The Al Smith Dinner and the Martyrs’ Te Deum: Fisking Cardinal Dolan’s Speech

Yikes! V’s graphic at V’s sanctepater.com. Now, just to say…

The Al Smith Dinner was the un-Last Supper, in which the littlest ones, the un-born, were made all so un-important, you know, those un-born, who were ideologized as those who were mere differences in political platforms to be set aside for the evening’s jocular tyranny of relativism…

Sure, those littlest ones among us were given a wink and a nod of solidarity, but that only played into the hands of the number one enemy of the Church in the world today. The cameras never panned to the floor. Had they done so, you would have seen that they were all situated on a small mountain of babies’ corpses that had been bulldozed into the dining hall for the evening for the proper atmospherics.

The rest of us, who don’t understand such “prudence”*, will go to our deaths singing, please God, the Te Deum and, while the death camps send up their smoke and the glistening ashes settle upon America and environs, the compromisers with the world, the flesh and the devil will surmise that we are not going about the new evangelization in the right way, and from on high will despise our deaths as the result of incompetent consensus building. “If only they had known better!” they will exclaim as guests for the next Al Smith dinner are short-listed.

The Immaculate Conception’s Divine Son had His own way of going about making friends and influencing people, drawing all to Himself by way of truth provided in all charity, and this from the cross, the Sacrifice not of the Al Smith Dinner, but of the Last Supper.

That’s how to embrace those who are now redeemed and who need to be saved.

Here’s the Te Deum sung by so many martyrs on their way to their deaths, to their ultimate witness to the truth and charity of Mary’s Son, to their bid for unity in worship of God in eternity. The words are provided in Latin and English, for your memorization pleasure:

Also, if you missed the critique of Cardinal Dolan’s rationalization for the invitation of Obama, here it is with the link. And here’s some fisking for the speech at the dinner itself:

It traditionally falls to the host of this enjoyable evening, the Archbishop of New York, to “call it a night.” ["night"]

Thank you, everybody, for your gracious company this evening.

What a unique honor and joy to welcome and thank our two candidates, and Mrs. Romney.

Our two candidates claim that both your parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, are “big tents,” containing extraordinarily diverse, even contrary, opposite people and groups.  Well, you don’t have a thing over the Catholic Church.  We got both Biden and Ryan! [Well, no. We don't. Biden has exclaimed time and again that he believes the doctrine of the Catholic Church that life begins at conception, and then goes on to push abortion from conception onward with all his energy, thuggery and buffoonery. This lifts him out of communion with the Church. He is ex-communicant with the Church. The only tent the Church has is the "tent", the Body, which our Lord took upon Himself for our redemption: Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν /// Et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis /// And the Word became flesh, and pitched His tent among us. In having the un-born ripped to shreds, Biden is having our Lord ripped to shreds: "What you have done to the least of these, you have done to me. Biden is not in communion with the Catholic Church.]

Governor Romney, thank you for being up here sitting next to me; although I must confess I was secretly hoping the Republican candidate would be Governor Christie, because I sure would have looked good sitting next to him!

Mr. President I trust you’ll be able to report to Mrs. Obama that I ate my vegetables and salad.  If she had been “first lady” instead of Mamie Eisenhower when I was growing up in the 50’s, I wouldn’t be in this shape!

As you may know, I just returned from Rome a couple of hours ago, where I’m participating in the Synod of Bishops.  Thanks to Mr. Mort Zuckerman’s jet, I will be able to return to Rome right after the dinner. [Yours truly also is good friends with the Zuckerman crowd, who frequent this very blog. Imagine that. The point is, let's not be distracted with the who's who list for the dinner.]

By the way, just before I left this morning, Pope Benedict XVI asked me to deliver a special personal message to both candidates.  Mr. President, Governor Romney, do you know what the Holy Father asked me to tell you? . . . neither do I, because he said it in Latin. [This jocularity, though rightly siding with Mitt's incisive remark against Obama's abortifacient mandate and consonant slights of hand, relegates the gravity of what is happening with the persecution of the Catholic Church by Obama to the level of other jokes of the evening, such as the one which follows. The Cardinal will get more serious further below, when he launches into his "un"-speech. But we'll see what he does with that.]

Both candidates expressed shock that Mayor Bloomberg had a 16 ounce cup in front of him.  Not to worry, Your Honor — I explained to them that it was not a sugar-laden soft drink, but a martini.

