Masturbatory politics: Losing never felt so good

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Scratch many "progressives," and what you'll find is . . . Glenn Beck tripping on Viagra.

Replace the "Ground Zero imam," Feisal Abdul Rauf with Christine O'Donnell, the Republicans' nominee for U.S. Senate in Delaware, and you basically have folks like Media Matters and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow doing Glenn Beck's schtick -- just not quite so craziliciously well as Beck does it.

O'Donnell is a tea-party candidate. She has Sarah Palin as a patron. She has a financially checkered past, with allegations of lying, hypocrisy and cheating former campaign workers thrown in for good measure.

That's a lot for a liberal to work with, politically.

SO WHAT do "progressives" think O'Donnell's Achilles' heel is? She's against masturbation.

Well, so is the pope. It's called Catholic moral theology. In fact, lots of Christians are foursquare against pleasuring oneself, and fornication of all sorts. So are Muslims.

But you don't see Maddow, or Media Matters -- or, in fact, any other "progressive" voice -- crying out against Muslims' horrible intolerance of whacking off. What you instead hear is a cacophony of "progressive" voices condemning the likes of Beck, Newt Gingrich and all manner of tea-party nutjobs for their bigotry toward American Muslims.

You hear them condemning the intolerant right for holding Muslims, and their faith, in the same sort of contempt "progressives" reserve for the long-established, orthodox Christian approach to sexual ethics.

Americans, it seems to me, might take the left's pleas for tolerance a lot more seriously if "progressives" weren't such contemptible hypocrites.

Did you know?

Know what?

Know that you can embed the Big Show on your blog or something if you really, really like it.

The things people think of on the Internets.



THAT IS ALL. Above, you'll find the latest episode, which I call "Heck of a Job." You can read about it here.

As always, it's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all.

Be there.

Aloha.

They were too on a mission from God!

Well Jesus, Mary and Joseph! We coulda told you that oh . . . 30 years ago.

That said, I give two thumbs up to the Vatican's proclaiming The Blues Brothers a classic. A Catholic classic.

ABC NEWS brings us the story live from Bob's Country Bunker in Kokomo, Ind.:

This week, the official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano devoted no fewer than five articles to "The Blues Brothers," anointing it as a film with a Catholic message.

"The evidence is not lacking in a work where details certainly are not casual," wrote editor Gian Maria Vian, according to a translation from The Tablet newspaper.

He cited examples of a photo of Pope John Paul II on the set, characters like Sister Mary Stigmata, and other religious touches to support his argument. The storyline follows the Blues Brothers as they attempt to raise money for a church-run orphanage where they grew up.

All this in a movie where Jake Blues, played by John Belushi, declares, "Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ! I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!"

The Blues Brothers joins a lofty list of Vatican-acclaimed films, including "The Ten Commandments," "The Passion of The Christ," and "It's a Wonderful Life."

OF COURSE, some Catholic quarters are horrified, as was the U.S. bishops' film office back in 1980. Moral rigorism always has run strong in the American church, and there will be no plain white toast and whole fried chickens in the lunchroom at the Legion of Christ-owned National Catholic Register:

The movie and its music are “memorable”, concludes Vian, and adds: “According to the facts, [it’s] Catholic.” Elsewhere in the paper, a full page article describes the film as a “masterpiece”, “incredibly shrewd” and “full of ideas.”

All quite interesting – but whether this is really something that should court so much attention in L’Osservatore Romano which many see (incorrectly) as the Vatican’s official mouthpiece, is open to question.

Vian is a friendly, hard-working and well-meaning editor who has done much good for the publication, but his enthusiasm to regularly bring pop culture into the ‘Vatican’s newspaper’ may be all right in Italy, but to an increasing number it appears to trivialize the Vatican and, ultimately, the Church.

While movie and music reviews can rightly be a popular feature of many Catholic newspapers, many, myself included, feel L’Osservatore Romano is different and should instead be devoting its pages to more spiritual and lofty matters related to the faith.

