People are writing and speculating about the firing of Mark Shea and Simcha Fischer at EWTN’s National Catholic Register.\u00a0 Many are happy about it.\u00a0 I don’t know if too many are unhappy.\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 Some see a change on the horizon.\u00a0 Where?<\/p>\n
Shea and Fisher served a purpose.\u00a0 They were instigators and they were tasked with muddling the heads of faithful Catholics, especially to promote leftist political issues.\u00a0 Lies and anger were some of their tools.\u00a0 EWTN didn’t work with them out of loyalty and indulgence.\u00a0 They wanted them there for as long as they had them.\u00a0 They wanted<\/em> the muddled heads.<\/p>\n Many imagine that the National Catholic Reporter or America Magazine might become a new outlet for these two writers, but that would be surprising.\u00a0 There is an affinity, but not an enough of an ideological match.\u00a0 More importantly they don’t have the required skill set.\u00a0 FrancisChurch, from its top to its parish pastor has, unfortunately, a very effeminate homosexual quality and character.\u00a0 It’s slippery.\u00a0 Writers on the left are quite talented, capable and extremely careful.\u00a0 They can be furious like Michael Sean Winters or Fr. Thomas Rosica, but in this they are much more like snakes than bulldogs.\u00a0 They know when to come in and go out from under their rocks.\u00a0 Crux’s John Allen is a highly talented and intelligent writer who sees exactly which way the wind is blowing, but he manages to maintain an air of honesty while applying very little of it.\u00a0 He and others like him are persuasive, and masters at turning and twirling readers so they’re pointed off course.\u00a0 Think Elizabeth Scalia and everyone at the New York Times.<\/p>\n A lack of persuasion is the cardinal sin<\/a> for which American Catholic’s Donald McClarey faults Shea and Fisher.\u00a0 Boniface says it’s that they were loose cannons<\/a> off stage.\u00a0 Both very true.\u00a0 Mr. Armaticus thinks an unCatholic, liberal EWTN is a money-losing proposition<\/a>.\u00a0 I don’t agree.\u00a0 There is always money in modern times for people who help to wreck the Church.\u00a0 I don’t think they were fired for any of these reasons.\u00a0 I think it was politics.<\/p>\n Politics was the reason Shea and Fisher were retained for years.\u00a0 Politics was their purpose and they knew it.\u00a0 They did their jobs.\u00a0 It’s just that EWTN is no longer in the market for their unique (odd) services.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n Well, as Wikileaks has been the latest to demonstrate, Francis – I mean the idea of a Francis as pope – is about politics<\/a> (Did you think it was about Christ and his saving mission?) and the Catholic media do seem to be bending along the Francis lines.<\/p>\n Others have paid for it<\/a>, and those payers expect Francis and his Church to turn the ‘catholic’ vote.\u00a0 Shea and Fisher were just helping, but I guess EWTN has now decided they don’t want their help that much.\u00a0 Has FrancisChurch jumped the shark?\u00a0 Is it in fact having the opposite effect on voters?<\/p>\n I’m often too optimistic.\u00a0 I don’t follow sports.\u00a0 I know life is, in a sense, a game, but since it really isn’t, I prefer not to look at it that way.\u00a0 But I’m not<\/strong> convinced Trump is losing right now.\u00a0 I think he probably will ultimately lose because the entire establishment is lined up against him and they will mount and count the votes, but I believe he’s actually quite popular.<\/p>\n When Trump dinged the Francis on his U.S. Border stunt, it teased out the Pope’s monstrous hubris<\/a> and contempt for decent people.\u00a0 Normal people really don’t like the hyped Francis program.\u00a0 They don’t like Hillary.\u00a0 They don’t like people like Shea and Fisher.\u00a0 You can’t just make normal decent people, sacramental Catholics who live their faith in other words ‘conservatives’ into liberals, even if you foist a Francis onto Peter’s chair.<\/p>\n The actual operation of the Church has always relied upon benevolent power and suffered without it.\u00a0 If Trump is on the way to becoming president, my guess is it will have a certain good effect upon the Church.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe for some reason EWTN now wants to anticipate that hopeful day with a remaining shred of respect.\u00a0 Maybe Shea is right.\u00a0 It was<\/em> about Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" People are writing and speculating about the firing of Mark Shea and Simcha Fischer at EWTN’s National Catholic Register.\u00a0 Many are happy about it.\u00a0 I don’t know if too many are unhappy.\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 Some see a change on the horizon.\u00a0 Where? Shea and Fisher served a purpose.\u00a0 They were instigators and they were tasked with …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,602,120,1005,121,19,1006],"class_list":["post-8724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-catholic","tag-donald-trump","tag-ewtn","tag-mark-shea","tag-national-catholic-register","tag-pope-francis","tag-simcha-fisher"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8724"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8767,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8724\/revisions\/8767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}