A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity

by Bill O'Reilly

  That, I hope you’ll agree, is an evil way to think.

  If you don’t believe me, ask my third-grade teacher, the aforementioned Sister Mary Lurana, who was an expert on evil if there ever was one. I mean, this woman had it down. The good sister knew every variation of the Ten Commandments, and I doubt that anyone else in the history of Christianity has ever found so many subtexts in them. According to scripture, Moses was given just two stone tablets on Mount Sinai. Somehow, Sister Lurana’s scholarship had expanded the tablet dictums so that even Moses himself might have been a little confused. We’ll get into that in the next chapter.

  For now, however, let’s take a look at our popular culture and make some judgments (alert the secular-progressives). I’ll ask the questions; you provide the answers as you see fit.

  Query #1: As you may know, some rap lyrics glorify drugs, both selling and using. Also, the many irresponsible rappers make it look cool to use violence against women, gays, and just about everybody else. On more than a few occasions, rap and hip-hop have advocated a totally disrespectful view of human life.

  According to many teachers and child psychologists, these explicit rap songs can, and do, negatively influence some children, especially those from chaotic families. So, in the land of the free, are the people who profit from this activity doing evil?

  Query #2: Torture movies are flooding the market, especially in the summer, when young people are looking for something to do. These cynical films revel in explicit scenes of human suffering inflicted with a cavalier glee by both the actors and the special-effects people. Sadism rules, and some sociologists believe a diet of this stuff desensitizes people, making them less likely to sympathize with the real-life suffering of others. So, are the people profiting from torture movies evil?

  Query #3: Child abuse is epidemic in America; that means millions of defenseless kids are harmed in dreadful ways. Not surprisingly, studies show conclusively that much of the abuse and neglect is the result of persistent intoxication on the part of parents or guardians. Are child abusers evil even if they have a substance problem?

  Query #4: Terrorists around the world are responsible for killing and injuring hundreds of thousands of human beings. Are all terrorists evil?

  Query #5: Hundreds of Catholic priests have been found to be child molesters. In some cases, high-ranking Church authorities protected pedophile priests by preventing the authorities from discovering evidence. Is the Catholic Church evil?

  At first glance, some of the above questions seem quite easy to answer in the affirmative. However, in each case there are “explanations.” So let’s run them down before making a final judgment.

  Query #1: The rap industry’s standard justification for violent, antisocial lyrics is that the message is real and the performers and distributors are just telling the truth about a gritty segment of American society. This is the mantra of those making a killing (sorry) by selling base entertainment to children and young adults (the primary market).

  The problem with this rationalization is the exposition of the subject. For example, if you saw the movie American Gangster, you got a very real view of the drug-dealing industry. But the main character, a heroin merchant played by Denzel Washington, was not glorified. He was cool in the beginning of the movie, but that persona blew up and the evil of his life was vividly portrayed. Just in case some dimwits didn’t get it, Denzel finally wound up being totally humiliated when his elderly mother slapped his face. Lesson: Responsible portrayals of the dark side of American life are possible and can also be profitable, as American Gangster proved.

  But that lesson will not be heeded by the rap and hip-hop industry. It’s too hard and goes against “street cred.” The myth that violence and criminality are cool is an essential part of the packaging and marketing of the often vile hip-hop product. Honest people cannot possibly deny the dangerous influence this industry has on some vulnerable children. That’s why I believe the people behind this industry are committing evil acts in order to make money, and their rationalizations about “art” and “social commentary” are as ludicrous as the clown prince of rap himself, a guy who calls himself Ludacris. Well, at least he got that right.

  Query #2: The torture-film people don’t have a tortuous explanation for their abysmal behavior; they have a simple one: it’s only a movie. What’s the big deal? Everybody knows motion pictures are fiction; there’s nothing real about the pain and suffering gleefully inflicted on-screen.

  Except it’s sickening.

  If you think about it, the torture industry is very easy to explain. Simply put, it makes a product for sadistic people to enjoy. The more suffering on-screen, the better. Let’s get a close-up of that arm being amputated and that eyeball being gouged out. Again, it’s all about money. Why else would anyone spend time and resources filming ways to hurt people? Where is the good in that?

  The answer, of course, is that there is no good in that. Only evil. Simply put, anyone who delights in portraying or watching human suffering is sick. Got it?

  Query #3: The vast majority of child abusers are evil, no doubt. Anyone who physically or mentally hurts a child is committing an evil act, and those who do it on a regular basis are in a league with murderers and rapists.

  But wait, what about intoxicated adults who hurt kids while under the influence? The trend these days is to define alcoholism and drug dependency as a disease; something that the substance abuser has little control over. In fact, there are doctors who will tell you that chemical addicts have a brain dysfunction that drives them to seek an intoxicated state. So if they can’t help themselves, how can we call their activities evil? And if, while stoned, they hurt a child or anyone else, it isn’t really their fault; they have a disease they can’t control!

  Good grief!