OR, AS MY BOSS at a Catholic radio station once said to me as she objected to a bar of "Jingle Bells" in a recorded holiday ID, "Christmas is not fun." (Unsurprisingly, she belonged to Regnum Christi, the lay arm of the Legion of Christ, an order which has had troubles far surpassing the Vatican newspaper's "nonspiritual" embrace of pop culture.)

Think about that. "Christmas is not fun."

Obviously, for some Catholics, neither are the movies.

3 Chords & the Truth: A cautionary tale

The following cautionary tale is brought to you by the Internet's finest music podcast, 3 Chords & the Truth.

Ready? Here you go:

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

SO SAD. So sad. It seems to me the quality of poor Eleanor's dream could have been enhanced by regular downloading of the Big Show.

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

WHERE DO all the lonely people come from? Obviously from that bitter and antisocial place where 3 Chords & the Truth is not a weekly part of one's life.

That prospect is depressing enough to turn anybody into a sad hermit.

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near.
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

HELLO? FATHER? Nobody is listening to your sermons because they're booorrrrrrriiinnng! Really, if you listened to 3 Chords & the Truth, you'd be much happier, and I am sure there's scientific research somewhere pointing out that listening to good music increases the effectiveness of sermon writing 110 percent.

Get with the program, Fadda! Listen to the Big Show and quit being such a prig.

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

YEAH, YEAH, YEAH . . . been over all that. Yadda yadda yadda.

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

WELL, that's just sadder than hell. And such a waste, too.

It could have been avoided with something as simple as a weekly dose of 3 Chords & the Truth. Proven effective in combating the boredom that causes priggishness, a leading cause of loneliness.

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

UH HUH, uh huh. Yeah, yeah. Heard that, haven't we? Move along, nothing new here. Just listen to the Big Show, and all will be well.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Just being

The theme of this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is being.

There.

It's as simple as that. Just being. No big message, no overriding machination to the conglomeration . . . just being.

EXISTING in the moment. Taking life -- and the Big Show -- as it comes, and enjoying the moment.

It's the Memorial Day weekend, and it seems to me that Memorial Day, and all it stands for, is as good a time as any to just be. And be content. And grateful.

But mainly just being. There.

I mean, I'm no Chance the Gardener -- well, maybe I'm kind of close to Chance the Gardener, except that nobody listens to me -- but that's what I have to say as we ease on into summer. With 3 Chords & the Truth . . . and the music.

And as we're just being there -- and here.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: The guitar (and stuff) man

Well, yeah, David Gates is the Guitar Man, but I got a few here on 3 Chords & the Truth, too.

And if you're interested, we got some horns and pianos, too. Want a bass? A violin?

HELL, this week, we even have some accordions, too. Because diversity and unparalleled selection are the hallmarks of the Big Show. It's all good, and it's all just a click away.

Two clicks, tops.

Anything else you need to know about this week's program? I didn't think so.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Country, rock, jazz

Click above for printable playlist.

This week on the Big Show, you can pick your . . . pleasure.

That's right, on Episode 101 (just a silly millimeter longer . . . sorry, really obscure pop-culture reference there) of 3 Chords & the Truth, you got your country. And you got your rock 'n' roll.

And then you got your great ladies of jazz.

FRANKLY, I think that pretty much covers it. There's not much else to say, except that you need to look for the tie-in to a couple of posts on Revolution 21's Blog for the People earlier in the week.

If you're the first caller with the correct answer . . . give yourself a nice prize.

So remember -- this week on the Big Show, we got your country, your rock and your jazz. A balanced diet of fine music.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Pope embraces the Holy DUH

Finally.

By the grace of God, the Catholic Church, led by the pope, eventually came around to embrace the obvious.

Slowly, yes. Painfully, yes. But around it does come, usually, to embrace the gospel truth.

TODAY, the news of this comes via The New York Times . . . which had its own role in forcing the issue:

In his most direct condemnation of the sexual abuse crisis that has swept the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday said that the “sins inside the church” posed the greatest threat to the church, adding that “forgiveness does not substitute justice.”

“Attacks on the pope and the church come not only from outside the church, but the suffering of the church comes from inside the church, from sin that exists inside the church,” Benedict told reporters aboard his plane en route to Portugal, speaking about the abuse crisis.

