Joseph Sobran’s
Washington Watch

So Sorry

(Reprinted from the issue of June 30, 2005)

Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois Democrat, finally made the inevitable tearful apology for having made offensive analogies between the American treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Nazi, Soviet, and Khmer Rouge atrocities.

Actually, he hadn’t. Republicans, seeing a golden opportunity to embarrass the Democrats, had distorted his words and cried, “How dare you!” for days. Some even demanded that he be censured. But all he’d really said was this: “If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings.”

That doesn’t say that the American prisoner abuse was as bad as the most infamous crimes of recent history, merely that it’s the sort of thing most of us would associate with totalitarians, not Americans. Durbin slightly overstated his point and made it inflammatory by mentioning especially notorious examples. It would have been sufficient to observe that the reports of prisoner abuse are the sort of things we don’t expect to hear about our fellow Americans doing; we prefer to think they happen under other forms of government, in nastier countries.

The reaction of both parties — the Democrats also denounced Durbin with feigned horror — shows how strong American national vanity is. This vanity is sometimes called “American exceptionalism,” a conviction that America is exempt from the general rules of history, morality, and even original sin. Perish the thought that we might sometimes behave as badly as the rest of the human race!

Well, this very attitude, so childishly arrogant, helps explain why the rest of the human race is afraid of America. The Greeks named it “hubris” and were capable of recognizing it in themselves. But self-examination doesn’t come easy to Americans as a nation, or we might reflect more often on, say, the terrible bombing of German and Japanese cities during World War II, which reached its climax in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

American politicians feel they must cater to this immature patriotism at all times and never remind us that we are sinners. Durbin forgot himself and violated this taboo. Naturally, his enemies accused him of a deadly insult to the brave men and women who are defending our freedom and, as Sean Hannity put it, “undermining the war effort.” Rush Limbaugh, after strenuously parsing Durbin’s mea culpa, complained that he hadn’t really apologized.

For a while, Durbin tried to explain his remarks in the vain hope that somewhere, a grownup might be listening. But in the end, he felt he had no choice but to grovel.
 
Back to Rome?

The American and Canadian branches of the Anglican communion are standing by their positions approving sodomy. The U.S. Episcopal Church has affirmed its decision to appoint a homosexual bishop in New Hampshire, while the Canadian wing will continue to bless homosexual unions.

An American bishop suffragan explained that “a person living in a same-gendered union may be eligible to lead the flock of Christ.” It’s a sign of the times that this bishop suffragan is a woman, Catherine Roskam.

“We believe that God has been opening our eyes to acts of God that we had not known how to see before,” an Episcopal document further explained. Such “acts of God” include “convenanted same-sex unions.”

Many Anglicans and Episcopalians, however, believe not that eyes have been opened, but that hearts have been hardened. The homosexual faction has bitterly divided their church everywhere, as even the archbishop of Canterbury acknowledges. That faction shows little charitable concern for those who cleave to immemorial tradition and find the innovation impossible to accept in good conscience.

The “progressives,” no longer content with gradual subversion, now prefer upheaval and messy schism to peace.

We are witnessing the climax of an old tragedy. When, five centuries ago, Henry VIII broke with Rome, he had no intention of founding a new Protestant church. In nearly all points of doctrine he remained quite orthodox, and he loved the Mass as it was. Only after his death did Thomas Cranmer lead a radical change of the Anglican church, which Henry, if he were alive today, would not recognize.

We must pray that the crumbling of the Anglican church will lead its faithful members back to Rome.
 
Graham’s Retirement

Even the mainstream press, which generally ignores religious doings, is taking note of an important event: The great Baptist preacher Billy Graham is preparing to make his final crusade.

At 86, Graham is now frail, using a walker and speaking almost inaudibly. His current appearance in Queens, New York, marks the 48th anniversary of his famous 1957 crusade in Madison Square Garden, one of his most notable successes. He has even been the subject of a front-page interview in The New York Times this week.

Throughout his career, Graham has been remarkably free of scandal and controversy, befriending presidents but avoiding politics. Only his private comments to Richard Nixon about Jews in the media (revealed on the Nixon tapes only a couple of years ago) have brought him grief; he assured the Times that he has many Jewish friends and supports Israel.

His son Franklin, more outspoken, has recently condemned Islam as an evil religion, but Graham himself leaves that and other hot topics (such as homosexual “marriage”) to others, preferring to stick to his primary message of salvation. Despite his conservative demeanor, he has also kept his distance from the religious right.

Over the years Graham has preached to an estimated 210 million people, and I mean no slur on his efforts when I say that you now have to avoid a great many subjects in order to avoid controversy. Of course when he was young, homosexuality wasn’t controversial at all; everyone knew it was a perversion, and it was considered poor taste to mention it at all, so there was no need to condemn it by name. Nowadays, even the word “fornication” sounds quaint.


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Joseph Sobran