Saletan’s Cheap Shot

Last updated on: June 28, 2014 at 5:20 pm by David Mills

Saletan’s Cheap Shot 2014-06-28T17:20:26-04:00 David Mills

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Yesterday in The Pope Till Death Do Us Part, Sometimes, I took minor issue with a possible implication of Bad Catholic’s idea that popes should resign more often. This reminded me of something I wrote for the “While We’re At It” section of First Things: Here it is:

When Pope Benedict resigned, the world of commentary flowered with ignorance and goofiness like the desert after a rain, and with more than a little anti-Catholicism. Some writers delivered really cheap shots, like Slate writer William Saletan’s attempt at the classic “gotcha” article.

The article’s heading declared: “Catholics who eulogized Pope John Paul II for serving to the bitter end now praise Pope Benedict for quitting. Make up your minds.” The title in the web link called this praise for both men “Catholic hypocrisy.” Saletan quoted people like George Weigel and Peggy Noonan as if they were just saying whatever they needed to say to praise the pope at the moment.

“A clash between these two schools won’t be as tidy as a chorus of gymnastic apologists bent on defending both popes,” he concluded. “But it will be more fruitful and more honest.”

“More honest.” Were Saletan honest enough to try to understand someone else’s point of view before calling them “gymnastic apologists” (meaning, effectively, “deceptive prostitutes”), he would see that one can think John Paul II did the right thing in his circumstances and that Benedict did the right thing in his, or that they had different vocations, or that they understood their vocations and the papacy differently, or that both of them were doing the best they could when the right thing to do is not obvious.

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