“This we have always known, but today we see it in a really terrifying way, that the greatest persecution of the church does not come from the enemies outside but is born from the sin in the church,” he added. “The church has a profound need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn on the one hand forgiveness but also the necessity of justice. And forgiveness does not substitute justice.”

In placing the blame for sex abuse directly on the church, Benedict appeared to distance himself from other church officials who in recent weeks have criticized the news media for reporting on the sex abuse crisis, which they called attacks on the church.

In recent months, the sex abuse crisis has revealed an ancient institution wrestling with modernity and has brought to light an internal culture clash between traditionalists who have valued protecting priests and bishops above all else, and others who seek more transparency.

The crisis has also raised questions about how Benedict handled sex abuse as prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and as bishop in Munich in 1980 when a pedophile priest was moved to his diocese for treatment.

A traditionalist but also a strong voice within the church calling for purification, Benedict met privately with victims of sex abuse on a brief trip to Malta last month, his third such meeting. In March, he issued a strong letter to Irish Catholics reeling from reports of systemic sex abuse in Catholic institutions. And last week the Vatican took control of the Legionaries of Christ, a powerful religious order whose founder was founded to have abused seminarians and fathered several children.

But the pope’s off-the-cuff remarks on Tuesday were his most direct since the crisis hit the church in Europe earlier this year.

On the plane, Benedict told reporters that the church had to relearn “conversion, prayer, penance.”

WELL, DUH. And amen.

Let the Vatican's deeds now match the Holy Father's words.

3 Chords & the Truth: The big hundred

There's nothing like a song to kick off the 100th episode of 3 Chords & the Truth.

Good thing, then, that happens to be our standard procedure here on the Big Show. Let me move on, though, before you accuse me of facetiousness.

But before I do, can somebody explain to me the concept of "Tobalby"? And if you can, I'll think that maybe you're a little tipsy on Potliquor.

YES, it's my show, and I love her madly, but sometimes the whole deal -- and tha late nights -- just make me loopy. If not Monster Raving Loony.

On this auspicious occasion of the completion of the100th of the 3 Chords & the Truth program -- or, if you will, programme -- I'll just get in the drivers seat and crank up the Radio, Radio. For it's a sound salvation.

After all, the last thing I want to be today is a Wallflower.

So repair all the broken bells and let them ring out greetings through the air to all the white birds . . . let them ring out this simple message from your Mighty Favog.

"Trust Me." And "Love Me."

BECAUSE it is that little fire in your belly that tells you the music here is important. That the program -- er, programme -- that is the Big Show fills an important niche that is ignored by the insipid tossers that fish and whistle while radio and the music industry burn.

But it's still, whatever way you cut it, quite easy to say "What a Wonderful World," even if we sometimes look on a fouled landscape and think . . . "Is That All There Is?"

Whatever. Sometimes you make good sense, sometimes you don't.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3C&T: The song list!

By popular request, here's the song list for this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth.

Funny how disparate things work together, innit? You think there might be a lesson in that, America?

So . . . if you haven't given the Big Show a try yet, maybe now would be a good time.

And remember, the word of the week is "HAMBONE"!

	Song Name	Artist	Year
1	Mushaboom	Feist	2004
2	Lovefool	Cardigans	1996
3	Japanese Art	Theresa Andersson	2008
4	Hold On	Ian Gomm	1979
5	When You Walk in the Room	Jackie De Shannon	1963
6	I'll Never Fall in Love Again	Dionne Warwick	1969
7	Wishin' & Hopin'	Dusty Springfield	1964
8	Gotta Get Up	Nilsson (Harry)	1971
9	Mr. Blue Sky	Electric Light Orchestra	1978
10	Temptation Eyes	The Grass Roots	1970
11	Come and Get It	Badfinger	1970
12	A Day in the Life	Beatles	1967
13	Hambone	Red Saunders & His Orchestra (w/ Dolores Hawkins and The Hambone Kids)	1952
14	Bo Diddley (1955 single)	Bo Diddley	1955
15	Not Fade Away	Buddy Holly	1957
16	(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame	Elvis Presley	1961
17	She Has Funny Cars	Jefferson Airplane	1967
18	Magic Bus	The Who	1968
19	New York Groove	Ace Frehley	1979
20	Rosanna	Toto	1982
21	Ballad of Medgar Evers	Phil Ochs	1963
22	Morgan the Pirate	Mimi & Richard Fariña	1968
23	Musical Key	Cowboy Junkies	1996
24	Sweeter For Me	Joan Baez	1976
25	Day Is Done	Peter, Paul and Mary	1969

3 Chords & the Truth: Hambone!

Oh, the sheer amount of rock 'n' roll resting on a Hambone foundation.

