Sunday, February 16, 2014

Robert McCartney - Another WaPo Anti-Catholic BIGOT

Although I should not be surprised at this but once again, we have another hit piece on a Catholic priest and the Church by the Washington Compost.  In this case, it is Robert McCartney.  For the rest of this article, I will refer to him as Mr. BIGOT.  I really don't know any other term to call him and I am tired of playing nice with guys like him.

So, let's point out a couple of things here..


  • Fr. DeCelles is the pastor and makes the final decision, unless overridden by his bishop, of which organizations can or cannot meet on Church property.
  • Every organization has rules -- Boy Scout, Girl Scouts, Trail Life -- and if you wish to join the organization, then you basically agree to follow the rules. Sort of like when you are hired by a company -- like the Washington Compost -- you agree to abide by certain things.   I wonder if Mr. BIGOT actually went to the Trail Life website and read what they actually said.  I doubt it, because he would not have written what he did.
  • Wow, a Catholic priest who believes that the gay lifestyle is wrong (and is against the Catholic faith) and posts such things on the parish website.  My heavens, what is the world coming to.  
  • If Mr. Bigot was as open minded as he says he is, then he should not be upset with Fr. De Celles.
  • As a typical liberal, he does not fully understand the statement by the Pope on "If they accept the Lord and have goodwill..."  It means, M. BIGOT, that they do not live the gay lifestyle and live in accordance with Catholic teaching.  He did not mean that if you live nicely, and believe that you are doing right, that all is well.  
  • Cardinal Wuerl has been more worried about bad publicity (and government contracts) than really standing up for Church teaching.  We have seen this over and over, so using him as an example, just weakens your argument Mr. BIGOT.
  •  The National Catholic Committee on Scouting takes its cue from the Catholic Conference of Bishops.  It does not strike out on its own.  An if you read their 40 point statement, it really attempts to fit a square peg into a round hole.  I wonder if Mr. BIGOT read the statement.  I have.
  • Yes, a drop in Scouting of 6% (almost 160,000 members) is not as bad as over 10% but it is still a significant drop in one year.  And, BSA cannot keep up dropping by 3% to 6% each year.  That is unsustainable, even for them.  If WaPost subscriptions dropped that much in one year, would they be saying "It is not that bad.."
HOWEVER, if this decision such a good decision -- allowing publicly gay youth in BSA -- then why wasn't there a INCREASE in membership by 5% or 6%?  

I mean, we would have seen thousands of new adult volunteers?  

How about all of those parents who swore up and down that they would not put their child in Scouting unless it opened up? I mean, their actions speak louder than words, and their words are meaningless. 

So, if Mr. BIGOT is so supportive of what Scouting has done, I would expect that he will be making a very nice donation to BSA of both time and money.

Yes, Mr. BIGOT cannot wait for the next fight -- gay leaders in BSA.  It will give him something to fill is column with -- the talking points of Troop 52 from Chevy Chase. 

4 comments:

Mary Ann Kreitzer said...

I blogged on this today too. Really sickening. One point I made is that our parish troop is starting Trail Life for the younger scout while it continues Boy Scouts for the older scouts close to Eagle rank. According a comment the troop leader left on my Facebook page, a number of Catholic troops are doing the same thing. So the writing is on the wall even though the bigot can't see it. If new scouts aren't coming in the door at the lower end, scouting is on the way out.

Eagle Priest, SJ said...

FYI- Over half of the Scouts from the Cub Scout Pack at St. Raymonds left and started a new pack and believe it or not, since doing so they doubled in size! Not to mention the other packs in the area who have seen a membership increase. This policy change is still really new so there are no numbers to look at yet other than local numbers.

The other outrage that I am hearing from the Springfield community and St. Raymond parishioners is that its not THAT Fr. DeCelles did what he did but its the manor in which he did it. The whole thing was very adversarial and mean spirited.

What I don't think that he realizes is that Trail Life's policies are not actually different than BSA's. I asked my brother who is a Jesuit lawyer in upstate NY to look at the language and he agreed that its really that same.

Anonymous said...

I'm not Catholic, but we removed our sons from Boy Scouts and they have joined a Trail Life troop. From what I can discern, families with older boys who are nearing the rank of Eagle have decided to give their sons the opportunity to complete the requirements for Eagle. That is perfectly understandable. My oldest had just completed Tenderfoot and my youngest had not yet started Cub Scouts, so it seemed prudent to transfer to Trail Life immediately.

The headline in all the articles is exceedingly misleading. The new membership policy did not go into effect until January 1, 2014 and Trail Life did not officially begin until that date, with many troops still involved in the chartering process as we near March. Further, a lot of BSA troops which switched to Trail Life remained in BSA through December 31, 2013. The membership report by BSA in February 2015 will be the first one to really give some idea how many boys are leaving and failing to join. Even then, the decline in BSA will undoubtedly be seen over the next several years as fewer boys sign up to begin Cub Scouts and more boys complete the program.

A WASHINGTONDC CATHOLIC said...

To Anon at 9:12pm:

You are correct that a number of Scouts, who are near Eagle, will finish up the program. I know personally of one and he probably has a couple of badges to finish and his project.

Technically, all troops must be fully rechartered by the end of January or see a break in their status as a continuously running troop. Yes, BSA then gives troops/packs/etc. a couple more weeks to get their rechartering done. But, I think that the numbers they have now will give them a good indicator of the loss.

The bigger loss will take place in either January 2015 or January 2016, with as I predict, will be the allowing of gay adult leaders.