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Monday, June 13, 2016

Archbishop Cupich: Orlando Attack Should Raise Mental Illness Awareness

Archbishop Cupich, yesterday

Yesterday, Archbishop Blase Cupich wrote a letter to ANGLO--the Archdiocesan Gay and Lesbian Outreach at Our Lady of Mount Carmel--referencing the Orlando terrorist attack (full text below). He did not mention Islam, radical Islam, ISIS or even the words "terrorist" or "terrorism." Rather, he called it a "senseless, horrific and preventable tragedy." However, in just four short paragraphs he did find space to explicitly mention or allude to at least ten of his pet political causes:
  1. Lesbian and gay rights
  2. Hate (in general)
  3. Intolerance (in general)
  4. Allowing hate and intolerance to flourish (perhaps by voting for Trump or whatever)
  5. The culture of violence
  6. Gun control
  7. Mental Illness (as far as I know he is the first to try this angle)
  8. The duty of a compassionate society to provide adequate social services, among other things to prevent tragedies like this
  9. Solidarity and peace
  10. Changing our nation and our world for the better
"I stand with you," claimed the Archbishop to the gay community. I disagree. Cupich stands for no one but himself. If he really stood with gays, he wouldn't be in effect collaborating with an ideology that wants to kill them. And he wouldn't be making political speeches over their corpses. 

The man is a complete embarrassment--not merely as a bishop, but as a human being.

_______________________________

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, 
Once again, we must raise our voices to comfort the families and loved ones of a senseless, horrific and preventable tragedy. 
For you here today and throughout the whole lesbian and gay community, who are particularly touched by the heinous crimes committed in Orlando, motivated by hate, driven perhaps by mental instability and certainly empowered by a culture of violence, know this: the Archdiocese of Chicago stands with you. I stand with you. 
Let our shared grief and our common faith in Jesus, who called the persecuted blessed, unite us so that hatred and intolerance are not allowed to flourish, so that those who suffer mental illness know the support of a compassionate society, so that we find the courage to face forthrightly the falsehood that weapons of combat belong anywhere in the civilian population. 
We come together in this time of sorrow, this time of darkness. Yet we walk in the light of solidarity and peace. We walk with the unshakeable resolve to change our nation and our world for the better. 
With my personal pledge of prayers for you, I am 
Most Reverend Blase J. Cupich 
Archbishop of Chicago

8 comments:

  1. If I was Blaise's mother I would be so ashamed of him. As you say, he stands for nothing but himself. God have mercy on his soul.

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  2. The Bear is imagining a two-word phrase that ends in you. Archbishop Cupich is a liar, a knave, a fool, a currier of the good opinion of man, a disgrace, and deserves to be torn by two she-bears. Actually delusion is a symptom of a serious mental illness of psychosis. So the Bear, who has far more knowledge of mental illness than this clown, says Archbishop Cupich's comments are a teachable moment about how psychotics can rise to high positions in the Church. Seems to be a lot of that going around.

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  3. The Mahound is imagining a two-word title to a David Bowie song that ends with the refrain, "Oh God, I could do better than that."

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  4. The Bear has summed the situation nicely in his usual bearish way. Except to say: Bishop Cupich, apostle of (not to) the Concupiscent.

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  5. At Mass on Sunday, the priest commented on the incident in Orlando as follows (I'm paraphrasing and including parts I remember verbatim): those people in the club were "out dancing and enjoying themselves"; the gunman was offended by "the affection of two men" "in the name of religion".

    The main point of the sermon was that we need to "see people", "really see them", past all of the rules and labels. The "beauty of diversity" was later praised with a specific reference to the rainbow.

    He did offer prayers for all those who died as well as for the murderer.

    Later, along the lines of really seeing people, the priest lamented the Church's prior decision to automatically excommunicate the divorced and remarried, subtly mocking the way some refer to their situations as "irregular" (he said "so-called irregular situations"), saying "think of the pain"--meaning think of the pain those who are referred to as such must experience.

    A final point I recall vividly, and one made several times, is that, according to this priest, the "lack of hospitality" is the single worst sin there is. "Biblical virtue" is hospitality. To lack hospitality is a very serious sin. The very worst sin one can commit. He emphasized this strongly at least three times. (I think he must have been thinking of the popular modern take on Sodom and Gomorrah--the connection and reason of course need no explaining).

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    Replies
    1. Leave it to a silly homilist to equate mowing down crowds with an automatic weapon to having a "lack of hospitality."

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  6. POTUS is about to speak. I've turned to the BBCA channel where there's something interesting, a rerun of Star Treck:The Next Generation.

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  7. Enjoy.

    http://studiomatters.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Islamophobia-copy.jpg

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