Redemption Rappers Back in the News!

The Journal-World, that oddly centrist paper in the leftist, heathen town of Lawrence, Kansas (Where's a William Quantrill when you need him?), is picking up coverage of the redemption rapping tour, the first performance of which I covered here, as it continues west. The article does what it can to demonize the FSSP chaplain and his backward congregation (proudly including me). I just couldn't help but comment there (reprinted here in case the LJWorld staff takes it down).

Posted by curmudgeonkc (anonymous) on January 20, 2006 at 10:15 p.m.
(Suggest removal)
1. It wasn't a protest. They didn't block the entrance. There were no signs. They didn't try to stop anyone from entering. They didn't say anything to the attenees or the press. They simply prayed publicly in reparation for sacrilege and blasphemy occuring inside.

2. There weren't just 50 people. There were 100 to 110 outside (my count was 102).

3. The people weren't just from [the chaplain's] congregation; they were from at least two others as well.

4. You missed the point that [the chaplain's] congregation actually worships at that same Church, in the traditional way (old Latin Mass), so there was good reason for his particular concern.

5. Be fair: the other point of view that you're neglecting is some things are inherently vulgar and unsuitable for sacred places. Rap music, born of urban gang culture, is one of those things (unfortunately, much other music sung in Catholic churches is, as well, but rap is truly "beyond the pale"). The idea that all things, such as rap music, are to be judged on a relative basis--that
there are no objective standards by which to weigh things--is un-Catholic, and after all, this is a Catholic church they performed in. I understand why mainline Protestants don't have a problem with vulgar music in their churches; those people should, in turn, should understand why Catholics do.

6. The selection of quotations in this article obscured the point that the "protesters"
did not object to the fact that prisoners were singing--they objected to the music itself. Bring in prisoners to sing Greorian chant and early polyphony, and those "protesters will be inside with them every Sunday.

I was particularly proud of the last sentence in comment 5, until Mrs. Curmudgeon pointed out that I had stolen and paraphrased it, perhaps from something Evelyn Waugh had written.