The Sisters of Perpetual Hate

 

The current controversy over the LA Dodgers officially honouring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at their Pride Night illustrates the folly of the “turn the other cheek” approach for Christians, in most circumstances. This is probably the favorite Biblical passage among non-Christians: for to them, it means “Christians, shut up.”

It properly refers to a situation in which one is powerless; where resistance would be futile, or not worth the risk. Elsewhere, Jesus tells his disciples to buy knives. In such a situation, when one faces overwhelming force, the best strategy is to try to shame the aggressor. It worked for Gandhi, or O’Connell, or MLK.

It does not apply to transgender hate groups.

Keeping silent about transgenderism does no good. For the Catholic Church always has, and it makes no difference. The Catholic Catechism has no position on crossdressing. Crossdressing is firmly established in Filipino culture, and the Philippines is perhaps the most Catholic country on Earth. No, a man is not a woman. But that is not a moral issue: it is an issue of basic sanity.

Nevertheless, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, as their name implies, categorically hate the Catholic Church as their prime enemy, and want to attack it in any way possible. They mock Christ on the cross; they show up to protest any important Christian events. They claim it is because the Catholic Church shames or attacks them; yet it does not.

For that matter, the Catholic Church has never had a special problem with homosexuality. Yes, it is a sin. But so on the same grounds i heterosexual sex outside of marriage, masturbation, and use of artificial birth control. Since these apply to both homosexuals and heterosexuals, one cannot plausibly accuse the Church of being “homophobic.” A significant proportion of Catholic clergy are said to be homosexual in their sexual inclinations, and prominent homosexuals have often found their spiritual home in the Church: Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams, Evelyn Waugh, Andy Warhol, Gerard Manley Hopkins, W.H. Auden, Milo Yiannopolis. One must simply abstain from sex, just as the heteros, most often, must.

So refusing to condemn apparently does not staunch anti-Catholic hatred. And it obviously does nothing to reduce the incidence of homosexuality or cross-dressing, if that were the goal. It also transparently does nothing to make either homosexuals or cross-dressers feel better about themselves. Instead, the silence of the Catholic Church and of Catholics seems to encourage this anti-Catholicism—like not standing up to a bully. Compare the attitude of Islam, and note how many groups have formed to mock and protest Islam the way the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence mock and protest Catholicism.

The Sisters and their ilk hate Catholicism because they claim Catholicism makes them feel guilty. If they could simply stamp out Catholicism, they could be happy. But it will never work, because it is demonstrably not the Catholic Church, but their own conscience, that is causing these guilt feelings. So long as they refuse to accept the real source of these feelings, the feelings of guilt will get stronger and stronger. And so they will become more and more hostile to their scapegoat, Christians and Catholics, and perhaps more and more violent. If they could only, like the Tennessee school shooter, kill all the Christians…

The only way for the Church to counter this is to stand up and defend itself. It must not turn the other cheek in a case like this.