As you will hear this week on 3 Chords & the Truth, one day a youngish Bo Diddley heard this. . . .

Hambone, hambone
Have you heard?
Papa’s gonna buy me a mocking bird
And if that mocking bird don’t sing
Papa’s gonna buy me a diamond ring
And if that diamond ring don’t shine
Papa’s gonna take it to the five and dime
Hambone

Hambone, hambone
Where you been?
Round the world and I’m going again

Hambone, hambone
Where’s your wife
Out in the kitchen, cooking rice

AND THEN he stripped down the beat, turned it around, took the rap and made it his own. And a big beat was born.

This week on the Big Show, we're all about the big beat. And believe me, we know Diddley -- at least -- about Hambone.

We also know a little about pop, and pianos, and a fine set of folk music. Trust me, you have to be there -- on the Big Show.

There, we've got your musical number. We've also got puns and clichés aplenty to use as cheesy catchphrases.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, Hambone. Be there. Aloha.

Be a Saint

Maybe the Vatican, in dealing with the sex-abuse scandal and its never-ending aftermath, just needs to follow the example of a Saint.

For one thing, unlike the pope, a Saint doesn't need a veteran Vatican watcher to explain to the rest of the press corps, in effect, "Yes, Benedict XVI was addressing the Scandals in this homily. It appears he was being critical of the church and pointing to the need for repentance."

At the Vatican, Christ's injunction in the fifth chapter of Matthew about letting "your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No'," has yet to gain complete traction among those who proclaim it.

IS IT POSSIBLE that, in his own way, a modern-day sinner turned Saint -- as in New Orleans Saints -- might have a better grasp on confession and repentance than many of the pointy hats who've been preaching confession and repentance to fallen humanity since 33 A.D.?

Present-day Saint and former Nebraska Cornhusker sinner Carl Nicks just might. Perhaps they ought to start subscribing to the Omaha World-Herald all across Vatican City:

Carl Nicks returned to Nebraska on Wednesday with a Super Bowl watch, a new tattoo and a humble act of contrition.

Nicks met briefly after practice with head coach Bo Pelini, who banned the offensive lineman from the Huskers’ pro day two years ago. It was an unceremonious parting with the program before New Orleans made Nicks a fifth-round draft pick.

Nicks called the NU football office Wednesday and asked if he could come by — and now plans to stay for the spring game Saturday.

“I figured it was about time to put some water on some of those bridges I burned,” Nicks said.

As soon as the 2007 season ended at Colorado — along with Bill Callahan’s reign as head coach — Nicks stopped going to class, which he counts among the “immature stuff I did.” About three months after Pelini replaced Callahan, he cited an arrest and Nicks being a bad example for returning players in barring him from pro day.

Nicks said it wasn’t until he got to New Orleans and talked with former Husker safety Josh Bullocks that he realized that he was in the wrong.

“For about a good three or four months I had blamed Bo for it and I was blaming other people, and at the end of the day, you’ve got to look in the mirror,” Nicks said. “Once I got a little older, played a little professional ball, I realized how good I had it and just how bad I treated everybody.”

AN ASSOCIATED PRESS story adds this from Nicks:

"I'm not who I was then," he said. "It just kind of hurts, to know I made a fool of myself."

Dressed in shorts and a Kobe Bryant Lakers' jersey, Nicks approached Pelini after the coach's post-practice session with reporters. They talked for a few minutes and shook hands.

"I wouldn't be true to Nebraska if I didn't try to apologize to Bo, even though I didn't play for him," Nicks said. "He's the face of Nebraska. I have to make it right with him, Mr. Osborne and everyone I did wrong when I was here."

