No one wields the scalpel of sarcasm like Mark Shea.

Here he tackles Andrew Sullivan's recent tantrum on Catholicism sponsored by Newsweek:

Anyway, Rod Dreher rolls his eyes at this rather unconvincing article that is what passes for intelligent commentary on Christianity at Newsweek. Sullivan’s piece will, of course, be hailed as profound and he will courageously face the applause for the now white-whiskered assumption in our post-Protestant culture that Jesus and his Body are opposites. One can only arrive at that view by ignoring large amounts of what Jesus himself says (“He who listens to you listens to me, and he who listens to me listens to him who sent me” is but one such teaching of Jesus that doesn’t get much MSM press). But since virtually nobody saying “I think Jesus is okay, it’s his followers who have it all wrong” actually knows anything about what Jesus said or did and would be shocked if they did, that’s not surprising. Sullivan deals with this problem by the expedient of hailing Thomas Jefferson for scissoring out of the New Testament anything that gets in the way of what Andrew Sullivan wants. In a culture that takes The Da Vinci Code as sober history (while lecturing Christians on their gullibility) we should not be too surprised then that Sullivan is a prophet suitable for our age.

For me, the curious thing about the conflict between Sullivan and Dreher is that, in addition to everything else, it seems to me to illustrate something I noticed a while back about the difference between cradle Catholics and many converts. Namely, that cradles tend to approach the Church on a familial basis, while many converts approach her on a doctrinal basis. Doctrinally, Dreher (who has, in fact, left the Catholic communion over the abuse scandal and other things) is closer to the Church (and Jesus) in his understanding of consistent obedience to her moral teaching than Sullivan is. Sullivan’s preposterous Jeffersonian cut and paste job is convincing only to himself and like-minded people who just want a frisson of Faith as a cover for their narcissism.

But at the same time, Sullivan remains closer to the Church on a familial basis (i.e, ecclesially), like a son who can’t stand Mom but would never think of changing his name or disowning the family.

Good stuff, and I think that Shea is dead-on with regard to the difference between cradles and converts.