When Worlds Collide! RadTraddyLand Meets St. Blogs - Priest defends strange Popcak comments

http://www.thrownback.blogspot.com/2003_08_17_thrownback_archive.html#106144691180028909 ^ | August 20, 2003 | Fr. Rob Johansen

[Akron Al]

To set the stage. Freepers were discussing some very strange, very weird comments by Greg Popcak:

"I am aware of some families where the brother may chart his sister's temperatures for her, or even some cases where the mother shares her own NFP chart (minus the coitus record, of course) with the intent of acquainting the young men and women of the house with NFP. I also know some families who object to this idea on privacy or modesty grounds."

And:

"You will have to decide whether having boys record their sister's or mother's temperatures is an option for your family, but as long as the person whose chart it is (the mother or sister) is not terribly opposed to the idea (you really have to respect her opinion on this), I feel favorably toward the idea because it decreases the chances that your young teens will eroticize their sexuality."

Among others.

See:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/966863/posts

A Popcak friend, Mark Shea, was unwilling to defend these strange comments, but decided to turn his guns on traditionalists at his blogspot:

http://www.markshea.blogspot.com/2003_08_01_markshea_archive.html#106147776560841496

Shea also seems strange, as suggested by the title of his flimsy Popcak defense:

Attack of the Spastic Sphincter People

Now a priest has jumped into the debate with an equally strange and weird summary of yesterday's discussion.

From his blogspot:

When Worlds Collide!

or,

RadTraddyLand Meets St. Blogs!

If you've been following Mark Shea's blog of late, you'll recognize this latest fracas:

The scene: a typically quiet evening in St. Blog's. Mark Shea has been poking gentle fun at Leftists and self-appointed Hollywood arbiters of moral opinion. He turns his attention to the latest depredations of the RadTrad Alliance, and they unleash their fury!

Mark Shea: Will you look at these wacky RadTrads! Nuptial language as an analogy to God's relationship with us? "Eww! Gross!" Never mind that it's scriptural... "And how dare that Greg Popcak advocate that horrible Theology of the Body! We RadTrads all know that Theology of the Body is just an effort to open the floodgates of lust!"

Curious Girl: So if I wonder about some things Greg writes does that mean I hate the Pope?

Mark Shea: No, but those RadTrad Freepers do hate the Pope and are using this distortion of Greg's writing as their latest excuse to beat up on him. And they don't even know what they're talking about.

Curious Girl: Well, that Greg Popcak has said some strange things. Maybe those Freepers are just raising good...

RadTraddy-Daddy [jumping up and down, shouting]: All those NFP people are WEIRDOS! Everyone knows that! Greg Popcak is a PERVERT who practically advocates incest! How could a sicko like that get on EWTN?

RadTraddy-Laddy: And Popcak is friends with Scott Hahn! And Scott Hahn has written bizarre stuff comparing the Trinity with the family. Can you believe that! I don't recall reading that in the Decrees of the Council of Trent (Family Edition [TM]).

RadTraddy-Daddy: Sounds like Heresy to me! You know [whispers], Scott Hahn is still secretly a Protestant... Do you see the connection?

RadTraddy-Laddy: Yeah! Pretty sinister stuff...

Mark Shea: That's crazy! I know Greg Popcak, and his family...

Happy-Zappy: Oh, right, you knnoowww Greg. Is that somehow supposed to make up for his weirdness and perversity? Let's wait and see how his great-grandchildren turn out before we credit him with being a good husband and father.

NotTraddyEnough: I'm not really comfortable telling teens about all that NFP stuff, charting and temperatures and whatnot...

RadTraddy-Daddy: Well, of course not. If they start thinking about their sister's menstrual cycle or cervical mucus they'll want to have sex! Besides, we know that it's best to tell kids about sex after they've graduated from High School.

Fr. Rob: Mark, just ignore these Freeper RadTrad kooks. There are only 9 people involved in this "discussion". I used to pay attention, but then I realized I was reading the ravings of the same small group of nutjobs.

RadTraddy-Laddy: Ha! Got you, Fr. Rob! There are 10 people in this Freeper thread. [sticking his tongue out] So there! Besides, you're just a Novus Ordo priest (and therefore a dupe of Karol Wojtyla) so we don't have to listen to you!

Mark Shea: Sure, Happy. Why bother to find out what Greg actually said before condemning him?

Happy-Zappy: Mark, do you feed and clothe your children or do you send them out to panhandle and wander the streets, and find what food they can in dumpsters? Will you have your children chart each other?

Ichabod Bayer: Once we have a Catholic Monarch, we won't have to worry about this NFP nonsense anymore! Okay, just kidding. But seriously, did Greg actually advocate brothers and sisters helping each other chart? That sounds kinda icky.

