Latest / The Catholic Current / LTACL: DDF Reads Mad Magazine? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.)

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LTACL: DDF Reads Mad Magazine? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) · The Catholic Current

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  I had an amazing insight recently, maybe it's a function of me getting older, but I think
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  I'm connecting dots in a way that I hadn't seen the dots connect before.
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  Hear me out.
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  Do you remember Mad Magazine?
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  I don't know if it's still in print, but if you are of a certain age, you may remember
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  that it was a brilliantly funny satirical magazine that parodied just about everything.
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  And honestly, I grew up with Mad Magazine.
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  I spent a lot of my youth reading Mad Magazine.
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  I know that probably explains a whole lot.
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  In particular, I remember a parody they did about advertisement where advertisers said
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  things that were true, but nonetheless misleading.
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  For example, if you were selling chocolate chip cookies, you could put on your packaging
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  contains absolutely no motor oil or no one ever died eating our brands.
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  Now that's true and it makes you think about, well, gosh, what are the other brands like
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  that you have to make warnings about death and motor oil and so on.
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  And yeah, a lot of advertisers work that way and they're not lying, but they are misleading
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  and it's worth poking fun at them.
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  But what if somebody important, maybe even someone from the senior Catholic cadre of
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  the People Who Really Should Know Better Club said, you know what, that might be a good
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  way to do theology or at least run a consistory.
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  Stay with me.
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  I've got a story to tell.
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  Hi, I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host every day of The Catholic Current, coming
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  to you from the Station of the Cross Catholic Media Network.
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  Let's take a closer look.
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  Glad you're here.
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  Mad Magazine did a parody of advertisers, doing a little sleight of hand, a little bit
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  of misdirection, saying things that were not untrue, but were misleading.
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  And logically or debate, we would call this a straw man argument.
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  You attribute to your opponent an argument that he didn't make and then shame him for
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  it.
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  You know, I think we shouldn't support the beating of wives and the strangling of puppies,
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  whereas my opponent, well, it's better left unsaid.
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  Well, wait a minute, I didn't.
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  So it wasn't untrue, but it was misleading.
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  Well, why am I connecting this with the recent consistory of cardinals in Rome and the Dicastery
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  for the Doctrine of the Faith?
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  You know, I've been working on a series about the consistory and the different documents
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  that were given.
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  I want to look at the document given on preaching that was given to the cardinals by Cardinal
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  Fernandez, who is the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
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  And to summarize what he said, it was along these lines, well, you know, not every aspect
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  of Catholic doctrine and dogma has the same weight.
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  Well, okay, but I don't think anybody did.
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  But never you mind, because Cardinal Fernandez is just throwing up these straw men and setting
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  them up on fire.
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  Well, you know, when you're preaching the gospel, when you're preaching the good news,
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  when you're preaching the living Christ, you don't have to summarize absolutely every single
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  point of doctrine and make it just a tedious teaching.
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  Well, okay, but who did suggest that?
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  I want to know, who are these guys?
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  What preaching has his eminence heard that has him so worked up?
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  Do they exist at all, in which case I'd like to read them and evaluate them for myself.
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  Or maybe, just maybe, hear me out, maybe I'm just getting old and I'm connecting dots
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  that I didn't see connectable before, or maybe I'm connecting dots that aren't there.
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  But it seems to me that this kind of talk is laying the ground for, I don't want to
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  say an excuse, but a rationale for why we're going to put some aspects of Catholic teaching
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  on the down low.
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  Maybe I'm being a little bit too suspicious.
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  Maybe a bitter experience has taught me to be cautious.
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  We shall see.
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  So here's my invitation for you.
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  We're going to talk about this for a whole hour on Friday, January 30th, 2026, at 5 p.m.
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  Eastern, on The Catholic Current.
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  You can hear me at thestationofthecross.com or your favorite podcast platform, and I want
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  you to be there with me because this will be the second of my three-part series on the
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  inconsistent consistory.
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  I'm not feeling confident that we're being dealt from an honest deck.
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  I think there might be a little three-card Monty going on here.
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  I hope that I'm wrong.
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  Meanwhile, think on these things today, take them to prayer, and talk about it with those
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  you love.
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  Go in peace, and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.