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Next chapter for radical right: Burn books (BARF!)
Chicago Sun-Times ^ | Fr. Andrew Greeley

Posted on 09/18/2008 9:37:00 AM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican

Let's fill some trucks with books, drive them downtown and burn them in front of the Chicago Public Library. Let's drive other trucks to the regional libraries and burn them, too . . . I mean the books, not the libraries, though libraries are the source of the problem. If it weren't for the libraries, it would be hard for innocent young people to be corrupted by the filth pouring out of the country's printers.

Instead of burning books or libraries, perhaps we ought to start smashing printing presses. They have served as tools of sin and the devil since Herr Gutenberg invented them.

When the radical evangelicals take over the White House, lists of books that one shouldn't read or in fact are forbidden to read will spread around the country like wildfire, you should excuse the expression. Unless a much tighter control is imposed on distribution of books, the morals of the country will continue to deteriorate, which will in turn weaken us in the long war on terror.

I say that as a member of and indeed a priest in a denomination that originated lists of forbidden books. I don't know whether we ever piled them up in front of cathedrals and set them on fire, but I can't imagine that a tradition that has always valued dramatic rites could miss the possibilities of an auto da fe against books. If you'd burn humans at the stake, why not books?

The so-called "fundamentalists" came into existence to destroy one book in particular -- Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. As one of their 19th century leaders remarked, "If we don't resist Darwin, we lose the Bible."

Oh ye of little faith! Why must ye think that the power of the biblical stories depends on their literal, word-for-word inerrancy? Why can't you see that those men and women who study it so closely actually enhance its wonder? Why instead must ye wander through the desert searching for the pillar of salt that was Lot's wife? Why can't ye understand that ye continue the battle between science and religion with thy concern about routing evolution from the classrooms? Don't ye realize that ye reinforce the paradigm, so loved by thy friends in the national media, of the battle between science and religion? When the results finally leak out about the European Organization for Nuclear Research experiments in Switzerland, just watch the stories confronting religious ideas about creation with "scientific" knowledge.

The religious truth is that the universe was created from nothing, indeed in a huge explosion that is still going on and preceding according to complex mathematical formulae around which we are still trying to wrap our brains? Isn't that wonderful enough for you? Why do you have to postulate a God who set up evidence that there were dinosaurs to test thy faith?

The real argument against listing books for possible burning (or removing from a library) is that, as we Catholics learned, it doesn't work. Tell humans that they can't read something and of course they will find ways of reading it -- as the Stalinists learned from Aleksander Solzhenitsyn. You could burn all the copies of Harry Potter, and young people would still read these classic stories of the triumph of good over evil. Get rid of Catcher in the Rye from your parish library and kids will pass around mimeographed copies of it. Banish The Canterbury Tales and you will enhance Geoffrey Chaucer's readership.

Do I really think the Supreme Court would permit such violation of human rights, should an evangelical become president? The Supreme Court, as Mr. Dooley said, follows the election returns. Haven't you noticed?


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: bookburning; censorship; dopeydems; greeley; hysteria; nonsense
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Another barf-a-palooza from the good Fr. Greeley, chaplain of the smart and rational party.
1 posted on 09/18/2008 9:37:00 AM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

I get giddy when bugs like Andrew Greeley wax apocalyptic.


2 posted on 09/18/2008 9:39:18 AM PDT by Slapshot68
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To: Slapshot68

Is he still allowed to be in the Church?


3 posted on 09/18/2008 9:41:36 AM PDT by Don Corleone (Leave the gun..take the cannoli)
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

PDS


4 posted on 09/18/2008 9:41:37 AM PDT by smokinleroy (How come gas prices spiked only AFTER the democrats won Congress?)
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican
Is this fraud still allowed to use the "Fr." in front of his name?

I thought...

Must not be a Jesuit; they are heavily taught logic and reason.

It's a huge leap from not funding public access to perversion literature, and burning books.
Of course, to those of us who see the obvious, this sermon is meaningless.
To the perverts, the sermon is unnecessary.

(There's 5 minutes of my life I will never get back...)

5 posted on 09/18/2008 9:43:30 AM PDT by Publius6961 (Change is not a plan; Hope is not a strategy.)
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

You know, books and their corrupting influence are a small drop in the bucket compared to HOLLYWOOD! LETS BURN HOLLYWOOD! Oh, wait, I think THE LORD is going to take care of that...


6 posted on 09/18/2008 9:44:15 AM PDT by dixjea
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

Greeley needs a good ol’ fashioned Southern Baptist exorcism, that’s where the deacons take him ‘round back of the church and beat the Devil out of him.

In Greeley’s case, that might take a while, so bring your picnic baskets and umbrellas, and don’t forget your hymn books. :)


7 posted on 09/18/2008 9:46:28 AM PDT by mkjessup (Jimmy Carter is the Skidmark in the panties of American history. (Obama is his 2nd term))
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

Yep, this guy’s theory was proven when that Christian named Bush moved into the Whitehouse.