TraddyBard: Dead skunk in the middle of the road

Dead skunk in the middle of the road.

You got yer dead skunk in the middle of the road,

Stinkin' to high Heaven!

BigGunnTraddy: Hey, don't you make fun of Catholic Monarchy! Look at the wonders it's done for Monaco and Lichtenstein. Just you wait till we stage our coup and establish the Duke of Orleans here as King!

GwynnDiesel: Look, these RadTrads just can't deal with any of the mystic imagery in Church Tradition. I mean, in the Middle Ages the Virgin Mary was sometimes depicted barebreasted, nursing the Lord.

RadTraddy-Daddy: Don't you eroticize the Blessed Mother! She didn't have breasts. The Lord was nursed by a bird which gave him to drink milk from a Blessed Coconut. I read about it in the visions of Grunhilde of Thuringia. I have a deep devotion to the Holy Coconut of Nazareth.

RadTraddy-Laddy: Speaking of breasts, you know, when Karol Wojtyla (the erstwhile "Pope" John Paul II) visited Papua, New Guinea, he actually received a native woman there in native garb, bare-breasted! That proves that the Theology of the Body is evil!

RadTraddy-Daddy: And she wasn't wearing a mantilla, either... Modernist!

RadTraddy-Laddy: Heretic! [whispers] Do you see the connection?

RadTraddy-Daddy: Wow! It's worse than I thought.

NonTraddyMommy: In my experience as a parent, I've found it's really important to be open with your kids about sex, so that they learn the true Catholic understanding of it before they hear the world's corrupted version...

RadTraddy-Daddy: Some subjects are better not discussed. The next thing you know, you'll be talking like that pervert Popcak who says we should teach kids that sex is something good and pleasurable and holy.

RadTraddy-Laddy: God Save Us! We all know that all that nonsense about the "unitive" dimension of sex is just giving license to lasciviousness. It's really only holy to want sex when you intend to conceive a child. And even then you should close your eyes and try not to enjoy it too much.

Maddy-Traddy: I always insist that the room be pitch-black and that we be under the covers, so as to preserve modesty.

RadTraddys: A virtuous Catholic woman!

Fr. Rob: Happy, why couldn't you just ask Greg to clarify himself before passing judgment?

Happy-Zappy: Once someone has written something, his statement is what it is. A person always writes exactly what he intends to convey and I am always able to discern fully what he meant. Therefore further conversation is pointless. If you don't want me to pass judgment on your thoughts, then keep them to yourself.

Mark Shea: Will you people please READ what Greg wrote? Look, Greg didn't advocate that brothers chart their sister's cycles, he simply described that some NFP families taught their kids how to do it, and that some families objected to that on the basis of modesty.

Happy-Zappy: Well, then it might not be so bad. But I'm still suspicious. That Popcak is a slippery character.

Maddy-Traddy: All those NFP people are slippery. I'll bet the mucus has something to do with it.

RomanticTrad: Doesn't all that charting and mucus-checking seem unnatural? I mean, how is that stuff a prelude to sex? I prefer romance.

RadTraddy-Laddy: Romance is OK, as long as proper decorum is observed. I've even been known, when in an amorous mood, to dance the minuet or gavotte with my wife.

Happy-Zappy: I've been re-reading Popcak, and he doesn't unequivocally condemn charting between siblings. He must be tacitly endorsing it, then! It is an unfailing rule of logic that whatever you do not completely condemn is at least partially approved. So Popcak really is advocating a sexual experimenting on kids!

RadTraddys: You finally have seen the light! We've been saying all along that Popcak is a sicko, and so is his friend Shea.

RadTraddy-Daddy: They're doing it under the banner of JP II's Theology of the Body! And JPII wouldn't do anything about the pedophiles. Do you see the connection?

Rad Traddy-Laddy: Wow! It's worse than I thought. You know who we need here now? Joe D'Hippolito! He'd see how it all fits together!

Cauldron Pyre: And what's all this sunshine-and-lollipops Popcak and Shea are spreading about joy and happiness and love? Doesn't he know that our scowls, frowns, and sour-faced grim looks are just as pleasing to God as smiles and light-heartedness?

ShellyJelly: Could someone explain to me why it would actually be morally wrong for a brother to help his sister with charting?

RadTraddys: Feuh! How dare you try to force us to make an argument! We have expressed our repulsion at such behavior, because it is ICKY. We have condemned such goings-on as WEIRD. There is no provision for anything like it in the Catechism of Trent or in the writings of Marian Horvat, Ph.D (Peace Be On Her!). Our disapprobation is sufficient moral censure. To the Outer Darkness with Popcak, Shea, Johansen, and all the other Neo-Catholic stooges of the false Vatican II regime! Anathema sint! Damnatae memoriae eorum sint!

posted by Fr. Rob 1:21 AM

16 Comments

[Akron Al]

Not very funny. but certainly weird...like Popcak's comments. Just weird...