Osborne surprised Nicks by greeting him as Carl -- "I didn't think he knew my name" - and then told him to learn from his mistakes and finish his college degree as soon as possible.

"I basically apologized to them for being an irresponsible athlete," Nicks said. "I didn't really have to do it, but I felt I needed to do it."

THAT IS the grace through repentance the Pope was talking about in his homily today -- the one the press was divining for applicability to the Catholic Church's present sins.

It would be nice if Benedict could just come out and say what he has to say . . . plainly. Specifically. Explicitly. It would be nice if he could do that in personal terms, not hiding behind addressing the "church."

It would be nice if the pope's subordinates -- who have been so quick to unleash public-relations Armageddon on the "evil press" for delving into the sins of the fathers -- could follow the Founder's command (again, from Matthew 5) instead:

40
If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well.
41
Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.
42
Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.

IT WOULD be nice if everybody involved -- the leadership of an institutional church just as in need of confession and repentance as any of us (and maybe more) -- tried to emulate the saints in all this. And failing that, maybe they just could follow the example of a Saint.

IT'S TRUE! Onion not making that s*** up!

Until now, I always thought The Onion was just making stuff up.

You know what I'm talking about -- for instance, the "fake" advice columns like "Ask a Bee" and "Ask a Faulknerian Idiot Man-Child."

You'll note that I put "fake" in quotation marks. That's because I don't think The Onion is making that stuff up -- at least not all of it. The was brought home by an Italian Catholic website, Pontifex, which apparently has run a real-life version of "Ask a Faulknerian Idiot Man-Child Bishop."

AND THE retired bishop then went on at length about how the recent media scrutiny of the Vatican is all a big conspiracy put together by the Christ-killers. From London, The Times reports :

A retired Italian bishop has provoked fury by reportedly suggesting that “Zionists” are behind the current storm of accusations over clerical sex abuse shaking the Vatican and the Catholic Church.

Monsignor Giacomo Babini, the Bishop Emeritus of Grossetto, was quoted by the Italian Roman Catholic website Pontifex as saying he believed a “Zionist attack” was behind the criticism of the Pope, given that it was “powerful and refined” in nature.

Bishop Babini denied he had made any anti-Semitic remarks. He was backed by the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI), which issued a declaration by Bishop Babini in which he said: “Statements I have never made about our Jewish brothers have been attributed to me.”

However, Bruno Volpe, who interviewed Monsignor Babini for Pontifex, confirmed that the bishop had made the statement, which was reported widely in the Italian press today. Pontifex threatened to release the audio tape of the interview as proof.

Monsignor Babini’s reported comments follow a series of statements from senior Vatican cardinals blaming a “concerted campaign” by “powerful lobbies” for accusations that Pope Benedict XVI was involved in covering up cases of clerical abuse both as Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982 and subsequently as head of doctrine at the Vatican.

None has explicitly blamed Jews or any other group. However Bishop Babini, 81, said Jews “do not want the Church, they are its natural enemies”. He added: “Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are deicides [God killers].”

He was quoted as saying that Hitler was “not just mad” but had exploited German anger over the excesses of German Jews who in the 1930s had throttled the German economy.

Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee said Monsignor Babini was using “slanderous stereotypes, which sadly evoke the worst Christian and Nazi propaganda prior to World War Two”.

YOU KNOW, by the time the Vatican gets through asking Catholics -- at least on this issue -- to believe several unbelievable things before breakfast, and by the time various Catholic clerics and laymen get through saying patently crazy things in defense of the church, you have to wonder how many people will be scandalized right out of believing in God.

And scandalized right into believing The Onion.

The Vatican today: Homina, homina, homina

What The New York Times started, The Associated Press just might have finished.

The signature above is that of "Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger," who would become Pope Benedict XVI. That signature was on a 1985 document uncovered by the AP, a document in which the cardinal said, in effect, he didn't think it was such a great idea to laicize a pederast priest in California.

Presented with an incriminating document, Vatican officials insisted that the American press believe the unbelievable. Here is a bit of the AP report, but do go to MSNBC and read the whole thing:

The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature.