Hey idiot author, if it didn’t happen over the last 8 years, it is idiotic to claim it will happen under McCain.

These dolts never have an original thought.


8 posted on 09/18/2008 9:46:51 AM PDT by CSM ("Conservobabes are hot. Libitches are not." - stolen from rightinthemiddle)
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican
What the hell is this idiot on about?

Father Greeley? A man of the cloth? Doesn't he have an obligation to speak the truth?

9 posted on 09/18/2008 9:50:43 AM PDT by Riley (The Fourth Estate is the Fifth Column.)
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

It must be kept in mind that people like this fellow actually believe this tripe. And some of these people are in the congress and some will be in positions of authority and power in an Obama administration. To them the “Fairness Doctrine” and “Hate Crimes” are tools for rooting out and silencing bigots who poison the public discourse and incite public unrest. Not for a second do they recognize the contradiction in their position. They will act to silence their critics and opponents and the leftist media will support them in this. Most of the public will pay little or no attention and of the remainder who do pay attention about half will be in favor of the restrictions leaving the rest (who will be a decided minority) as targets of the restrictions.

Tyranny is always imposed for the “greater good”.


10 posted on 09/18/2008 9:52:53 AM PDT by scory
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

What I want to know is this: How can a person be in such frequent proximity to the Body of Christ, and still be so firmly under Satan’s thumb?


11 posted on 09/18/2008 9:53:12 AM PDT by dsc
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

what a partisan liar


12 posted on 09/18/2008 9:56:59 AM PDT by ikez78 (http://www.regimeofterror.com - Saddam Hussein and terrorism)
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To: scory

Excellent point. There are fringes of the right that would go for censorship. But the real calls for censorship, masked in Orwellian terms like the “Fairness Doctrine” and “hate crimes” is coming from the mainstream of the Democratic Party and its highest leadership.


13 posted on 09/18/2008 9:57:24 AM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (Sarah Palin just field dressed the Obama campaign.)
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican
It is the Left that is likely to burn books--and men.

It is Leftists who shout down speakers whose ideas they don't like--who silence opposition whenever they can--who insist on "Political Correctness" which is nothing more than dogma--who hate freedom of speech--who will, if they can, silence "Talk Radio" because they don't like the ideas expressed thereon--who seek to censor and silence ideas they do not like by ad hominem attacks--who refuse to allow speakers whose ideas they dislike to speak on college campuses--who distort, manipulate, and censor information presented to the public.

The VAST MAJORITY of Americans who are not part of the Left want one thing: freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas.

14 posted on 09/18/2008 9:57:32 AM PDT by Savage Beast (If anyone can deal with a hostile climate and a pack of wolves it's the Governor of Alaska!)
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

I hate Illinois Nazi Priests.


15 posted on 09/18/2008 9:57:40 AM PDT by A Balrog of Morgoth (QMC(SW) USN........ CG21 DD988 FFG34 PC6 ARS53)
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To: dsc

...are you kidding? People don’t read books anymore. They access electronic media. And mob thuggery is already doing the equivalent of burning books by shutting down free speech on radio stations and invading people’s private e-mail. And guess who’s behind it Chicago? That’s right, your latter day National Socialist and his brown shirts...Barrack Hussein Obama...it’s not what is next,

IT’S HAPPENING NOW.

You must work for the Chicago Behind The Times not to recognize what is happening under your very nose.


16 posted on 09/18/2008 9:58:29 AM PDT by johnnycap
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To: Southside_Chicago_Republican

Burn the librarians in the ALA instead < /SARCASM >. They encourage giving all materials to anyone including children. If a bookstore did this with Playb*y or other adult only publications, there would be a vice squad charge of corrupting a minor. Not so with the library.

The ALA also has provided information to kids on how to circumvent filtering software.

Librarians also have refused to shelve conservative books that have been donated (find them unopend and untagged at your library book sales). Okay, so they didn’t burn them. But they did supress them.


17 posted on 09/18/2008 9:59:07 AM PDT by weegee (Say no to the Marxist who "denounces" the 911 terrorist attacks and yet befriended a Pentagon bomber)
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To: Publius6961

I spent some time studying at a Jesuit school, and was well impressed. I don’t know what happened to Greeley.


18 posted on 09/18/2008 9:59:22 AM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (Sarah Palin just field dressed the Obama campaign.)
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To: scory
When the radical evangelicals take over the White House, lists of books that one shouldn't read or in fact are forbidden to read will spread around the country like wildfire, you should excuse the expression.

Libs assume that we would use political power the same way they want to use it.

19 posted on 09/18/2008 10:01:56 AM PDT by thulldud (All your rumor are mong to us.)
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To: Savage Beast

Exactly. See my post #13.


20 posted on 09/18/2008 10:02:20 AM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (Sarah Palin just field dressed the Obama campaign.)
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