  Again, this goes back to free will and my belief that we all choose between doing good or committing evil. Yes, sometimes a person can get caught up in a situation where he or she commits a dreadful act, like hurting a child, as a result of making a very poor decision, such as failing to control a temper. Okay. But to do it more than once is inexcusable.

  By the way, you don’t catch an addiction like you catch a cold. You acquire it. You choose to put the bottle or pipe to your lips, the needle to your arm. But you could choose otherwise, as millions of former addicts have demonstrated. Despite legions of excuse makers who enable evil, compulsive behavior can be defeated if the will is present to do so.

  Summing up, all child abuse is evil, and most abusers are bad people. We don’t have to get more complicated than that. Occasionally, child abuse can be defined as a terrible onetime act and not a consistent pattern of calculated evil. But repeat offenders should get no quarter, and they can expect their own lives to degenerate into living hells. Not to mention the real hell that will surely come later.

  Query #4: Here’s the key question: how can terrorism exist if rational human beings know that murdering innocent women and children is the most cowardly act on earth? The answer is complicated, but, in the end, it comes down to untreatable mental illness. Osama bin Laden and his crew are not discernibly different from Hitler, Mao, or Stalin. Shrinks define them as sociopaths, but that is a clinical term for the hospital or classroom. In the everyday world, these men are simply evil and must be isolated or killed so that innocent people can be protected from their treachery.

  But, Lord, there are so many of these barbarians. There are millions of human beings who have killed or will kill people because they believe some god or the führer or whoever has ordered that. If you still resist the idea of active evil in the world today, just picture the nineteen 9/11 hijackers killing three thousand people for absolutely no reason. Time after time, history has shown us that this kind of murderous conduct is part of the human condition. But still, some on this earth refuse to believe that evil exists and that terrorism is the epitome of it. Getting people to understand that truth is central to the struggle of our times.

  Bottom line: t
errorist killers and those who support them are evil. Period.

  Query #5: Imagine a trusted priest sexually molesting your child. It happens all the time. And sometimes, after he is discovered, the priest is actually protected by his superiors in the Church. So how evil is that?

  But, again, there’s an excuse. The priest needs “treatment.” He has a disease, a mental compulsion he cannot control. He is sorry. Doesn’t everybody deserve forgiveness? That is a cornerstone of Judeo-Christian philosophy, is it not?

  That’s how some leaders in the Catholic Church framed the most devastating scandal American Catholicism has ever seen.

  Of course, most of that argument is nonsense. The molesting priest committed a heinous crime and should have been turned over to the authorities immediately for punishment. Jesus was clear about that: render unto Caesar. Let God forgive the sinner, but justice should be meted out on earth. If not, how would the kids be protected in the here and now?

  Catholic leaders like Cardinal Law in Boston and Cardinal Mahony in Los Angeles made a calculated decision to try to conceal these wretched criminals and hush up their crimes. Those supporting the cardinals say they did this to protect the Church from a devastating public scandal. In other words, in pursuit of the “greater good” for their religion, Law and Mahony somewhat understandably hid the evil.

  Nonsense. Another bogus rationalization.

  The cardinals certainly know that molesting a child is an evil act that must be harshly punished. Treatment can come later. Way later. But, I believe, many big shots in the American Catholic Church simply were looking out for themselves. Any scandal in their dioceses would reflect poorly on them in Rome. The Pope would be angry.

  I could be wrong about that, but I’m not wrong about this: much evil is done in the name of God by people claiming to serve the deity. This is the ultimate betrayal, the top of the evil pyramid. God does not sanction murder, child abuse, or any other kind of destructive behavior. The priest pedophilia scandal was evil. No question.

  By the way, a number of Catholics actually abandoned their faith over the scandal, a perplexing move that we’ll deal with in the next chapter. But to cap this chapter, I have another short story.

  Back in 1962, there were sixty kids in my eighth-grade class, which was taught by an elderly nun named Sister Mary Martin. We know that she was a perceptive woman because she wrote this comment on the back of my report card: “Socializes quite freely yet resents correction!”

  Pithy and accurate.

  Upon reading that, my father was his usual blunt self: “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I’m popular,” I said.

  “Get less popular,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  Anyway, there was a girl in the class named Norma. She had been transferred into our group in seventh grade because she was slow academically. In fact, Norma was fifteen, two years older than the rest of the class. Although she was well developed physically, mentally who could tell? Norma just sat there day after day and stared.

  Many of the kids were brutal toward Norma, teasing her mercilessly. I couldn’t be bothered with tormenting her, because I had my sights set on doing that to the nuns. But I didn’t stick up for Norma, either. I probably even encouraged the cruel behavior by laughing along with it.

  A couple of years later, in high school, I got bullied a bit and remembered Norma’s ordeal. Karma. I took the bullies on, as is my style, but the whole thing was painful, even though it was nothing compared to what Norma endured. To this day, I have never forgotten Norma and her ordeal. The teasing was unrelenting. It was evil.

  The thing is, the kids in my class were good kids. Not one of them had a malevolent heart. I spent eight years with those people, and I know them. A few years ago, I set up a St. Brigid’s reunion, and eighty percent of my classmates showed up. And they are still good people, solid citizens.

