Santorum: Democrats are "anti-science," not me

[Brettongarcia]

27. What's in Steubenville Ohio? One source of Santorum's own phony theology: Franciscan U.

Eastern Ohio and Penn. were once the working-class periphery of America: coal minds and oil. And? Nearby Franciscans taught the locals a simple, self-sacrificing religion. One that was a good way to get people to do down into dangerous coal mines. With promises of an afterlife if you were killed.

Out of this? Nearby Philly, is one of the most anti-intellectual major cities in the nation; home of Rocky Balboa. Who taught everyone that having big mucles and being stupid, is cool. That physical power is the way to win everything; that mind counts as nothing. And endless suffering is good.

And so, as for the kind of religion Santorum knows and loves? There's a superstious, watered down Catholic fundamentalism. With Franciscan University of Stebenville, as its "brain trust." With no brain at all behind it.

All that idiocy found its megaphone, unfortunately, in arch conservative/right wing "Catholic" organ, EWTN, EWRN. The network that claims to be the official voice of the Catholic Church; though it was cut off from the church c. 2001; and is run by "lay" right wing ideologes.

EWTN? Eternal Word Television Network. This is the real center of Santorum's power base. It is "one issue" anti-abortion network, that claims to be found in more than one hundred million households, worldwide. And that is in fact, the massively effective chief propagandist, for the kind of one-issue anti-abortion Catholicism that Santorum often backs. Even though any dis "proportionate," "one issue" Catholicism was condemned by at least three Cardinals: Card. McCarrick, Card. Bernardin, and Cardinal Joe Ratzinger/Pope Bendict XIV. (Ratzinger/ Benedict xvi: "Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion," 2004 memo, Vatican.va; footnote).

So where is the propoganda apparatus that supported Santorum? Among others, Stubenville - sometimes known as "stupid-ville" - along with EWTN. That is Santorum's power base. It was (until very lately?) grand central for the most idiotic version of Catholicism imaginable. A sort of working-class demend for a few simple rules to follow. With no subtlety, no escape. Just pray ... and go down to die in the coal mines, like a good suffering Catholic.

This is where Santorum's own limited, "one issue," "phony theology" was developed.

(For more on the sins of one-issue anti-abortionism? See Brettongarcia's blog, on Pro Abortion Theology).