Oops.  I mentioned Chi Trib reporting Father Pfleger at the anti-gun shop demonstration and that the story said nothing of his calling for someone to “snuff” the shop-owner.  Then I read the Newsbusters report and something hit me.

The Chicago Tribune at least mentioned that Pfleger was at the rally, but does not report his comments at all. All the Trib said was that, “Michael Pfleger encouraged the crowd to push for stricter gun laws.” And that he, “vowed that the rally was just the beginning and that civil disobedience was possible.”

So, why the blackout of the “Father’s” outrageous comments?

It’s that bowdlerizing what he said, censoring it, cleaning it up to defuse it.  “Encouraged the crowd”?  That’s sickening, that the reporter and editor collude to keep Pfleger from looking bad.  Damnable, even objectionable. 

Chi Trib softens and blurs.  It’s their corporate atmosphere.  Execrable.  Hey, it’s even inappropriate, which is one of the worst things you can say (and get away with it) about anything these days.

It’s a truly dull newspaper, I am deciding.  Open it up over coffee, and the heads are generic, the stories tired and unimaginative.  Attempts at livening things up come across as sophomoric.  

Father Pfleger pulled a Henry II, as in the Thomas a Becket case, calling out, “Who will rid me of this troublesome gun store owner?” and Trib glossed it over.

Henry’s knights went out and slew the troublesome priest in the sanctuary, as we know.  God knows what’s next from this clerical mouth that roars.

More on Father Pfleger and the threat to “snuff” the gun shop owner from the Illinois State Rifle Association:

ISRA: Chicago Priest Calls for Murder of Gun Shop Owner

Egad.

More interesting for this blog with its emphasis on Chi Trib and Sun-Times is that you can’t find any reference to the threat on either site. 

Now we know the NRA and other ‘RAs are not our kind of people and have long been understood by mainstream illuminati to be beyond the pale. 

And we know Chi Trib is regularly late with local news and that S-T is busy with (sob!) stories — did not cover the gun shop protest, for that matter.

However, if Father P.

exhorted the crowd to “drag” shop owner, John Riggio, from his shop “like a rat” and “snuff” him,

adding to his recommended hit list legislators who vote the wrong way, as this RA says, there may be something here, if only to give this RA dog his day.

OR the noosepapers are ignoring this in hopes that few know Fr. P. fingered the shop owner and few will have heard their marching orders.

This may have been reported, but I missed it.  Fr. Pfleger getting wild?

A gun rights advocate wants the Justice Department to investigate a Catholic priest who during a weekend anti-gun rally threatened to “snuff out” a Chicago gun store owner.

As Cybercast News Service reported earlier, Rev. Michael Pfleger said Saturday in comments aimed at Chuck’s Gun Shop owner John Riggio, “we’re going to find out and snuff you out.”

Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina’s Church in Chicago, told the crowd “we’re going to snuff out John Riggio, we’re going to snuff out legislators that are voting … against our gun laws and we’re coming for you because we are not going to sit idly.”

To “snuff” can mean to sniff, inhale, or extinguish. It is also commonly used as a slang term for “to kill.”

I would say so.  Once on the West Side, I was “fingered” by black activist Chester Robinson, who has since gone to his reward.  Friends told me to lie low, said wherever I go, be sure to wear my Roman collar.  This was in the mid-60s, when the street would catch on to what a leader said.

Pfleger doesn’t mean it that way, I’m sure.  But how will he be taken and how far need he go to keep his audience?

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Later, email comment:

I don’t listen to rap or Jay Leno, but “snuff out” means “blow away” or “kill” in my street lexicon. And street jargon is Pfleger’s stock in trade.

Now he’s had his effect, and got his headlines, and he’ll play dumb and innocent.

 

And cardinal George will let the civil authorities deal with him. When did he resign from being cardinal to Fr. Pfleger? No longer his boss?

I do believe the cardinal is in over his head with Chicago.  He’s a bookish fellow, ready to duke it out from podium or pulpit, but not able to deal with the shrewd likes of Pfleger, who is as clever a rascal as has arisen in the archdiocese for many years.