April 6, 2016

"Everyone mistook a priest for a KKK member last night."

"Last night around 9:15 PM, social media became a furious storm of confusion regarding a man in white robes roaming along 10th St. and purportedly armed with a whip...."

ADDED: Preparing for class today, I ran into exactly the material I was trying to call to mind as I was writing this post. I'm teaching the same-sex marriage case, Obergefell v. Hodges, and I was rereading the post I wrote last June as I was encountering Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion for the first time:
In a straining-to-be-memorable passage, Justice Scalia says the majority hides its usurpation of power "beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion." (A "mummery" is a "Ridiculous ceremony (formerly used esp. of religious ritual regarded as pretentious or hypocritical).") That's from the OED, which gives an example of the word from Frederick Lewis Allen's 1931 book "Only Yesterday/An Informal History of the 1920's": "[The Ku Klux Klan's] white robe and hood, its flaming cross, its secrecy, and the preposterous vocabulary of its ritual could be made the vehicle for all that infantile love of hocus-pocus and mummery, that lust for secret adventure, which survives in the adult whose lot is cast in drab places.")
Nothing like a priest.

69 comments:

Comanche Voter said...

Well in a secular world, those students wouldn't recognize a Catholic Priest. Easy to understand the confusion

mikee said...

Hey, no jokes in the article about priests sodomizing little boys.
So "Hurray" for tolerance and diversity, I guess?

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Also stupid is claiming that "everyone" made the mistake.

Goldenpause said...

Maybe the priest was there to perform an exorcism. The entire IU community clearly is in need of one. By the way, Indian University lists its in-state student "total direct costs" as $21,412 for the current academic year. Based on this hysteria over a non-incident, IU clearly is not worth the cost.

mccullough said...

An alb and chasuble is different looking than a klan robe. But maybe wear a green chasuble next time.

buwaya said...

Heh. Wait till they see a procession of Spanish hermandades.
The KKK copied something indeed.

Henry said...

The best part of the story is the whip. Robed man seen with loopy string thing. It's a whip!

Tags: Catholics, Indiana, KKK, stupid

You need an Indiana Jones tag. ;)

Ignorance is Bliss said...

...purportedly armed with a whip...

As long as he wasn't armed with a Holy Hand-grenade.

Marc in Eugene said...

The poor scholars got scared and were terrified; gosh.

Was a Dominican friar in his proper habit, not a priest vested for Mass.

Rick said...

My three year old used to regale us with tales of monsters in the basement. He's almost five now and already more mature than college activists.

Michael K said...

He's lucky to be alive although the vegetarians at Indiana would probably shrink from physical violence.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Good heavens, is there anything worse than a hysterical scold who is also ignorant? It's like the worst stereotypes of Puritans losing it over black cats and sour milk.

JAORE said...

I will be sorely disappointed if the next Halloween does not include multiple priests on the IU campus.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

"Well then, what am I doing in the swamp dressed like Friar Tuck?"

chuck said...

Forget it Ann, it's a university.

rhhardin said...

There haven't been any KKK members since Senator Robert Byrd.

Ron Winkleheimer said...


Let me get this straight. College students are afraidof the Klan?

I weep for our nation.

Here is how people handled the Klan when being accused of having a pair was not pejorative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKwsA8KRHIE

Jason said...

BREAKING: Campus Liberals Successfully Identify 958,427 Out of Every Five Actual Racists. Details at 10.

YoungHegelian said...

There seems to be something about Klansmen that just haunt the lefty imagination. Even though there are probably less than 8000 (SPLC numbers) in a country of 350 million, they just seem to show up everywhere.

Years ago, I read a story in the WaPo about some incident in SE DC some guy was running through the neighborhood & the neighbors thought they heard him yelling "Sheets! Sheets!". This was interpreted as warning that there were Klansmen about. Yes, klansmen in SE DC, AKA known as "honky be dead in ten minutes".

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Never let a virtue-signaling moment go to waste. It doesn't matter if it's real or not.

Heartless Aztec said...

You just can't make this stuff up fast enough. Words fail me. Completely nonplussed.

CarlF said...

"There seems to be something about Klansmen that just haunt the lefty imagination."

Perhaps it is because the Klan were/are Democrats, and the left enjoys internal purges.

mccullough said...

When they found out he was a priest, they were even more scared.

mikeyes said...

Indiana can boast about having the most Klan members in the country during the heyday of that organization in the 1930s. There is a famous incident in which the Klan held a rally in South Bend that was broken up by Notre Dame students. Perhaps this is just an attempt to one-up ND, but somehow I doubt it. (My dad, a ND grad around that time, used to tell me about it.)

Ambrose said...

Must have been a whitefriar.

