Columns

Public Editor

A Critical Overview of The Stranger

by Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, Metropolitan Archbishop of the 
Archdiocese of Seattle

I realize that The Stranger and I have had our differences in the past, most notably on the topic of gay marriage. Multiple Stranger writers framed my support of traditional marriage as "bigotry." They called me a "hatemonger." But what did Jesus Christ do when the sinners complained about that time he cast the homosexuals out of the village for fornicating? He simply turned the other cheek. And so that is what I did when the fornicators of The Stranger referred to me as a bigot: I continued my Jesus-like campaign against the love that exists between two adults, and I ignored their rebukes and barbs.

But Jesus lost the election last November, and The Stranger's bigamists and beastialitizers won. I don't have enough space to delineate the various injuries that traditional families have suffered since gay marriage passed. Instead, I am here to represent Jesus again.

Let's talk about CIENNA MADRID's little tirade. Or, should I say, let's talk about Cienna Madrid's ridiculously long tirade. In it, Miss Madrid claims that Catholic hospitals are buying up secular hospitals. Fair enough, can't argue with that. Then she insists that our Catholic hospitals are "imposing [our] faith on your health care." Again, true. So my question is, where is the story here? What is the controversy?

It's time for me to share a little wisdom with you the way Jesus did in his Sermon upon the Hillock, which is to say, in the form of an allegory. Let's say your appendix ruptures. Whom do you trust to unrupture it? Some random surgeon, who has had years of training in a "medical school," or your ol' pal Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, who has a direct phone line to God in his house? Miss Madrid—who, I might remind you, is a woman—interviews a couple of people who cry because the Catholic Church wants them to keep their babies, but I have an actual bottle of angel tears sitting on my fireplace mantel at home, and those angel tears were shed by angels when some trollop somewhere had an abortion. Besides being a wonderfully invigorating tonic that reduces wrinkles and revives disappearing hairlines, those angel tears remind me of the butchery taking place in secular hospitals, where babies are killed every day, just for fun. We are the Catholic Church. We are here to help.

I suppose the news that our pope is resigning has left The Stranger feeling encouraged about their various attacks on the Catholic Church, so they decided to strike at a moment of perceived weakness. This was a foolish mistake. By this time next month, there will be two living popes, which means there will be TWICE the Voice of God on Earth. When you hear God's will in stereo, ye heathens and sodomites, you will understand precisely what you have been doing wrong all this time. Prepare for the Catholic Church in hi-fi, secular swine.