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The Covington Students Might as Well Have Just Spit on the Cross (TDS Alert)

National Review ^ | January 20, 2019 | Nicholas Frankovich

Posted on by Fiji Hill

It appears that most of the teenagers in this video are from a Catholic high school near Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. They mock a serious, frail-looking older man and gloat in their momentary role as Roman soldiers to his Christ. Bullying is a worn-out word and doesnt convey the full extent of the evil on display here.

For some of us, the gospel stories of Jesuss passion and death are so familiar we no longer hear them. The evangelists are terse in their descriptions of the humiliations heaped on Jesus in the final hours before his crucifixion, the consummate humiliation. Read the accounts again or, if youd rather not, watch the video. The human capacity for sadism is too great.

The man the crowd ridiculed is Nathan Phillips, an elder of the Omaha tribe. He was in Washington for the Indigenous Peoples March, on Friday. It coincided with the March for Life, which Covington Catholic High School organized a contingent of students to attend. According to Phillips, their confrontation with him, in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, involved a disagreement about the wall. Hes against it. Theyre for it. Some of them, including the boy who makes himself the co-star of the video by stepping forward and getting in Phillipss face, wore Make America Great Again hats.

They confused issues. Over the years, Ive heard (and perpetrated, I confess) some imaginative definitions of the seamless garment, or consistent ethic of life. Its a matter of identifying a common principle that can be shown to underlie and unite various causes  the abolition of abortion, of euthanasia, of the death penalty, of you name it  that most people would say are disparate and unrelated. How heightened border security might be of a piece with protecting unborn children is less intuitively obvious than most such hypothetical linkages Ive encountered.

Among the unfortunate messages that the Covington students are sending through the video, several versions of which have gone viral, is that in its heart the pro-life movement in the United States in 2019 is less concerned to advocate for human rights than to cheer for one of the two major political parties or, more broadly, for one side in the great divide between Right and Left, or red and blue, as if the abortion debate were a YankeesRed Sox game. Dont do that if you want to persuade Democrats and independents who are ambivalent about abortion to hear you out on why their lives mattered even when they were gestating, and on why the lives of those who at any given moment are conceived but not yet born matter no less.

In a joint statement, Covington Catholic High School and the Diocese of Covington apologized, condemning the students actions and noting that their conduct is opposed to the Churchs teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person. I dont know how Phillips would describe his religious affiliation. He speaks of indigenous traditions. Some people who observe them integrate them with Christianity, but some dont. In any case, keeping in mind the parable of the proper priests and the Good Samaritan, whose religious practice Jesuss listeners thought was wrong, listen to Phillips reflect on his experience on the Mall. Decide for yourself who is more pleasing to Christ, Phillips or his mockers. As for the putatively Catholic students from Covington, they might as well have just spit on the cross and got it over with.



TOPICS:

Extended News

News/Current Events

US: District of Columbia

US: Kentucky

KEYWORDS:

catholic

catholicschool

covington

demagogue

kentucky

marchforlife

marchforlife2019

michigan

nathanphillips

nationalreview

nevertrump

nicholasfrankovich

nr

richlowry

washtenawcounty

This article was deleted, but not before it was archived.



To: Fiji Hill

Sue him right into poverty.



To: Fiji Hill

National Review following Bill Kristol’s external leadership.



by 3 posted onby newfreep ("INSIDE EVERY PROGRESSIVE IS A TOTALITARIAN SCREAMING TO GET OUT" - DAVID HOROWITZ)

To: Fiji Hill

What a blithering piece of s*** this author is. Just disgusting.



To: Fiji Hill

I hope this prick loses his a$$ in court.



To: Fiji Hill

Enjoy Bankruptcy, Nick. L



by 6 posted onby Lurker (President Trump isn't our last chance. President Trump is THEIR last chance.)

To: Fiji Hill

Yep, National Review exhibiting their Bill Kristol tendencies yet again. btw, Mark Stein has an excellent article taking these idiots to task....I’ll work on a link.



To: Fiji Hill

These morons think they can just get away with the same stuff they used to do 10 - 20 years ago. It’s like they haven’t figured out there’s an internet and their lies can be spotted in real-time.



by 8 posted onby Mr. K (No consequence of repealing Obamacare is worse than Obamacare itself.)

To: Fiji Hill

“Nicholas Frankovich is a deputy managing editor of National Review.”



by 9 posted onby ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)

To: Fiji Hill

The students are minors, they are not public figures by any stretch of the imagination, it’s libel on its face. Sue the author, Rich Lowry, and NR.



To: Fiji Hill

The National Review has become a national joke.

I subscribed to it when run by WF Buckley - a true intellect.

Don’t know where they lost the altimeter, airspeed, VVI and attitude indicator, but those clowns are not worth spitting upon now.



To: traderrob6

To: Fiji Hill

Imagine the highest high of sanctimonious pride that must have welled up in Nick's Trump hating soul as he penned this piece, only to be brought to the lowest low of being duped by his kindred Trump hating spirits. He and his words will be forgotten...



To: Fiji Hill

Decide for yourself who is more pleasing to Christ, Phillips or his mockers. As for the putatively Catholic students from Covington, they might as well have just spit on the cross and got it over with. I seem to remember a commandment about not bearing false witness.



To: Da Coyote

I bailed when they dumped Mark Steyn as a columnist over a bit of political correctness so stupid I’ve successfully managed to suppress any memory of it.



To: fieldmarshaldj

Exactly, sue his Pajama Boy butt & make an example of him.

In the future, maybe other scumbags in the media will hit pause before writing/posting libelous drivel.



To: Fiji Hill

Fiction writers posing as journalists.



by 17 posted onby Sopater (Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? - Matthew 20:15a)

To: Fiji Hill

Author is one dumb son of a vich.



To: Stosh

Religion

An Apology

By Nicholas Frankovich 22 minutes ago

The overheated post I wrote has been taken down. Let this apology stand in its stead. Your apology, you blithering idiot, is not accepted. May you soon go the way of the Weekly Standard.



To: Fiji Hill

National Review conservatism in a nutshell: Accept the Left’s premises, then try to get to the left of them so they can’t attack you.



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