[Akron Al]

And as has been noted by others, it is not just traditionalists who are creeped out by Popcak. The article critical came from CatholicCitizens.org. From there webpage:

Meet the People of the CatholicCitizens.org.

Executive Staff
Mary Anne Hackett - President
Mr. Karl Maurer - Vice President, Treasurer and Web Editor
Thomas F. Roeser - Chairman of the Board

Advisory Board
Dan Cheely - Mauk, Bellande & Cheely
Cristov Dosev - Mardoc Properties, LP
Keith Fournier - Your Catholic Voice Foundation
Deal Hudson - Crisis Magazine
Dennis Martin - Loyola University Professor of Theology
Joseph A. Morris - Morris, Rathnau & De La Rosa
Michael Rose - Author
David A. Shaneyfelt - Thomas Aquinas University
Jerome A. Urbik - Hinsdale Associates

[Akron Al]

Even leading neocon rod Drher of the National Review finds the comments disgusting:

From the shea's blog:

But is G.P. really recommending that brothers and sisters help each other chart? If so: ICK.)
Rod Dreher | Email | 08.20.03 - 8:07 pm | #

[Akron Al]

Just so the records complete. Here are Mark Shea's comments on the above article:

The Court Records of Yesterday's "Tribunal In Judgment of the Worthiness of Greg Popcak to Bear the Name 'Christian'" Are Now Available On Line

To briefly recap: Some Inquisitor decided to smear Popcak as an enemy of the Faith because a) he used (gasp!) sexual and nuptial imagery to speak of the Trinity (unheard of to the authors of John, Revelation, and Ephesians) and b) in the course of a long career of teaching chastity and the sanctity of marriage Popcak remarked that he knows some people who let their adolescent kids chart their siblings cycles, but that, of course, others think this is immodest, so make up your own mind since you are the parent and it's your job to decide such matters. Oh, and he was apparently also guilty of the heinous crime of observing that such a practice might help to de-mystify and de-eroticize the biology of sex and help defuse the "If you keep it all hushed up, they'll only want it more" phenomenon which is sometimes at work in the adolescent discovery of sex.

This, apparently, is the extent of Popcak's crimes against the Faith. And for this, a nucleus of embittered malcontents thinks the solution is to defame him. Now some have observed that Popcak is not above criticism. Quite so. And if the Spastic Sphincter Tribunal had written (or defended) a measured response saying, "Popcak, for all his good work, might have considered just not mentioning this rather curious practice" I would have no problem (though I can see nothing intrinsically immoral about it). But let's get real. The purpose of this article was not to suggest that Popcak is a faithful brother in Christ who mentioned a couple of curious ideas in passing. It was to a) practice the art of Catholic Character Assassination and b) as ever, to launch yet another fusillade against JPII, his damn newfangled Theology of the Body, EWTN, Hahn, and all rest of the wicked apostate neo-Catholics.

One of my readers, bless her heart, at least had the good grace to cite the passage in question from Popcak's writing and acknowledge that he was not saying what the Character Assassins for Christ claimed he was saying. But amazingly, other readers were in a snit with me for defending Popcak's good name. Can't a Character Assassin for Christ have *any* fun without judgmental people like me pointing out the thin-lipped phariseeism and lust for condemnation? What a killjoy!

And, of course, a number of people persisted in the false notion that I was arraigning all people who are fond of more conservative expressions of piety as "Lidless Eyes". Allow me to introduce you to my good friends Pete Vere and Shawn McElhinney, two quite "Traditionalist" types whom I am quite happy to call friends. Why? Because they don't go around looking to drum fellow Catholics out of the Church for using the wrong buzzwords and for not having a problem with JPII. They will, like me, *defend* fellow Catholics from self-appointed Inquisitors (a consequence of Just War theory). But they don't feel the peculiar itch to cobble together Character Assassination for Christ campaigns, nor to damn the Pope and all his teachings at every opportunity. If you self-identify as a "traditionalist" but don't share in these sins either, you are not who I am referring to when I speak of Lidless Eye types. If you feel that peculiar itch to hunger and thirst after the condemnation of brother and sister Catholics (or other human beings) on the flimsiest provocation, then perhaps this blog isn't for you.
posted by Mark Shea at 7:56 AM

[sinkspur]

the Spastic Sphincter Tribunal

I like this better than the Tridentine Taliban. Much better.

It appears that Shea and Fr. Johanssen monitor this site very closely, and have reduced the UltraTrads to an ecclesiastical version of South Park.

