Fred And Charles

[poliphilo]

Fred Phelps is in the news again but this time it's because he's dying so lets play pretty.

Not that he'd play pretty if it were someone he disapproved of that was dying. Given half a chance he'd be picketing the hospital telling them how much God hated them and how they were going to burn.

But really, it takes courage to be as horrid as Fred has set himself to be. I couldn't be that brave. Let's at least praise him for that.

As it happens I've been reading about Charles Borromeo.

Charles was a lot like Fred. He hated sin. He preached hell at people. He went out on the streets and demonstrated his contempt for everything human.

The difference is he lived in the Phelpsian universe of the late 16th century where preaching hell at people was the thing to do.

So Charles got to be Bishop of Milan and have a private army and burn people for real and not just in his imagination.  Then after his death they made him a saint of the Holy Catholic Church.

Whereas Fred has his tin tabernacle and a big file of newspaper cuttings and that's about it.

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Savonarola burned, but then he upset all the wrong people about sin and hellfire- the rich and powerful, who did't (and still don't) like to be reminded........

Funny how Phelps only ever victimised the less wealthy and less powerful, isn't it?

Here's hoping the Angels turn up at his funeral in rather different sort from how they turned up to protect his victims and I don't mean the feathery floaty sort!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yeah but Phelps was one of the less wealthy and less powerful himself. And he went out of his way to make himself unpopular- for instance by picketing the funerals of dead soldiers- thus alienating a lot of right-wing people who might otherwise have been on his side.

He was a really peculiar person.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Turning up at the funeral of a little girl who had died after long and painful illness is my idea of someone entirely mentally unbalanced!

I'm one of the less wealthy and less powerful but I'm not a hatemonger.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Also, it's rather difficult to persecute the rich and powerful- because if you get up their noses they'll persecute you right back- and with knobs on. To be fair to Fred I think you'll find he wasn't all that keen on President Obama- and you can't get any more powerful than that!

Was he mad? I don't know. He was certainly out of step.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

It's easy to hate him, but I never did. He did the country a useful service by articulating the logical extension of Bible based homophobia. He said the things that the main stream evangelicals only hinted at.

And later, as I've learned to understand Buddhist psychology, it's apparent that he has been living in his own self imposed hell here on earth, estranged from his family, and now - at the end - kicked out of his own church.

But yeah, I might dance just a little jig.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He was very annoying, but I can't see he did all that much actual harm. His stance was so extreme he alienated almost everybody- and ended up more laughing-stock than gadfly. As you say, he can't have been a happy man.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a church. It was a lawsuit machine, and Fred Phelps is/was a lawyer. It was a winning formula: take a hateful position, irritate someone into reacting, and then sue for infringment of freedom of religion. I would like to see the folks who protected the affronted from the church also protect the Phelps from the affronted but otherwise leave Mr. Phelps to [insert your value of the deity].

(I was the anonymous commenter -- you can delete my screened comment.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well I never! Are you saying Fred didn't actually believe in the views he was pushing?

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

No idea what he believed. But he sure was litigious.