In looking over The Ingrate for editing, my brother Jon added a few paragraphs that helped tie it together better. Danke, bruder.
Let’s say your mother dies. An acquaintance sends you
flowers and tells you he is sorry for your loss. Now you don’t particularly
like this acquaintance but he has never personally wronged you. You, on the
other hand, have often insulted him because you just don’t like who he is and
where he is coming from.
How do you respond to his outreach?
Here is how Charlie Hebdo responded to the Catholic Church’s
outreach in an editorial published in the first issue following the killing of
twelve of their staff.
“What made us laugh the most is that the bells of Notre Dame rang in
our honor. We would like to send a message to Pope Francis-- who also was Charlie this week: We will only accept the
bells of Notre Dame ringing in our honor when it is Femen who make them ring.”
Let’s get back to your
mother. If you were Charlie Hebdo you just trampled on your acquaintance’s
flowers and said “up yours” to his face.
Is that a mature response
to someone who, in good faith, is offering you condolences?
This is the problem with
unrestrained license; it reduces people to psychological immaturity. Many
people won’t restrain themselves because they are indoctrinated in the false
belief that they have ever-expanding “rights” and can do or say what they want
and when they want. Nowhere is there talk about the counter-balancing dimension
of responsibility.
“Thank you” is what a
mature person would have said to their acquaintance. You don’t have to like him.
You don’t have to respect him. As a matter of fact you can detest him, but when
one does a good or kind deed on your behalf, look the individual in the eye and
express your gratitude.
Let’s break down Charlie
Hebdo’s response. “What made us laugh the most is that the bells of Notre Dame
rang in our honor.” No, they didn’t. The bells were not honoring a vile antireligious
satirical magazine; they were paying tribute to twelve of their French
countrymen who were murdered in cold blood by fanatics. And the co-workers of
those murdered found it funny?
“We will only accept the
bells of Notre Dame ringing in our honor when it is Femen who make them ring.” Femen, for those who don’t know, is a radical
Ukrainian feminist group whose members have, among other things, staged topless
demonstrations in several European cathedrals. Again, the bells are not for the
undisciplined children who remain at Charlie Hebdo, so they cannot accept or
reject them. The bells are for the souls
of the departed, and it is the duty of Christians to pray for them even while their
colleagues are being flippant.
In the end, their
comments did more than just disrespect the Catholic Church, Charlie Hebdo also disrespected their deceased colleagues while exposing
themselves as being people lacking in the higher noble attributes, which we
once called virtues. The Church still teaches those who listen to practice the
four cardinal virtues: Prudence (the ability to discern our true good and to
choose the right means for achieving it), Justice (the ability to respect the
rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that
promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good), Temperance (which
ensures the will's mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits
of what is honorable), and Fortitude (disposes one even to renounce and
sacrifice his life in defense of a just cause).
From the beginning, the only virtue one could attribute to Charlie Hebdo
was Fortitude, but even then, can they truly claim that mocking and insulting
religious belief is a just cause? We think not.
What is almost as
disturbing as Charlie Hebdo’s ungracious response to the Church’s condolences
is how many people, including world leaders, rallied on behalf of those slain
cartoonists when no such rally has ever taken place in all the months of the
Muslim slaughter of religious minorities that has been going on unceasingly
throughout the Islamic world. Jon put this situation into perspective a few
days ago, and before we read Charlie Hebdo’s comments.
What does it say about Western
democracies that thousands of Chaldean and Assyrian Christians are slaughtered
by Muslims for their faith and there's hardly a whimper of protest, but almost
four million people will rally when a dozen anti-religious secularists are
killed for mocking and ridiculing Islam. The same people are doing the killing,
but the WHY they're killing seems to make all the difference. Religious
freedom? Who cares? Nobody will carry a sign saying "We Are
Chaldeans". But don't you dare trample on our rights to insult and mock
you in the name of freedom of speech! In the end, the rally will accomplish
nothing because it's only about stopping some nebulous "violence",
not about seriously confronting an ideology that's spreading across the globe.
I responded with:
That double standard has been
bothering me as well. It’s not just that anti-religious secularists were
killed, but more importantly where they were killed. It's coming home now in
the West. Four Christian children can get beheaded in Iraq
What we haven’t mentioned
before now is the attack by the killer in the Jewish store that left four or
five people dead. Because of the targeting of Jews in France
over the last several years by Muslim men, French Jews are now immigrating to Israel because
they are afraid to continue living in their home country. Think about that. 70
years after they were nearly exterminated by the Nazis, Jews are beginning to
pack up and flee Europe once again for the security of living in a tiny country
surrounded by the same enemies that are causing them to abandon France in the
first place. And some of these enemies frequently shoot rockets into Israel . And
French Jews think they’ll be better protected? What does that say about France ?
Just don’t say
multiculturalism has failed in Europe . We must
be open and tolerant societies. The foreigners just need to be better integrated. Really? Charlie Hebdo seems to know better. They may be immature, but at least they’re brave, even if for the wrong reasons. While grinding the offered flowers of Catholics underfoot, Charlie is simultaneously rejecting what could lead Europe to what it needs most
of all in this time of crisis, a right relationship between God and men based
on the four cardinal virtues and a defense against the ever encroaching mindset
of the intolerant Islamists.
