses long. Reza Aslan is less a “religious scholar,” in other words, than he is a marginally literate, unevenly educated charlatan with a talent for telling the mainstream media what it wants to hear. His big secret is that he is really not all that bright, and is in way over his head, asked to comment all the time on matters that are way beyond his competence — and he knows it, which is why he lashes out so ferociously against anyone who dares to challenge him.
Grant Gallicho at Commonweal seems to be on to Aslan, as he sarcastically refers to him as the “renowned scholar of Catholicism”: “Francis & Obama meet, opening singularity that sucks oxygen out of U.S. media,” by Grant Gallicho for Commonweal, March 27 (thanks to James):
This morning, renowned scholar of Catholicism Reza Aslan weighed in at the BBC, explaining that the “founding philosophy of the Jesuits” was “the preferential option for the poor,” that Jesus’ message on poverty was “about literally replacing the poor with the rich, of them changing places, if you will” (I won’t), that the pope “isn’t even preaching truly what Jesus was preaching…that the rich and the poor should switch places.” Aslan continued to regale listeners with his revolutionary hermeneutic of replacement: “The real power of this meeting comes from the fact that both men are interested in replacing values with politics.”
richard Sherman says
REZA ASLAN reveres the sociopath MUHAMMAD who PERSONALLY DECAPITATED 900 UNARMED JEWS in 627..I have no doubt he would have no problem emulating the sociopath MUHAMMAD if given the opportunity.
eib says
I don’t think he’s actually read the rules for the Jesuits.
Their interests and vocations are primarily academic and political. Jesuits have served several governments extremely well over the centuries.
virginia dare says
@eib..”Jesuits have served several governments extremely well over the centuries.” Yes, indeed, have served them evilly well as in the exposure a couple years ago of hundreds of Jesuits who were involved in decades of rape/torture/beatings of children put in Catholic orphanages in Ireland…yep, Jesuits…of Jesus, NOT!
But you needn’t go to Ireland to find pedophilic/sodomite/dopers, just go to Boston where Cardinal Bernard Law, a Jesuit, played musical Jesuit priests for decades..moving them from parish to parish when a parent came to him claiming kids being molested.
At that point, hush money was given the parents to STFU…and then the offending priest was able to go somewhere else in the state of MA to do the nasty/evil as in rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. Once the Shiite hit the proverbial fan, and it could no longer be ignored, Cardinal Law no lover of Law, had to sell his estate near Boston College to pay the millions of dollars in lawsuits…sadly the boys who committed suicide at the hands of evil perverts/gays/ could not bring back those boy’s lives. The Cardinal’s lovely punishment for this crime against humanity/children’s lives, would be to be granted a cushy post at the Vatican….the old boys network is alive and well in the land of hypocrites and evil vipers.
I would trust a Jesuit as far I as I would trust a moe male..both are on the devil’s page and rarely with GOD/holiness/goodness/truth.
RodSerling says
Aslan: “There’s really no such thing as just Sharia, it’s not one monolithic Continuum – Sharia is understood in thousands of different ways over the 1,500 years in which multiple and competing schools of law…”
1500 years? The were multiple competing schools of Islamic law since the early sixth century? Islamic law is older than Islam itself? Always learning new things from Reza!
RodSerling says
typo “There were…”
Tradewinds says
First, it’s 1400 years. There was no Islam until the 7th century.
Second, there’s no such thing as “islamophobia.”
Third, look at Aslan the Muslim Clown!
JamesonRocks says
I was educated at a Jesuit university and trained in a Jesuit seminary. I’ve met Reza Aslan and he continues to confirm my initial opinion of him – He’s an asshole with ears…
mortimer says
Reza Aslan is egregiously wrong. The Jesuits were founded to defended the primacy of the pope of Rome, a political, not a moral goal.
Reza Aslan has a pathological infection of Islam. This means being a pathological liar and foul-mouthed lout. This is normative Islam, since it conforms to the amoral, opportunistic standards of Mohammed, a pedophile and a pirate. Reza Aslan worships Mohammed as the partner of Allah.
The Jesuits as well as the Quakers can be credited with rediscovering the Golden Rule and restoring it to pre-eminence in Christian morality. The Golden Rule is entirely absent from Islam because it is incompatible with Islam’s concept of eternal slavery. Aslan is in favor of slavery as are all Muslims, otherwise he would leave this amoral death cult.
Travis says
“founding philosophy of the Jesuits” was “the preferential option for the poor,”
Bulls**t, it was AMDG, Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, for the greater glory of God.
The man has never set his foot in a Jesuit school, what an ***hole.
Travis says
LDS
I bet Reza Aslan doesn’t know what that means.
Medina says
Here is an excerpt of a biography of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits (no admirer of Islam):
“Early on during Ignatius’ time of conversion, he continued to struggle with his
past as a soldier. One such occasion occurred after hearing a Muslim man speak
disparagingly of the Blessed Mother, after which as a soldier for Christ, he
considered killing the man. He was determined to journey to the Holy Land in
order to visit all of the holy shrines of Christ’s life as well as convert those of the
Islamic faith. In February of 1523, Ignatius journeyed to the Holy Land, relying on 5
the Providence of God, as he begged alms from others along the way. Taking a
donkey from Jaffa to Jerusalem, Ignatius fully intended to spend the rest of his life
with the express intention of converting the Muslims. Upon visiting all of the holy
shrines, Ignatius became so excited and enthusiastic about converting Muslims that
he was eventually asked by the Franciscan guardian of the Holy Land to leave, lest
he be kidnapped and held as a ransom or even killed. Ignatius eventually worked
his way back to Spain by 1524, where he would eventually come to grips with his
need for further education. “
Carolyne says
I wonder if Islan has come to grips with his need for further education.