LOL!!!!

[sinkspur]

Fr. Rob: Mark, just ignore these Freeper RadTrad kooks. There are only 9 people involved in this "discussion". I used to pay attention, but then I realized I was reading the ravings of the same small group of nutjobs.

RadTraddy-Laddy: Ha! Got you, Fr. Rob! There are 10 people in this Freeper thread. [sticking his tongue out] So there! Besides, you're just a Novus Ordo priest (and therefore a dupe of Karol Wojtyla) so we don't have to listen to you!

We've got a much larger audience here in the Colisseum than I realized.

And they've got the Spastic Sphincters pegged!

[Loyalist]

PING.

Nobody came out of this one looking good.

[sitetest]

Dear sinskpur,

I'm pretty sure that no one will mistake me for a "traditionalist", but I'm with Rod Dreher on this one. If the gentleman, Mr. Popcak, actually suggested that it might be permissible that brothers chart their sisters, then... ICK. ICK ICK.

ICK ICK ICK.

sitetest

[As you well know...]

Ha Ha Ha..I was the one who researched, found, and posted the lyrics to Laudon Wainright's "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road."

It had to do with NACHE vs the Catholic Home Schooling Movement, the coup led by Scott Hahn's wife and their rejcting the sound counsel of Fr. John A Hardon. It had absolutely NOTHING to do with NFP. Ha Ha Ha...

. But, what does accuracy mean when one wants to mock a supposed "trad," which is something I do not call myself.

I wonder what is used for incense at the Mass the author attends? He sounds rather, er,disoriented

[sinkspur]

Well, truthfully, I said on the thread that I thought going into detail with teenagers about NFP was strange.

But, there's nothing wrong with Popcak's theology (it is JPII's Theology of the Body, after all), or with Scott Hahn.

I was just surprised to see Shea and Johanssen take off after our Traddies.

[sitetest]

Dear sinkspur,

I only glanced at the original thread, so I can't really comment with assurance. But is this quote from Mr. Popcak accurate, in context?

"You will have to decide whether having boys record their sister's or mother's temperatures is an option for your family, but as long as the person whose chart it is (the mother or sister) is not terribly opposed to the idea (you really have to respect her opinion on this), I feel favorably toward the idea because it decreases the chances that your young teens will eroticize their sexuality."

Personally, the idea seems to me to be... demented. Like a cruel, sick joke on all involved.

I'm just having a hard time wrapping my rather limited little intolerant mind around this.

sitetest

[sinkspur]

He did say that. And it IS weird.

[sockmonkey]

Nobody came out of this one looking good.

That's the understatement of the year.

[Pyro7480]

I don't think it's fair to label Dreher a "neocon," in either the political or religious sense of the word. He's a "crunchy conservative."

[sitetest]

Dear sinkspur,

If it is in context, it's really difficult for me to imagine a reasoned defense for Mr. Popcak.

Frankly, I am so appalled by the comment, by the idea, that it makes me think to entirely discount anything and everything the gentleman has ever said or written. I thought perhaps that I was overreacting, so I asked my wife, who is, of course, a saint on earth, what she thought.

She disagreed strongly with my reaction, which was "ICK".

She emphatically states that the appropriate reaction is "EEEEWWWWW!! EEEEWWWWW!! EEEEWWWW!!"

I stand corrected.

sitetest

[k omalley]

I am hardly a radtrad but I admit I felt quite creeped out. And no my lips aren't thin and my eyes aren't lidless. NFP certainly has its place for Catholics but this seems to turn it almost into a cult. It's like the tail wagging the dog.

[Domestic Church]

"I wonder what is used for incense..."

ROFLOL!
And for the record, I attend the N.O.(and I suspect there were one or two others who don't have a Latin Mass nearby or prefer the N.O. on that thread.)

[dsc]

Same old liberal crap.

Take a legitimate concern, and pretend that it could only be grounded in anhedonia.

[ninenot]

Wierd and demented are not accurate.

Perverted is accurate. This guy has a psychiatric problem; I would more than likely shoot him rather than allow him in my yard. (I have children.)

[old and tired]

We are not radtrads either. Heck, my wife even enjoyed her share of guitar masses back in the 70's. She now watches a good deal more EWTN than I do and often uses it for background noise. She'd never heard of Popcek, but as his subject of expertise isn't of particular interest to her she wasn't surprised. The very night of the day I showed her that thread on that whole brother charting his sister's temps she called me into the room around 11 pm, "Honey, come quick, THAT SEX FIEND'S on EWTN!"

I have to say his little talk (less than 5 minutes in between two half hour shows) was completely unmemorable. But I also have to say that we'll be looking for him.

Like you sitetest, I'd question anything this man says.