Start Date: May 27, 2023
It is the advent of summer and I am reading about a local organization honoring people for displays of courage.
Could it be the Navy Seal team that took out Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks? The Navy veteran who took the shot tells of training for the mission and then being given a few days off before heading out. The team members spent time with their families, without saying it could be the last. They locked in and maxed out life insurance. There were reasons to believe that they wouldn’t be coming back. But they completed the mission and returned. That is courage.
There are only few left. Could we be honoring the last of the WWII veterans who, in their teens and early twenties, fought valiantly and saved the world from life under Hitler? The real one, not every public figure who you think triggers you.
Maybe it is the police or firefighters who risk their lives daily to protect us. Or their families. The dead sacrificed everything. But their problems ended. For those left behind to grieve and carry on without them it is a burden to be shouldered for a lifetime.
Perhaps they are democracy activists from China or North Korea, or female dissidents from Iran. I never want to ask myself what I would do if faced with prison and torture for doing the right thing. I believe I know the answer and it is not heroic.
But no. It seems that the Los Angeles Dodgers are honoring the heroism of a group of burly guys who dedicate themselves to defaming, disgracing, and dishonoring the Christian faith.
A few basic corrections to the stories you are being told. They are NOT TRANS NUNS.
The first reason is they are not nuns. If you buy a space suit costume from a Halloween store that does not make you an astronaut. If you put on scrubs that won’t make you a neurosurgeon. Putting on an extra large nun’s habit costume does not make you a nun.
The second issue is “trans”. We live in a bizarre time such that someone can tell you they are a zebra and you must believe. If you deny it you are an animal-phobe or some such. But “trans” would imply that these are men are making some effort to live as women. Yet from what I have seen they do not appear to have had surgery or taken hormones. They are not altering their vocal modulations, gait, or effecting anything that would be perceived as feminine. I have known people who identify as an opposite gender. These guys may well be gay but if they think they are being “female” they are doing an atrociously bad job of it.
What they are is a perversion of the teaching of Jesus to “sin no more” by encouraging all to “sin more”.
The most sacred day on the Christian calendar is Easter. Christmas is important and fun but the mass for Christ was a later Roman adaptation to a pre-existing mid-winter party. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ is everything to any Christian of any denomination. You don’t have to be a believer to know that the brutal death of a loved one is sacrosanct. Yet they desecrate this by engaging in largely naked sexualized displays of pole dancing on a crucifix. There are reportedly “hunky Jesus” and “foxy Mary’ events.
Heaven knows, and I mean that literally, the Catholic Church must bear the weight of the sexual abuse of millions of young children. The Church of France alone has acknowledged roughly 3000 priests, plus an unknown number of laypersons, abused an estimated 330,000 children. The judgement will be for God and the courts to assign. But the sin was that of individuals, not of the specific or broader Christian faith.
Bad behavior is not in short supply. Nor disrespect. But where this all comes apart at the seams is that this cohort is not just being ignored like the ill-mannered children they are, but that they are being hailed as “courageous” when in fact they are simply narcissistic exhibitionists who count on patience and restraint from the modern Christian culture. Maybe it is an L.A. notion. Producers have been known to deem it brave to produce movies with gorgeous young actresses exploring the dark side of sexuality, as if that was a tough ticket to sell.
The group has some precedent on their side. Decades past or more there were so-called “art” displays in major NYC museums portraying the crucifixion of Jesus in urine or the Virgin Mary in animal dung. To their credit, offended Christians managed to resist racing through galleries with uzis and shooting all around. Tragically, when the French satire magazine, Charley Hebdo, printed covers deemed heresy to some Muslims, terrorists responding by attacking the offices and killing 12 people.
So while it would still be disrespectful, a better test of bravery for “the sisters” would be to go to a Muslim section of Europe and portray a trans hunky Muhammed. I don’t think it would go well. It would be very rude. But it would take courage.
If they truly care about alternate lifestyles and gender identity why not advocate in Iran where young boys can be hanged for gay sex. In Brunei the penalty is stoning. Very biblical. There are real martyrs in the real harsh world. These men are not among them.
In the end the real sin is that of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who should be the grownups in the room. No two people more represent the organization than Vin Scully, who was their play-by-play announcer for over 60 years, and Tommy Lasorda, one of their most memorable managers. Both were born in 1927. They came of age in 1945, just as WWII was ending. Surely they grew up knowing the stories of those who served. They saw the windows with gold stars for those who never came home. They would have known of true courage.
Mr. Scully, a Catholic graduate of a Jesuit university, arranged for masses to be celebrated in the media room of Dodger’s stadium. Mr. Lasorda, a lifelong Catholic, had priests come to Sunday games to offer mass to Catholic players. Having acknowledged a proficiency for swearing, Mr. Lasorda would probably have something colorful to say. Mr. Scully once very softly stated that he would never watch another NFL game, after learning of players disrespecting the national anthem. He would perhaps just turn his back and walk away.
As of now, they are only recently gone. Can we imagine they could have stopped this, or do we simply thank God that they were spared this? Either way it doesn’t speak well for the generations who came after.