Sal said...

The last I heard, the majority of KKK members were actually undercover FBI agents.

Rusty said...

I think the KKK frowns on pedophilia.

Anonymous said...

Elsewhere, Meade and AprilApple were seen attesting to the truthiness of the students' fear of the KKK.

Meade said...

Times change. Know your robes.

JPS said...

Ron Winkelheimer, 10:57:

That is just wonderful! Thank you for that, I'd never seen this guy.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Everyone? Everyone is an idiot.

buwaya said...

Just like some outfit like the Klan to pervert the meaning of the hood. They stole it of course, from the Catholic lay bretheren who used them to preserve anonymity so as to avoid being credited for their pious manifestations, according to Matthew 6:5. Non nobis domine.

The KKK of course do so in order to remain anonymous in their misdeeds.
That appropriation - and that's exactly what it is, is an evil act and has ruined the imagery of a pious tradition. This is a case of cultural appropriation to which Catholics can be legitimately opposed.

In the modern world, a Catholic religious procession - of which there are very few in the US, save for the also perverted St. Patrick's parades - certainly would not benefit any identifiable participants, any of whom are more likely to suffer materially by this association. For that reason they should indeed remain identifiable, risking this persecution as an offering to God. I wonder what would happen were the Archdiocese of San Francisco to organize such a procession, and a cofradia to go with it, on the Feast of St. Francis (Oct 4). I suppose the cofradia would wear Franciscan brown.

Big Mike said...

If it had been Wisconsin instead of the University of Indiana, the campus would still be lockdown days later.

YoungHegelian said...

@buwaya,

That appropriation - and that's exactly what it is, is an evil act and has ruined the imagery of a pious tradition.

It's still easy to tell the difference. We light up candles, never crosses.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

“Now, I get it why a person would be scared. There in fact HAVE been klansmembers on the campus spurting hate speech, but never have they been reported with a weapon.

Oh, so close! It's not "spurting hate speech," young man, it's "spewing." Hate speech is spewed forth. But yeah, totally reasonable fear of a single individual with a whip based on the fact that some individuals in the past said mean things near the same place you are.

Ha-ha, stupid redneck white people afraid of ISIS/terrorism! They're such 'fraidy cats.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Major points off for not playing the "well organized religion has killed more people than any other force so it makes sense to be afraid of a monk/what about the Crusades & Inquisition" card, though. They're slipping...

Big Mike said...

Back when Dick Gregory was funny he observed that the Klan's hoods are actually flat; it's their heads that are pointed.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

How does the KKK feel about Catholics, again? I wonder if any of these children know and appreciate the irony.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Thankfully we in Texas can protect ourselves on college campi, concealed carry now being lawful.

Will Cate said...

Granted I'm Episcopal and not Catholic, but it still seems a bit strange for a priest to wandering around in public in full liturgical vestments.

buwaya said...

"Granted I'm Episcopal and not Catholic, but it still seems a bit strange for a priest to wandering around in public in full liturgical vestments."

These aren't liturgical vestments. This is the habit - the full uniform - of a Dominican friar.
They are permitted to wear "civilian" clothing, under many circumstances, but the habit is usual.
In Catholic schools and other institutions its usual for the religious members to wear habits. Habits vary in color and design according to the order. The rules for wear vary according to the order. Very much as with uniforms in the military.
If I understand correctly there is a Dominican institution on the campus in question, or very nearby.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

@Will Cate

I believe he is a Dominican wearing the habit of his order.

buwaya said...

St. Paul Catholic Center - run by Dominicans - is inside, nearly in the middle, of the UI grounds.
Granted there aren't a lot of them there - I think the staff of actual OP's is maybe 4 or 5 - but it should be common enough to see them.

This is one reason why I think processions are due for a revival. Catholics, and especially the clergy, aren't out and about enough to make an impression.

n.n said...

To avoid misidentification, Whites should wear black, Blacks should wear white, etc. Contrast matters.

buwaya said...

Domi-nique -nique -nique s'en allait tout simplement,
Routier, pauvre et chantant.
En tous chemins, en tous lieux,
Il ne parle que du Bon Dieu,
Il ne parle que du Bon Dieu.

- Jeaninne Deckers

Though heretics maybe do have to worry -

Certains jours un hérétique,
Par des ronces le conduit
Mais notre Père Dominique,
Par sa joie le convertit

TWW said...

Geeze, he was a pedophile, not a racist. Can't people tell the difference?

Fernandinande said...

"Phantom-like hosts of the Ku Klux Klan spread their white robe over the nation's most historic thoroughfare yesterday in one of the greatest demonstrations this city has ever known. . . . Police estimated that there were 30,000-35,000 in the weird procession -- men, women and children of the Klan."

