Context Is The Second Last Refuge of a Scoundrel (Who Happens to Find Patriotism Distasteful)

Fr. Pfleger has published a self-absolving explanation in the Chicago Sun-Times about his bad behavior of last Sunday.

Reading it, I can see that Fr. Pfleger doesn’t borrow only his preaching style from the likes of Rev. Wright, but his public apology talking points as well.

Father’s excuse is that he was taken out of context. Rather than seeing the compassionate, Martin-Luther-King inspired hero of justice and civil rights, we’re all getting the wrong idea about Fr. Pfleger based on a “a 1.5 minute 'YouTube' video” … stolen, apparently, “from a dramatization in a sermon that I felt was in the sacredness of a sanctuary, among people who know me”.

Was it only 1.5 minutes, Father? Because it seemed so much longer. (The main fun was actually 3:00 minutes).

Oh, by the way, if brief duration avoids moral liability, maybe we should we check the clock time on “nappy-headed ho”; or Trent Lott saying “I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.” (For Lott’s ten-second tribute to a 100-year-old man, Barack Obama demanded that “The Republican Party … has to drive out Trent Lott.”

The "out of context" excuse Fr. Pfleger offers backfired on Jeremiah Wright, too. Within days, by means of reviews of his complete sermons, and his own statements to Bill Moyers, and what he had to say at the NAACP dinner, and then at the National Press Club, we all knew for certain that the damned foolishness he displayed in the out-takes ran pretty constant through all his many years as a religious charlatan.

Even without seeing the rest of Father Pfleger's Sunday "sermon," we have seen him allowing the Christ- and Jew-hating Farrakhan into the sanctuary at St. Sabina's so that he could kiss Farrakhan's ass and give Farrakhan a platform to patronize the Catholic congregation Fr. Pfleger is accountable for instructing. Fr. Pfleger also rebukes those of us as "liars from the pit of hell") who call attention to the depth of Farrakhan's anti-Semitism and bitter racism. If Farrakhan isn't a racist, NO one is. (Father also does one of the worst black-guy impersonations in the Midwest, but my confessor informs me that's only a venial sin).

We've also seen him tell his Bishop, whom we Catholics believe to be direct successors of the Apostles, that he wouldn't obey orders to accept transfer from his parish, saying, "You're going to have to have the balls to fire me."

Fr. Pfleger says one thing I agree with: “racism is an explosive and sensitive sin in our world and it is against the command to love, and against the God of love.”

It is indeed. And that means that you, Fr. Pfleger, shouldn’t be whipping up black folks, either. And for doing that, you ought to make an Act of Contrition for sinning against the command of love, and against the God of love.