I recently got into a debate about Nicholas Kristof’s Sunday NYT Op Ed about the Church.  There was some Catholic people who I greatly respect who happened to agree with him and see nothing wrong with his piece.  I, however, found it deeply offensive and smug. So I figured I would break it down and really analyze what he wrote. I’ll have a counter-point soon, but wanted to do the groundwork a bit first.

Below are passages that I really just think are all out offensive (emphasis mine):

Maybe the Catholic Church should be turned upside down.

Jesus wasn’t known for pontificating from palaces, covering up scandals, or issuing Paleolithic edicts on social issues. Does anyone think he would have protected clergymen who raped children?

Pretty self-explanatory as to why this is pretty offensive.

….notable not for the grandeur of their vestments but for the grandness of their compassion.

There’s an implied sense that the Pope, Cardinals, and other Vatican members are essentially self-righteous hypocrites. Unfortunately later you’ll see he doesn’t quite have the courage to say that out right, but rather do so in veiled language.

As I’ve noted before, there seem to be two Catholic Churches, the old boys’ club of the Vatican and the grass-roots network of humble priests, nuns and laity in places like Sudan.

There’s just this overwhelming sense, going back to his earlier comment about protecting child rapists, that all the Vatican really is are a bunch of chauvinistic NAMBLA members who just want to make sure children keep getting raped.

No organization has done more to elevate the moral stature of the Catholic Church in the United States than The Boston Globe.

This is just, well it’s just silly.

Catholic kids are safer today not because of the cardinals’ leadership, but because of The Boston Globe’s.

Again, completely silly. Did the Boston Globe start Virtus? Did the Boston Globe open up support groups for victims of ANY type of sexual abuse, not just clergy? In a recent conversation I had with Cardinal George, he mentioned that many of these support groups were initially meant for those who were victimized by clergy, but it turned out those who have been abused in other circumstances (families, school, etc) would show up because they would claim there was nowhere else to go.

It may be easy at a New York cocktail party to sniff derisively at a church whose apex is male chauvinist, homophobic and so out of touch that it bars the use of condoms even to curb AIDS.

Again, he just doesn’t have the courage to come out and say these things, he uses hypothetical conversations to say it.

Anybody think he’s a self-righteous hypocrite?

This is the quote I referenced earlier. He uses the great example of a preist doing good work to basically call the Pope a self-righteous hypocrite.

Sister Cathy would like to see more decentralization in the church, a greater role for women, and more emphasis on public service. She says she worries sometimes that if Jesus returned he would say, “Oh, they got it all wrong!”

It may be slightly unfair to put this on Kristof, considering it is from Sister Cathy’s mouth, but considering he provides a summation of her stance, without providing any quotes to back up what she might have really been saying I’m still going to rack it up as a bit of an “attack.”

She would make a great pope, too.

Mr. Kristof may be many things, but stupid is not one of them. He has to know suggesting a woman become Pope is simply just being petty and provocative.

I understand why many Americans disdain a church whose leaders are linked to cover-ups and antediluvian stances on women, gays and condoms

Again, self explanatory, but again reeks of cowardice. Why place this feeling on Americans? Why not just come out and say it?

And unless we’re willing to endure beatings alongside Father Michael, unless we’re willing to stand up to warlords with Sister Cathy, we have no right to disparage them or their true church.

It’s just really insulting to say “this is the true church.”

All told there are about 17 paragraphs in this piece, and the quotes above are from 9 of them (or about 52%)