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Some of you may already have seen the YouTube video posted first by Mark Shea and then by Fr. Z in the last few days, showing a crazed Evangelical (presumably) coming into a Mass and shouting about how everyone there was going to hell. Mark Shea said he was “impressed” with the congregation’s cool response. Many of the people who left comments also reported being moved by the people’s “loving response” to the hateful diatribe. I have to say that the vibe I was getting from the congregation wasn’t so much one of overflowing love. It was more along the lines of: “huh?”
My husband was incensed that nobody got up and firmly showed the gentleman to the door. I guess I’d tend towards that view, especially once the man started badmouthing the priest. Would we sit passively while someone showed that kind of disrespect to our family? Then we shouldn’t let them do it to our priests and our Holy Mother Church.
Having the congregation stand up and sing hymns (as they do at the end) wasn’t such a bad idea, though unfortunately, from the opening strains, it sounded like they were about to break into a nice, mushy rendition of an OCP “Alleluia.” (You could even see the people lifting their hands up into the air.) Surely “Lift High the Cross” would be more appropriate to the occasion? (Or how about, “Long Live the Pope”?)
I’d like to see what would happen if the same visitor came to a Traditional Latin Mass. If you’ve assisted all your life at a typical Novus Ordo, you can see where the bewildered “how in the world could we possibly have caused offense?” reaction would come from. You might get something a little firmer from Trads.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
“I’d like to see what would happen if the same visitor came to a Traditional Latin Mass.”
I’m with you Clara. Jesus did not start singing hymns, he drove the “money changers” out of his Father’s House. We need to display such courage to our sons and daughters lest another generation of effeminate Catholicism will come into existence.
It was a total Novus reaction.
Even with the priest saying, “just someone try and get his license plate, but don’t confront him.”
It was a feminized response for a feminized version of Catholicism.
Most properly nurtured trad congregations (not fly-by-night 1st and 3rd Sunday indult situations) would have had a dozen or so men jump to their feet, drag that guy out, and beat the snot out of him.
Being a First Degree Knight of Columbus of some physical girth, I’d have been out of my seat in a nano-second…in fact, about six months ago I left the choir loft and flew down the steps to usher out an obvious mentally upset man…you’re right, it was a Tridentine Mass!
This might be the single dumbest and least Catholic post ever to show up on this blog. Shame on everyone involved.
As for JSP and his “masculinized” Christianity. Real nice, and very Christian of you to accuse the vast majority of Catholics of being sissies. Do you really think that the proper, Catholic response to an intrusion by a mentally unstable individual is to “beat the snot out of him?”
At my trad mass (in St. Paul, MN), I’d like to think that we’d do the right Catholic thing – and that is to calm him down and seek out help for him. Obviously, we’d involve the police, but we also have a great Catholic social services program, and I’d like to think that we’d seek out help via those programs, too. Nobody – NOBODY – would try to physically assault him. And if anybody did, that person would no longer be welcome at our mass. Helping the less fortunate, the downtrodden, the confused and broken: That’s a Catholic response. That’s a trad response. Compassion for those less fortunate for us – including the mentally unstable.
As a long-time reader of this blog, I really am disappointed at the tone of this post. It is SO unkeeping with Catholic traditions.
Well, Hulkster, I’m not recommending putting the guy in a wheelchair, but there seems to be plenty of precedent for a firm response to attacks on sacred things. I don’t know exactly how we should fit mental instability into moral philosophy, but one way or another it does seem plain that this man was willfully doing the devil’s work. Of course we should have compassion on sinners, but we also need to protect the dignity of the Church. And in fact, these really aren’t in tension. A firm response can serve a pedagogical purpose for the sinner also. What did that man learn from his little escapade at the local Catholic parish? That Catholics are a bunch of sissies who clam up and do nothing when someone starts attacking their most sacred things? For someone to jump to his feet in horror and reply, “You are standing mere feet away from Christ’s own Body! Show some respect!” would make much more of an impression, both on the man himself, and also on the minds of any onlookers. And after that physical removal would presumably be the next step. God gave us a spirited nature for a reason.
I don’t know which Catholic traditions you’re thinking about, but I can think of a number of saints who I’m pretty sure would not have sat passively in their pews on such an occasion. St. Ignatius of Loyola? St. Louis de Montfort? If you had been in the temple on the day Our Lord threw the moneychangers out, would you have chided Him for unnecessary harshness? Just something to think about.
Indeed, my wife is too kind. I agree that there would not be reason to “beat the snot” out of him, but notwithstanding my general distaste for JSP hyperbole, I seriously doubt he would actually do that. Nonetheless, the fellow in question ought to have been bodily removed from the nave of the church, with appropriate physical violence if necessary. It is simply a mistake to think charity is opposed in all cases to violence.
Interestingly enough, Clara and I will soon be joining St. Augustine’s, which is, I assume, the parish to which you belong. I have a hard time believing that there is no one there who would be properly disposed to deal with the situation.
Before the police were called some roughing up would be called for. There’s no reason to believe that this man was sick or mentally retarded. He was just evil. He was an enemy of Christ invading a holy place.
The Levite priest would have cut him to pieces. And they weren’t protecting the Body of Christ, just some bread.
All I’m saying is we work him over a little with some Gitmo tactics before the cops arrive. It would give some satisfaction for the crime made against God (yes, even considering that this was a Novus worship site), it would teach him a lesson, and stand as a message to his brethren.
I’m trying to think about how you’d go about “calming down” a person like that, and not much is coming to mind. He looked ready for a fight (a verbal one at the least), and I seriously doubt that a soothing, “Let’s take it easy now, buddy” would have had the desired effect. If he’d been in hysterics or writhing on the floor, that would be one thing, but he seemed pretty well in control of his faculties.
And if you gave the man an appointment to see one of your Catholic social workers, what odds would you give for him keeping it? Powerful slim, I’d wager, though he just might show up at office sometime to give the poor souls there another tirade about how the pope is the Antichrist and how they’re all going to hell.
Some thoughts for the sissified among you:
“A Christian should argue with a blasphemer only by running his sword through his bowels as far as it will go.” St. Louis, King of France”
“When a person blasphemes, his mouth should instantly be shut. Strike him in the mouth! Crush it, so that he cannot speak!” St. John Chrysostom
Someone should ask Fr. Bob of that United Universalist Novus Catholic Church of Suburbia to place two felt banners hanging on either side of the sanctuary:
“A Christian should argue with a blasphemer only by running his sword through his bowels as far as it will go.” St. Louis, King of France
“When a person blasphemes, his mouth should instantly be shut. Strike him in the mouth! Crush it, so that he cannot speak!” St. John Chrysostom
“He was an enemy of Christ invading a holy place.”–Joe Six Pack
Since when did Joe Six Pack consider “Novus Churches” holy places?
The police are trained and able to subdue mental people. The dude is clearly mentally out of whack. If he thought the Church was so bad he wouldn’t step foot in a Mass.
Why all the assumptions that this man was mentally ill?
I watched the video and he looks like a zealous heretic.
Are we quick to label him mentally ill to justify the Novus crowd’s inaction?
Or, is zealousness in any form such a foreign concept to Novus Ordinarians that it’s assumed to be some sort of mental illness.
These are the same type of people who tell their daughters and wives not to fight the rapist. Do what he says and it will be over soon.
I suppose Hulkster would have this mindset. It’s the “Catholic” thing to do.
Wrong!
It’s the Novus Ordinarian thing to do.
This thread seems to have degenerated beyond the level of productive discussion. Probably just as well to cut it off now.