In defense of Ben Seewald and his freedom to say dumb stuff.

t is a reflec­tion of how bad­ly addict­ed we have become to out­rage porn—an expres­sion I swore to myself I would nev­er use—that any­one at all was out­raged over what the nine­teen-year-old boyfriend of Jes­sa Dug­gar had to say on Face­book about Catholi­cism. I read the excerpts pub­lished in the UK Dai­ly Mail (here); lat­er, I read the full post (here). I was­n’t out­raged. I was bored. They cer­tain­ly were no great reflec­tion on the orig­i­nal­i­ty of Mr. See­wald, but they should­n’t have been. He’s nine­teen. He’s repeat­ing what he has heard else­where: like­ly, from his pas­tor, his par­ents, and his friends; and what he’s repeat­ing are igno­rant clichés that have been repeat­ed over and over and over again to the point of slum­ber. A Bap­tist teenag­er thinks that Catholics wor­ship Mary. That’s an out­rage? Who cares?

Now, all that might sound like an odd way to begin a defense of Mr. See­wald, but my point is this: If a nine­teen-year-old kid, whose name any­one knows because he’s dat­ing a Dug­gar, has to be dri­ven to delete a sil­ly Face­book post full of sil­ly, uno­rig­i­nal things, it is more than like­ly that the ten­den­cy to out­rage over speech is going far too far. Peo­ple are out there call­ing his bor­ing remarks a “frothy dia­tribe” and a “rant” and call­ing him “the worst.”

Google the phrase “Ben See­wald Catholic” and you will find hit after hit of mate­r­i­al like that.

“It’s demean­ing, it’s con­de­scend­ing, and it turns my stom­ach” (here).

“Grow up boy” and “You are noth­ing more than a cow­ard” (here).

One per­son went so far as to sug­gest that Mr. See­wald delete not just the offend­ing post, but his entire Face­book page alto­geth­er. His very exis­tence, I guess, is a threat to the pleas­ant order of things and the need to not be faced, ever, with some­one who has a wrong opin­ion.

All that is a wee more fool­ish than any of the silli­ness com­ing from the key­board of Ben See­wald. They’re called clichés, peo­ple. Why aren’t you yawn­ing, or laugh­ing, or mov­ing on to the next sto­ry in the feed; or, bet­ter yet, patient­ly point­ing out the errors of some­one who’s not yet old enough to real­ize how cliché they are? Thus:

The Catholic Church does not “deify” Mary; indeed, it has gone out of its way to call that a heresy. (It’s called the Col­lyrid­i­an heresy, and Patrick Madrid has writ­ten about it here.) To say that the Catholic Church “dei­fies” Mary is only to show that you don’t have a clue what the Church says about Mary, pos­si­bly have nev­er talked to actu­al Catholics about the sub­ject, and should do a bit of per­son­al inves­ti­ga­tion.

The Catholic Church does not teach that Mary did not need a Sav­ior just because she was sin­less. What it does say is that Mary was redeemed in advance, in antic­i­pa­tion of her voca­tion as Christ’s moth­er; so that she could tru­ly pray, in the Mag­ni­fi­cat, “My spir­it has rejoiced in God my Sav­ior.” Luke 1:47 is no con­tra­dic­tion to Catholic teach­ing about Mary; indeed, Mary had all the more rea­son to rejoice.

Is say­ing things like that hard? Is it eas­i­er to express out­rage than to give a rea­soned response to a cliché from a nine­teen-year-old? I’m not talk­ing to Ben See­wald here, but to his out­raged crit­ics: Please grow up.

But what this whole episode of out­rage porn is like­ly teach­ing Mr. See­wald is that he must be care­ful about express­ing his opin­ions, lest he step on sen­si­tive and eas­i­ly-wound­ed toes. It’s not teach­ing him to express an opin­ion, engage with oth­ers of oppos­ing points of view, encounter oth­er argu­ments, and defend him­self or, where nec­es­sary, even—gasp!—change his mind.

On this blog, I have had occa­sion to engage anti-Catholics such as John Bugay, James Swan, Alan Mar­i­cle (aka Rhol­o­gy), Tur­ret­inFan, James White. The last thing I demand is that they take down their blogs or shut down their min­istries. The Catholic Church has sur­vived for 2000 years against greater chal­lenges than they can pos­si­bly bring, and it cer­tain­ly can sur­vive a nine­teen-year-old’s clichés. Bring it on.

But if I have any advice to give Mr. See­wald, it would be this:

• Don’t take down your Face­book posts, what­ev­er peo­ple say about them, unless you’re tru­ly con­vinced you were out of line in the way you said some­thing. I read your post, and I’m Catholic, and you weren’t.
• Learn to devel­op a thick skin if you are going to post your opin­ions online. You will need it.
• Say what you think and mean what you say and learn to defend it, but always be open-mind­ed to oth­er argu­ments. I have changed my mind about things many times since I was nine­teen.
• Even an extend­ed fif­teen min­utes of fame will end and you will regain your anonymi­ty. Don’t get addict­ed.