The mayor might want to challenge that remark, but, I’m sorry Mr. Mayor, Candy Crowley has already said she agrees with me. [A great jab at the horrifically biased type of "moderator" presiding over the debates. But this was a kind of seamless garment bias.]

Only the Al Smith dinner could bring together two men, of the same calling, who disagree on almost everything, both of whom think they are the world’s experts on everything, who don’t like even being in the same room together: Roger Ailes and Chris Matthews.

The Al Smith Dinner . . . in thanking all of you for your presence and support, might I suggest that this annual dinner actually shows America and the Church at their best?

Here we are: in an atmosphere of civility and humor, hosted by a Church which claims that “joy is the infallible sign of God’s presence;” men and women; young and old; of every ethnic and racial background;

Democrats, Republicans, and Independents;

Catholics, Christians, Jews, Latter-Day Saints, people of no particular creed;

people of wealth, yes, but some folks as well who barely get by;

guests from Westchester and the Bronx; Dutchess County and Staten Island;

Grateful to be people of faith and loyal Americans;

Loving a country which considers religious liberty our first and most cherished freedom, convinced that faith is not just limited to an hour of Sabbath worship, but affects everything we do and dream;

privileged to be in the company of two honorable men [So, Obama was provided the honor by the Cardinal not just of being entitled "your honor" but calling him, in fact, honorable], both called to the noble vocation of public service, whose love for God and country is surpassed only by their love for their own wives and children [That statement just doesn't work any way you put it, does it?], and who, as happy as I hope they are to be here with us tonight, would rather be home with Michelle, Ann, and their families.

All of us reverently recalling a man of deep Catholic faith and ringing patriotism, who had a tear in his Irish eyes for what we would call, the “uns;”

– the un-employed

– the un-insured

– the un-wanted

– the un-wed mother, and her innocent, fragile un-born baby in her womb; [That's great, about the original Al Smith of yore, but I don't think he would appreciate what happened on this evening, the selling out of un-born in favor of niceness.]

– the un-documented

– the un-housed

– the un-healthy

– the un-fed

– the under-educated.

Government, Al Smith believed, should be on the side of these “uns,” but a government partnering with family, Church, parish, neighborhood, organizations and community, never intruding or opposing, since, when all is said and done, it’s in God we trust, not, ultimately, in government or politics.

Al Smith . . . the “happy warrior” on behalf of the “uns” who were so close to Jesus, or to the Native American Kateri Tekakwitha, and the “Angel to the Lepers of Hawaii,” Sister Mary Anne Cope, both women of New York whom this Sunday Pope Benedict will declare saints; so tenderly close to Bl. Mother Theresa of Calcutta who reminded us of the “five- finger gospel” — “As often as you do it for one of these, the least of my brethren, you do it for me!” [Just a reminder, your Eminence: Mother Teresa never had fund-raisers, ever. She was even known to refuse millions of dollars, telling the would-be donor to help those in need personally, since merely throwing money at anyone won't help anyone. Moreover, her "dialogue", consonant with that of the Holy Father, was to unabashedly bring pro-abort politicians to task. Remember the prayer breakfast -- another meal[!] — when she trounced Clinton and Gore and the whole pro-abort establishement, not with jocularity, but with a deadly serious lecture, televised for all the world to see. Let’s review, shall we? You yourself quoted Mother Teresa from this very video. What she did is what dialogue with pro-abort policians is all about, NOT what happened at the Al Smith dinner:]

God bless the memory of Al Smith!

God Bless the “uns!”

God bless the Al Smith Foundation in this Archdiocese of New York which continues his solicitude for the “uns!”

God bless all of you for helping them this evening! [$$$ The financial contributions are a drop in the bucket compared to the political milage Obama took from the evening. Obama would have had to pay much more in campaign finances in order to get such publicity for his continuing persecution of the un-born and oppression of the Catholic Church, his trouncing of the freedom of religion in America.]

God bless our two candidates! [God bless Hitler? Really?]

God bless America!

Thank God for this grand evening!

Amen.

Goodnight! [Night, yes. Good, nope. Your Eminence, with all due respect, you are right now in Rome discussing the new evangelization. Watch this guy in this video. This is what should have gone on at the Al Smith dinner. This is what real dialogue is all about with those who have been scandalized:]

* “prudence”= This is a cardinal virtue (no pun intended) which is all about the judgment of what is good in a particular circumstance. It is in quotes in context since I don’t think that the judgment to invite Obama was correct. Prudence is not a free for all, a tyranny of relativism in which everyone has the right to be wrong.