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Good people on both sides fall prey to scapegoating
By Dorothy Cummings McLean
October 2, 2009
Dorothy Cummings McLean
This morning I woke up at five, feeling sick. Today I want to defend pro-lifers without worsening the battle between fans of Fr. Thomas Rosica and fans of LifeSiteNews. I’m not sure how to do that, and it seems so important.
Once upon a time, when I was a teenage pro-lifer, a fight broke out between two of the guys in our group, a bully and the butt of his jokes. The butt finally snapped and told the bully to go to hell. There was an explosion of chairs, and the bully chased his victim down the stairwell. Hoping to shame them both, I threw myself down on the landing, rosary in my hands. Right at that moment, the pizza deliveryman arrived. Giving me a brief, scared glance, he climbed over my legs and went into the office. Meanwhile, one of the other guys calmly collected money from the frazzled group and paid the pizza man.
I want to be like the calm guy. But I’m afraid I’m still the girl on her knees on the landing, passive-aggressively praying the rosary.
Once upon a time, when I was a teenage pro-lifer, a fight broke out between two of the guys in our group, a bully and the butt of his jokes. The butt finally snapped and told the bully to go to hell. There was an explosion of chairs, and the bully chased his victim down the stairwell. Hoping to shame them both, I threw myself down on the landing, rosary in my hands. Right at that moment, the pizza deliveryman arrived. Giving me a brief, scared glance, he climbed over my legs and went into the office. Meanwhile, one of the other guys calmly collected money from the frazzled group and paid the pizza man.
I want to be like the calm guy. But I’m afraid I’m still the girl on her knees on the landing, passive-aggressively praying the rosary.
When I look at all the combatants in the recent fuss over Fr. Rosica’s intemperate blogpost attacking the intemperance of pro-life leaders, I see a lot of good people. Fr. Rosica is a good man with a wonderful television station that offers Christians educational and spiritual programs. John-Henry Westen is a good man with a popular web site that offers social conservatives stories and viewpoints they won’t find in the mainstream media. John Bentley Mays is a good man writing from the viewpoint of a recent convert to Catholicism. Then there are those who were disappointed when the archdiocese of Boston sanctioned a hero’s funeral for pro-choice Ted Kennedy, complete with a eulogy from pro-choice U.S. President Barack Obama. They’re probably good people, too, when they’re not losing it on Fr. Rosica’s answering machine.
I joined the pro-life movement when I was 18. Of course, I was pro-life from the moment I found out that abortion existed. But I didn’t start publicly criticizing the practice until I joined the Toronto Students for Life. We met in the Campaign Life Coalition offices in the old Mission Press building on Dundas Street East. For two years, protesting abortion was the most important, most meaningful business of my life. Then, outside the Scott Clinic in Cabbagetown, I burned out.
It was quit or go crazy, so I quit. It was hard to go out, week after week, and stand in the hot or cold on the public street with signs that made passersby recoil in horror. It was hard to take the angry shouts from drivers, and the insults of counter-protesters across the street. It was hard to hear my male friends being told they had no right to an opinion, and to hear my female friends having rape wished upon them. It was hard to be mere feet away from the horror of abortion. It was hard to be blamed for the ugly posters, as if we ourselves were responsible for the ugliness. It was hard not to scowl at the abuse. And it was embarrassing, so embarrassing, to see friends fall on their knees and pray before the hooting, jeering pro-choice activists.
I have often criticized the pro-life movement since then. I have muttered about public relations morons. I have written against the use of gory photographs of mutilated aborted babies. But I have been infuriated when I read in the papers, again and again, that pro-lifers are “anti-choice” and “extremists.” And I never thought to see the word “extremist” applied to non-violent pro-lifers in The Catholic Register, as I did last week.
The theorist René Girard has attracted much attention from theologians for his discussion of the scapegoat mechanism. Girard posits that when a group becomes discontented, it searches for someone to blame. (When Christians fall into this pattern, we identify the scapegoat with Satan.) When the group either kills or casts out the scapegoat, it is restored to unity and a false sense of peace. This, says Girard, is the mechanism that led to Christ’s crucifixion. And indeed, it is not the scapegoat that is like Satan, but the scapegoat mechanism itself.
There is something new going on in the Canadian Catholic community, and it is stirring us up. I’m not referring to abortion, which is something we have strived against since 1969. I am referring to the new media revolution. The old media of print and television are being displaced by the new media of the Internet. Now instead of being restricted to writing letters to the editor, anyone can be an editor. And this is making those used to the old media very nervous.
Meanwhile, those who use the new media may not know that we in the old media have always worked under certain restrictions and according to certain codes. New media is clashing with old media, and there is much discontentment. Creating a working partnership is going to take time and care. We Catholics must not fall prey to the scapegoat mechanism. It is the only Satan among us.
I joined the pro-life movement when I was 18. Of course, I was pro-life from the moment I found out that abortion existed. But I didn’t start publicly criticizing the practice until I joined the Toronto Students for Life. We met in the Campaign Life Coalition offices in the old Mission Press building on Dundas Street East. For two years, protesting abortion was the most important, most meaningful business of my life. Then, outside the Scott Clinic in Cabbagetown, I burned out.
It was quit or go crazy, so I quit. It was hard to go out, week after week, and stand in the hot or cold on the public street with signs that made passersby recoil in horror. It was hard to take the angry shouts from drivers, and the insults of counter-protesters across the street. It was hard to hear my male friends being told they had no right to an opinion, and to hear my female friends having rape wished upon them. It was hard to be mere feet away from the horror of abortion. It was hard to be blamed for the ugly posters, as if we ourselves were responsible for the ugliness. It was hard not to scowl at the abuse. And it was embarrassing, so embarrassing, to see friends fall on their knees and pray before the hooting, jeering pro-choice activists.
I have often criticized the pro-life movement since then. I have muttered about public relations morons. I have written against the use of gory photographs of mutilated aborted babies. But I have been infuriated when I read in the papers, again and again, that pro-lifers are “anti-choice” and “extremists.” And I never thought to see the word “extremist” applied to non-violent pro-lifers in The Catholic Register, as I did last week.
The theorist René Girard has attracted much attention from theologians for his discussion of the scapegoat mechanism. Girard posits that when a group becomes discontented, it searches for someone to blame. (When Christians fall into this pattern, we identify the scapegoat with Satan.) When the group either kills or casts out the scapegoat, it is restored to unity and a false sense of peace. This, says Girard, is the mechanism that led to Christ’s crucifixion. And indeed, it is not the scapegoat that is like Satan, but the scapegoat mechanism itself.
There is something new going on in the Canadian Catholic community, and it is stirring us up. I’m not referring to abortion, which is something we have strived against since 1969. I am referring to the new media revolution. The old media of print and television are being displaced by the new media of the Internet. Now instead of being restricted to writing letters to the editor, anyone can be an editor. And this is making those used to the old media very nervous.
Meanwhile, those who use the new media may not know that we in the old media have always worked under certain restrictions and according to certain codes. New media is clashing with old media, and there is much discontentment. Creating a working partnership is going to take time and care. We Catholics must not fall prey to the scapegoat mechanism. It is the only Satan among us.
Dorothy Cummings McLean