The correspondence, obtained by The Associated Press, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church's doctrinal watchdog office.

The letter, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was typed in Latin and is part of years of correspondence between the Diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed defrocking of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle.

The Vatican confirmed Friday that it was Ratzinger's signature. "The press office doesn't believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations," the Rev. Federico Lombardi said.

Another spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said the letter showed no attempt at a cover-up. "The then-Cardinal Ratzinger didn't cover up the case, but as the letter clearly shows, made clear the need to study the case with more attention, taking into account the good of all involved."

The diocese recommended removing Kiesle from the priesthood in 1981, the year Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican office that shared responsibility for disciplining abusive priests.

The case then languished for four years at the Vatican before Ratzinger finally wrote to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. It was two more years before Kiesle was removed.

In the November 1985 letter, Ratzinger says the arguments for removing Kiesle are of "grave significance" but added that such actions required very careful review and more time. He also urged the bishop to provide Kiesle with "as much paternal care as possible" while awaiting the decision, according to a translation for AP by Professor Thomas Habinek, chairman of the University of Southern California Classics Department.

But the future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the "good of the universal church" and the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age." Kiesle was 38 at the time.

(snip)

Kiesle, who married after leaving the priesthood, was arrested and charged in 2002 with 13 counts of child molestation from the 1970s. All but two were thrown out after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a California law extending the statute of limitations.

He pleaded no contest in 2004 to a felony for molesting a young girl in his Truckee home in 1995 and was sentenced to six years in state prison.

LET US REVIEW. The Diocese of Oakland flat-out tells the Vatican one of its priests is a stone-cold child molester.

The Diocese of Oakland tells the Vatican it's really, really important that this clerical molester be drummed out of the priesthood.

The Vatican sits on the case for several years. And then when the diocese gets a response, in 1985, it's from Cardinal Ratzinger -- the future pope -- saying, basically, "Not so fast, boys. Is it really good for the universal church to be kicking kiddie rapers to the curb here?"

And now, when the wire service tells the Vatican what it has, officials there confirm it's Ratzinger's signature, but stress they don't "believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations."

Translation into American English: "Oh, s***!"

Out of context? What the hell context justifies -- after being told, as an established fact, that a priest is a pervert and, in fact, has acted on his perversion . . . with children -- placing appearances over justice, over protecting Catholic children?

How do you finesse that which cannot be finessed?


HERE'S WHAT is becoming quite plain. The Catholic Church -- and I am sure it is not alone among earthly institutions in this -- developed a culture of juridical and moral deviance when it came to its perception of, and its dealing with, pederasty. That culture was every bit as perverted as the child-raping priests it coddled and shielded from justice.

And Pope Benedict XVI was part of that culture. He bought into that culture. To the extent that he no longer buys into that culture, it is a relatively recent development in his long priestly vocation.

That seems clear, and yet the Vatican -- and many Catholics around the world -- cannot deal with that, almost as if admitting that the pope is human, possessing human frailties and committing human sins, would cause the whole edifice of the Catholic Church to come tumbling down.

O ye of little faith.

Obviously, we're still not done with the excuses, and we're certainly not done with the wagon-circling or the media-bashing. That, however, doesn't alter the fact that there really is only one thing left for the church to do -- something it absolutely requires of us mere laymen.

Confession.

It is long past time for institutional Catholicism to confess its sins against God, against itself and especially against its children. It is long past time for the church to confess, to repent, to exhibit a "firm purpose of amendment" . . . and then to do penance.

Just do it. Otherwise, there will be hell to pay.

Literally.

3 Chords & the Truth: Lidsen doo da Bigb Showd

Lidsen, ah godt terruhble allebgies ribe now, so ahm gonnab pubt on dis new ebbisobe ub 3 Chorbs & da Troof, anb youb cam enjoyb yoursebf while ah go blown mah node and taghe some more nadal spray.
Dere's lobs ub good stubf on da Bigb Showb dis weeg, so ah don dink youb wib be ad a loss for enderdainmenb.

Reahlyb, ah don'b.

