A surgeon afraid of the sight of blood

Yet another e-mail from the tiny minority of Western humanity who do not share in the adulation of John Paul II:

Mr. Auster,

Greetings to you, sir. I have read your page, View from the Right, for only a short time, and you may count me among its enthusiasts. I have only a brief response to your latest series of comments regarding this eminently strange Pontiff, on the occasion of his passing. I am an orthodox, shall we say traditionalist, Catholic whose misgivings about John Paul II have only deepened over time.

Do not be discouraged by those who would question the timing of your post—a silly criticism if ever there was one, when the man and his legacy are precisely the topics which have emerged, naturally and predictably, in the wake of his death. The sheer lack of reflection, particularly among conservative Catholics, is simply astonishing. John Paul II was an absolutely tireless promoter of the “poison of subjectivism,” to borrow a phrase, if not in his theological musings (though even here there is some cause for concern) then at least in his abominable ecumenism. His obsequious pronouncements regarding Islam have been mentioned by others on your weblog—but let us not pass over the effusions of praise he managed for one Yassir Arafat, the old Jew-hating Muslim thug and mass murderer. His legacy is such that one now reads of such horrors as a Catholic Cardinal publicly invoking the name of Allah, the Merciful.

But you know this. Where I disagree with you is in your most recent post—in which you question whether America’s fate or Europe’s actually matters to neoconservatives. Publications such as National Review—the heart of neoconservatism on earth, I think we can agree—have no love for the Saudis, and every interest in seeing America triumphant. Positing that a Muslim takeover of America wouldn’t “matter” to them is going a bit further than necessary to make your point.

All in all, though, you have your sights set on the correct problems, and understand their fonts [sic] better than most any Catholic one is likely to meet. [LA note: Thank you!] Self-promoting globe-trotters like John Paul II often manage to reap the adulation of the masses—but in his particular instance, it has come at the expense of the Masses, which are a pathetic, bloodless shell of their former selves. It should bother and indeed terrify us that John Paul II is so beloved of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and humanists. He is so beloved because he is in many ways a perfectly abject distillation of the pious squeamishness of our age. Like a surgeon afraid of the sight of blood, he could not even bring himself to perform his duties, lest the damned be scandalized by his efforts.

Thank you.
Sage M. McLaughlin

LA replies:

That last image by Mr. McLaughlin, about the surgeon afraid of the sight of blood, is just great, and is worth returning to again. I thank him.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 05, 2005 12:20 AM | Send