Sarah Palin’s remark warrants reparation, not applause

Whether one is a left-wing looney who becomes unhinged upon simply seeing this woman who loves her family and her country or is a right-wing yahoo who looks on her as some sort of high priestess of traditional values, Sarah Palin’s statement that, if she were in charge, “waterboarding is how we’d baptize terrorists” should shock the conscience.

Dcn. Greg Kandra calls Palin’s rude remark “blasphemous” and he might be right (see CCC 2148, or Crosgnani, DMC I: 460-471, or Davis, MPT I: 42-43); even if Palin’s words only meet the lesser standard of “irreverence” toward God or holy things, they were wrong to utter and wrong to applaud. C. S. Lewis warns (I forget where exactly) about one’s glibly getting off, at God’s expense, one-liners that please the crowd but provoke unseen angels to weep. I think Palin’s guardian angel (and yes, she has one, CCC 336) wept at her comparing baptism to waterboarding.

Open contempt for faith and things of religion is broadly associated with the left in America. I well recall pro-aborts smirking under a placard that claimed “If men could become pregnant abortion would be a sacrament.” Now Palin has given sociology professors an incontestable example of contempt for religion on the American right.

May my readers join me in offering a short Pater in reparation for both.