AH MEANB, we gob eberyding fromb Moby Grabp do Pedrob da Liomb, amb all ginds ob eclegdic stubt im bedweemb.

Eggscudse meeb for a minbid. . . .

AAAAAAACHOOOOOOO!!!

Nah, wherb wad ah?

Oh yeahg, ah wad delling youb dad dis weeg's ebbisobe ub 3 Chorbs & da Troof ids anodder eggsellend eggsamble ub freeformb egglegdicism juz ligh radiob used do bee a long dime ago. So, youb lidsen do da Bigb Showb, guz ah can'd dawk no morb.

Idd's 3 Chorbs & da Troof, y'alb. Be dere. Alobgah.

Tlhagale, the self-hating archbishop

I regret to report that there's a South African cleric who is a fifth-columnist within Catholicism -- a linchpin of the anti-Catholic "hate" campaign hell-bent on tarring the whole church with the unfortunate actions of a few.

EWTN News, no doubt, reported this awful slander under extreme duress:

The “scourge” of sexual abuse by clergy is a problem in Africa, Archbishop of Johannesburg Buti Tlhagale said recently at a Chrism Mass. Condemning priests for betraying the Gospel and Christ himself, he called on clergy to experience the redeeming power of Christ and to rebuild “the battered image of the Church.”

Archbishop Tlhagale’s comments came at the Holy Thursday Chrism Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the King.

He said reports of the “painful” clergy scandals in Ireland and Germany kept him from a positive frame of mind “for I know that the Church in Africa is inflicted by the same scourge.”

“In our times we have betrayed the very Gospel we preach. The Good News we claim to announce sounds so hollow, so devoid of any meaning when matched with our much publicized negative moral behavior. Many who looked up to priests as their model feel betrayed, ashamed and disappointed.”

(snip)

He claimed that the image of the Catholic Church is “virtually in ruins” because of badly behaving priests, whom he compared to “wolves wearing sheep’s skin.”

“We are slowly but surely bent on destroying the Church of God by undermining and tearing apart the faith of lay believers. Ironically, priests have become a stumbling block to the promotion of vocations.

“Bad news spreads like wild fire. I wish I could say that there are only a few bad apples. But the outrage around us suggests that there are more than just a few bad apples.”

WILL SOMEBODY kindly supply this uninformed archbishop with the official talking points and get him on message?

Repeat after us Tlhagale: "It's just a few bad apples; we've got it under control. The press hates Catholics and wants to destroy the pope. It's not our fault, we swear to God."

Good God, they'll make anybody an archbishop down there. Sheesh.

Martyrdom by paper cuts?

Jesus had problems with his bishops long before His bumbling bench of disciples got a promotion and a pointy hat.

One of the first things they didn't "get," back in the 18th chapter of Luke, was the Boss' memo about how "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted." Quickly after, still scratching their heads over that pronouncement, no doubt, the clerics to be tried to shoo away children seeking the good rabbi.

Luke sets the scene in Judea on what had been a long, tiring day.

"People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them," the evangelist writes, "and when the disciples saw this, they rebuked them.

"Jesus, however, called the children to himself and said, 'Let the children come to me and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.'"

ALMOST 2,000 years later, the successors to the disciples still don't "get" it. In fact, too many of them absolutely have perverted Jesus' unambiguous admonition.

In America and, as we now learn, all across the world, far too many Catholic priests -- these men who act "in persona Christi," in the person of Christ, at the altar -- let the children come to them all right . . . and then molested and raped them. Then, in the name of not giving "scandal," bishops protected not the children but, instead, their violators.

If what Jesus said is really so, and the "the kingdom of God belongs to such as these" -- the children -- and the bureaucracy of the church has spent decades acting contrarily, what then is the kingdom to which it lays claim?

If the guardians of the Catholic faith obscure the kingdom of God behind a phalanx of bureaucrats and canon lawyers -- with secrecy their cry and Vatican letters their shield -- does that mean they've decided to deny Jesus in order to save His church? Has the magisterium suspended "whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it," kind of like Abraham Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the Civil War?

