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U p F r o n t
PAGING NOAH WEBSTER…
By Karl Keating
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Some people have trouble understanding big words such as "no."
In a recently issued audio tape, "Brother" John Mary of the New Hampshire-based Saint Benedict Center—an offshoot of the group headed by the late Fr. Leonard Feeney—explains that he and his friends attempted to set up a debate on the issue of "no salvation outside the Catholic Church." The debate was to be given during a Feeneyite conference held in South Bend, Indiana, last year. They "invited E. Michael Jones of Fidelity magazine to debate" their standard-bearer, who "believes the proposition [while] Jones does not." Alas, "a few weeks before the debate Jones backed out. At this point [we] attempted to get Karl Keating to debate . . . And, like E. Michael Jones, Keating also denies the dogma and agreed to debate. Then he also backed out just days before the opening of the conference."
Hmmm. Looks bad for Jones and Keating—if you take the Feeneyites’ account at face value. Which you shouldn’t. In Cool Hand Luke, Strother Martin remarked that "what we have heah is a fail-yah to communicate." In the story as given in the Feeneyite tape, "what we have here is a failure to communicate the truth."
I telephoned Mike Jones. "What happened?" I asked. "Did they ask you to debate?" Yes, said Jones. He spoke twice with the Saint Benedict Center. On the first call he said he might be willing to debate, provided the topic and format could be worked out. But the Feeneyites made unreasonable demands—and he told them as much during his second discussion with them. Their response? They threatened to "expose" him as a "heretic" if he didn’t acquiesce to their terms. Thanks, but no thanks, he said, so no agreement was reached. Yet "Brother" John Mary alleges that "Jones backed out." It isn’t clear to me how he could back out of a nonexistent agreement.
Next they turned to me. Would I be willing to take Jones’s place? Not interested, I said flatly, but apparently not flatly enough. In their tape my simple "no" has been transmogrified into "Keating . . . agreed to debate." Worse, I "backed out just days before the opening of the conference." Huh?
I feel a bit like the traveler who, visiting an exotic country, happily gave the thumbs up sign to an acquaintance only to discover that, in that culture, such a motion of the hand conveys an obscenity. Maybe the word "no," in New Hampshire, means the opposite of what I intended it to mean. Maybe it means, "Yes, I’ll agree to debate, but I’ll back out at the last minute." Not having spent much time in New Hampshire, I can’t vouch for local dialects and linguistic subtleties. Perhaps some of our Granite State subscribers can let me know whether they attach a private meaning to "no." Until I learn that they do, all I can conclude is that the Saint Benedict Center attaches a private meaning to "lie."
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