They're holding hands and dancing, it's cute, not scary at all.

buwaya said...

"Justice Scalia says the majority hides its usurpation of power "beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion."

I will go several steps beyond Scalia - the entire legal process is nothing but a ridiculously complex mummery. The root, the cause, the object of all this is about power. Power relationships determine all outcomes. The process is a mask over reality. There is no real reason or system, no substance inside all the thousands of volumes in the law libraries, just camouflage and rationalization.

Theranter said...

Good thing it was a Priest, they would have gone berserk if they had seen these Dominicans!:
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/57114/5624053/in/album/75049

n.n said...

The common thread between KKK and "=" is that they both support selective exclusion. Although, the KKK pro-choice protocol was established by a concern for the collateral damage that preceded and accompanied a historical social upheaval.

buwaya said...

The fact of the state of law in the US -
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2016/04/05/abortion-activist-claims-planned-parenthood-videos-caused-raid-at-his-home/

Abortion Activist Claims Planned Parenthood Videos Caused Raid At His Home

The state does not raid left-wing activists that attempt to embarrass the right. And of course, the process is the punishment.
This case, here, is genuine tyranny.
We talk of foolishness in the post, but this is the normal condition of US politics, and law, where the boot on the face is becoming normal.

Marc in Eugene said...

Buwaya, Such a sad history, poor Jeanne Deckers. Am listening just now to a 'techno' version, circa 1994, of Dominique. With the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to reject the song as a fitting symbol for everything that went wrong following the last Council (in the Church at large and specifically in the Low Countries), while at the same time thinking of what might have been. Dominique, mon bon Père, garde-nous simples et gais,/ Pour annoncer à nos frères, la vie et la vèrité.

buwaya said...

To add -

As a resident, at various times, in countries ruled by a couple of dictatorships, I can say this case of David Daleiden with his Planned Parenthood videos, would have been scandalous in the waning days of the Marcos dictatorship. The Marcos regime was in MORE fear of its people, after 1983, and walked more carefully in those days, than does the State of California.

buwaya said...

Re Jeannine Deckers -
I think showbiz did her in. Pride is the worst sin, and there is nothing like the acclaim of the crowd to reinforce pride. Garde-nous simples et gais indeed.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Do you think the students consider wearing a strange outfit while walking around campus a... bad habit?

Big Mike said...

@HoodlumDoodlum, that was terrible!

Wish I'd thought of it.

BTW, I don't think the man is a priest per se. He appears to be wearing the robes of a Dominican friar -- one of God's Dogs (Domini Canes).

buwaya said...

Most Dominican friars are priests.

Theranter said...

Buwaya, yes, sadly, it seems the boot is the new normal here--at least for those that dare speak against anything in the the sacred lefty agenda.

Interesting line in the article that caught my eye earlier: "she [Kamala Harris] planned to review the undercover videos to see if center violated any state charity registration or reporting requirements."

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Incidentally, it's thought that the South's white population was predominantly secularized Irish and Scotch-Irish, as opposed to the North which was predominantly Anglo. So maybe the KKK was reaching back into the people's long-forgotten spiritual, Catholic roots.

Theranter said...

Gotta love the OPs!:
https://www.facebook.com/DominicanCentralProvince/posts/503194519871227?fref=nf
(Link from a commenter on another blog.)

Barry Dauphin said...

Who knew there were Catholics in Indiana?

Anthony said...

As a Catholic I believe this is just proof that our institutions are institutionally anti-Catholic. I feel completely reduced by this. I think Indiana should hire a director of Catholic outreach and all incoming freshman need courses to address their Protestant privilege.

Unless these demands are met I hope the Newman society will occupy the Dean's office.

Freeman Hunt said...

What nonsense are they filling students' heads with that they see a priest in white and assume he's a KKK member marauding the campus with a whip?

Freeman Hunt said...

If that's your first guess, your education has been bad. Further, if someone tells you there's a KKK member marauding the campus, and your first impulse isn't toward skepticism, your education has been bad.

rcocean said...

Again, I'm just astounded that American College Campuses seem to be Hotbeds for the KKK, Noose hanging racists and swastika painting Neo-nazis.

They don't seem to exist much anywhere else.

Maybe the College Presidents should address the problem.

rcocean said...

The KKK was big in Indiana in the 1920s. However, by the early 30's it was as dead as a door nail.

furious_a said...

There seems to be something about Klansmen that just haunt the lefty imagination.

The Klan was a creation of Democrats to defy Reconstruction and terrorize black Freedmen, so, yeah, the guilt still haunts.

TWW said...

I thought friars were chickens?

Josephbleau said...

Said the cannibalize chief observing priests in the boiling cauldren.