The Delightful Matt Taibbi

CRISIS Magazine e-Letter

March 4, 2005

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Dear Friend,

Before I get to the main subject of my email to you, I want to
clarify a point I made in my last one.

If you recall, after noting the pope's current health scare, I
wrote:

"While it's tempting to ask God to give the Holy Father a few more
years with us, it seems to me a bit wrongheaded. God is sovereign and
knows best what His Church (and the world) needs. Let us then trust
Him, and ask that His will be done, and that we all have the grace to
accept it."

Several readers disagreed, saying that we should be praying for the
pope's health. I agree, and wish I'd been clearer. My point is simply
this: As Catholics with a strong love for John Paul II, we have a
tendency to want him to remain with us forever. While understandable,
it also sets us up for a potentially disorienting disappointment when
the pope does pass away.

Better to acknowledge God's complete sovereignty and trust Him with
the leadership of His Church, I wrote. God certainly knows better
than we do what's best for us. If the pope lives for another five
years, all the better! But if not, again, God is in control and we
need always to submit our wills to His.

Well, all that is fine and good, but incomplete.

One reader suggested instead that we should be praying for John Paul
II's longevity while adding the caveat, "But Your Will be done."
This, I think, is the right approach, and I wish I'd said it in my
original. Since I'm only infallible in matters of music and driving,
I do benefit from the occasional correction on other subjects. My
sincere thanks to those who took the time to do so.

The issue of the pope's health scare brings me to the main reason
I've written to you today...

As you may have heard, the New York Press, a weekly alternative
paper in New York City, has a cover story right now on "The 52
Funniest Things About The Upcoming Death of The Pope." Yes, you read
that correctly.

The piece, written by Press columnist and Rolling Stone political
reporter Matt Taibbi, is a nauseating list of almost unimaginably
offensive items. Here are just a few of the tamer offerings:

#46. Beetles eating Pope's dead brains.

#44. Gurgling sound during embalming process; real fluids in dead
Pope's body sucked out into jars.

#22. Mankind scrambles to choose new leader of inflexible, sexually
morbid institutional anachronism; heretofore anonymous bureaucrat
will instantly be celebrated as world's holiest man as he travels to
AIDS-stricken Africa to denounce the use of condoms.

#17. In his last days, the Pope was in tremendous pain.

#1. Throw a marble at the dead Pope's head. Bonk!

The full list is much worse, but I won't subject you to that.

Taibbi's piece reminds me of something you'd see from a college
undergraduate journalist, trying desperately to write something
controversial for the school newspaper. You know the type... full of
chic cynicism and jaded, know-it-all rebellion.

Generally, they grow up to look back on their youthful antics with a
mixture of embarrassment and regret. Not so with Taibbi, who has made
a small career out of his perpetual immaturity. He's found a home,
then, at the New York Press, which is exceptional only in the sheer
number of New Yorkers who consider it garbage -- Lloyd Grove of the
New York Daily News described it as "a handout that is best used to
line birdcages."

Nicely put.

Normally, I'd recommend that you boycott the New York Press's
advertisers, but unless you're in the market for "adult
entertainment" or yoga retreats, there probably isn't much need for
that.

Let's just chalk this up as yet another example of the radical
Left's hatred for all things Catholic. It isn't the first example,
and it certainly won't be the last.

In the meantime, though, maybe we should write our own list...

The Number One Funniest Thing About Matt Taibbi's Eventual Death:
Having to stand before the judgment throne of God after shamelessly
ridiculing His earthly vicar.

No, on second thought, that's not funny at all.

I'll talk to you next week,

Brian



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