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Sinead O’Connor, Once A Holy Fool

Here’s a powerful column by the Traditionalist Catholic Michael Brendan Dougherty, who is not all that excited, to say the least, by the coming canonization of John Paul II. Excerpt: I have to remind myself that not all Popes who were declared saints had good papacies. But sometimes, thinking about John Paul’s inevitable canonization, it seems that […]

Here’s a powerful column by the Traditionalist Catholic Michael Brendan Dougherty, who is not all that excited, to say the least, by the coming canonization of John Paul II. Excerpt:

I have to remind myself that not all Popes who were declared saints had good papacies. But sometimes, thinking about John Paul’s inevitable canonization, it seems that the modern saint-making process, which is catapulting all the modern popes toward universal veneration, is untrustworthy.

Despite her wild anti-religiosity, not to mention how silly this might make me look, I find myself wishing that John Paul just once had spoken or acted with the moral fury expressed in O’Connor’s song “Take Off Your Shoes,” which takes the voice of Jesus (or the victim of a crime, or Sinead’s own voice — it’s hard to tell) and aims it at unfaithful priests:

If you believed at all in your breviary
If you believed even in just the ghost of me
You wouldn’t now be so surprised to see me
In vanity you took the name of me
You brought me into infamy
And now you’re so surprised to see me

I do not see the upcoming canonizations as the celebration of a great era in the Church — almost the opposite. It is another sign of the Church’s auto-demolition, in which the shepherds who oversaw the Church in her agony are sainted, and our heretics speak with the holy fury of prophets.

Amen. I think Sinead O’Connor was a blasphemous loon. But in retrospect, she was acting like a holy fool. 

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