Do they consider that it is better for us that a few kids be thrown to the wolves instead of the hierarchy, so that the whole church may not perish? Is that it? Why does that sound familiar?

UNBELIEVABLY, the Vatican seeks to portray itself as the victim in all this -- hounded by the "pagan" media much as Caligula and Nero tormented the early church.

I am not making this up. Unfortunately, neither is The Associated Press:

The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic "hate" campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

Vatican Radio broadcast comments by two senior cardinals explaining "the motive for these attacks" on the pope and the Vatican newspaper chipped in with spirited comments from another top cardinal.

"The pope defends life and the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, in a world in which powerful lobbies would like to impose a completely different" agenda, Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, head of the disciplinary commission for Holy See officials, said on the radio.

(snip)

"There are those who fear the media campaign of anti-Catholic hatred can degenerate," Vatican Radio said.

It noted anti-Catholic graffiti on walls of a church outside Viterbo, a town near Rome, and reminded listeners that a bishop was attacked by a man during Easter Mass in Muenster, Germany. The bishop fought back with an incense bowl.

The radio likened the recent campaign to the persecution suffered by early Christian martyrs. "The crowds, incited by the slanders of the powerful, would lynch the Christians," the radio said.

NO, the "persecution" of the church by the press comes not because the pope "defends life and the family," but -- ironically -- because some elements of the church have been acting like (or covering up for those who've been acting like) Caligula. Or, at a minimum, a guest at one of the mad emperor's Roman orgies.

The thing about the press is this: If you're in public life and generally keep your nose (and other appendages) clean, reporters generally don't go around creating slanders out of thin air with which to persecute you. If you're getting bashed, oftentimes it's because you handed someone a baseball bat and dared them to use it.

The Vatican's problem -- more our problem, actually -- is that its clerics and functionaries forget whom they serve. Sometimes, they're just serving themselves . . . perpetuating the bureaucracy and the institution with no regard for the first principles that gave life to the institution.

Other times, they're serving the pope -- sheltering a pope from scrutiny, accountability and, ultimately, reality. It's as if they have no faith that a church built upon the "rock"-- Cephas . . . Petrus . . . Peter . . . the clueless bumbler formerly known as Simon -- who denied Christ three times could survive a present-day pope being exposed as a fairly ordinary specimen of fallen humanity.

It's as if these slobbering toadies think only an übermensch with no need of Christ's saving grace could lead the church toward that Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

At no time in all of this has anyone at the Vatican given the impression of actually being, first and foremost, a servant of Jesus. Or of the billion Catholics today who, tragically, find themselves in the spiritual care of self-pitying political creatures such as these.

Miserere nobis.

Really, were the last words of our first pope -- the martyred Peter -- "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"? Somehow, I think not.

IN MATTHEW 18, Jesus has a few things to say about children, the hierarchy of heaven and the fate of those who causes the "little ones" to fall:

Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5
And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.
6
"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
7
Woe to the world because of things that cause sin! Such things must come, but woe to the one through whom they come!
8
If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life maimed or crippled than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into eternal fire.
9
And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into fiery Gehenna.
10
"See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.

IN THE CONTEXT of this particular Catholic moment -- one that has been decades in the making -- no fair reading of Jesus' words from Matthew would point toward divine condemnation of how the press has covered the scandals.

But if anyone in Rome -- or among various mau-mauers taking up space on the world's hapless bench of bishops -- finds Christ's words here somehow discomfiting . . . well, I don't think that would be an unreasonable reaction.

We live in a world that is sick unto death. We are beset by death-lovers and death-dealers. We are slaves to materialism. We live amid a culture where vulgarity has beauty in full retreat.

We need Jesus. We need His saving grace -- all of us, Catholics, Protestants, pagans . . whatever.

We need to see Jesus. We need to see Him in all things -- and especially in His church.

Somehow, those who administer Christ's church on His behalf have come between the Son of Man and those of us who stand at a distance, crying "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!"

We look for God, but do not see Him in Rome.

We look to the successors of the apostles but, at best, we catch only fleeting glimpses of pre-Pentecost imitators.

We listen for the Truth, but what we've been hearing of late -- from Rome -- sounds more like the Father of Lies to me.