  But what we all did to Norma was wrong.

  The point is that good people do bad things all the time. Every person on this earth has a capacity for evil. Most people fight against that impulse, but everybody has it.

  As a leader in that St. Brigid’s class and a rather large, tough kid, I could have stopped the daily garbage directed at Norma. I should have stopped it. And when a similar thing happened to me, I vowed I would never again allow bullying in my presence. Years later, as a high school teacher, I made life hell for the campus bullies. Even more years later, in the media, I go after child abusers with a vengeance. Norma taught me a lesson I have never forgotten.

  You either fight active evil or you accept it. Doing nothing is acceptance. There is no in-between.

  RELIGION

  Let the sun shine in,

  face it with a grin.

  ’Cause smilers never lose,

  And frowners never win.

  —ST. BRIGID’S SCHOOL SONG

  On my eleventh birthday, September 10, 1960, Hurricane Donna smashed into Fort Myers, Florida, and then roared up the East Coast, pounding the New York City area two days later. Donna still holds the record for the longest-running killer hurricane. Over a nine-day period, fifty Americans died. Unfortunately, the eye of the storm, an incredible one hundred miles wide, passed directly over Long Island, where I lived.

  I vividly remember that day because my mother actually made me leave the house in the midst of winds and rains lashing the neighborhood. And what was the emergency that forced me out into the fierce storm? Well, it wasn’t complicated: I had to serve the eight a.m. Mass, and no act of God was going to interfere with that duty, if my mom had anything to say about it. So she fired up the Nash Rambler and off we went to St. Brigid’s Church, alarming gusts of wind rocking the boxy red car the entire way. (An interesting side note: the Rambler was made by the American Motors Corporation, which was run by George Romney, Mitt’s father.)

  Winifred Angela O’Reilly, Ann to her friends, was a very devoted Catholic, and that was that. Unlike my father, who set the rules and the tone in the house, my mother did not ask much. She was very kind and nice. She made Laura Bush look like a Hell’s Angel.

  One of the few things my mother ever requested of me—besides demanding that I not tie up my little sister again—was to be an altar boy. She really wanted that. And even though memorizing a bunch of Latin prayers and getting up at six in the morning to kneel on a cold marble altar was not my idea of a great time, I did what my mother wanted with a minimal amount of whining. You see, there is some good in the bold, fresh guy.

  Anyway, we made it to the stone church, I put on my cassock and surplice that is the altar-boy uniform, and the Mass began. I remember Hurricane Donna roaring outside the church as I answered Father Ellard’s prayer: “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” (“Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”)

  Those words are part of the Confiteor, a prayer expressing responsibility and sorrow for sins. Even though I had no idea what most of the Latin words actually meant, that prayer is fairly obvious, and I got through it perfectly.

  That was important, because some of the priests would scold you if you screwed up the ancient language. Father Brodeur was the worst. Amazingly cranky, this priest would yell at you if you messed up ad Deum or something. I mean, come on, Father, I’m eleven. Cicero and Pliny the Elder aren’t exactly in my wheelhouse. It’s seven in the morning and you’re obsessed with the pronunciation of Oremus? Jesus would have let it go.

  And Father Ellard would have ignored it as well, because, unlike some of his compatriots, he was a good guy. He was also very old and, I suspect, couldn’t hear very well. So he never admonished the altar boys and finished saying Mass in record time. Some days, Father Ellard could have you breathing fresh air in twenty minutes. He was a great man of God.

  We kids also went to his confessional stall in great numbers. Again, it might have been the hearing thing again, because no matter what you told Father Ellard, no matter how horrendous your indiscretions, your penance was three Hail Ma
rys. Charles Manson would have gotten three Hail Marys.

  This sanction was excellent, especially given the options. For example, if you confessed your sins to Father Tierney, a nasty little guy, you might wind up in the church basement chained to the wall. But Father Ellard definitely had the right theological attitude for dopey kids: quick Mass and leniency for puerile sinners.

  Very early on, I learned to accept the fact that I was an Irish Catholic and that the tradition was valuable. It’s interesting. There is no question but that I was a difficult child, a complete nonconformist with very little common sense and a below-average attention span. That is not a good combination.

  Yet, somehow, I recognized that Catholicism was basically a good thing, even though some of the people associated with it were loons. Unlike many, I never equated crazy priests and mean nuns with the core tenets of the faith. I just thought they were bad employees. I never took their nuttiness and applied it to Jesus or even to the Pope. To my limited mind, Jesus came off as a pretty good guy. He ran around healing people, was nice to his mom, and even forgave the savages who nailed him to the cross. As the song says: “Jesus is just all right with me.”

  Not that I was a Jesus freak. Even though I served on the altar, I was the second-biggest sinner ever to attend St. Brigid’s School. My classmate Clement was first, as you’ll soon see. And please don’t misunderstand: our “sins” were minor compared to those of al Qaeda or many television executives. But we did consistently disobey the rules, mock those in authority, and brazenly challenge the accepted wisdom.