Kansas City's Roman Catholic Bishop is facing a criminal charge for not telling police about child pornography that was found on a priest's computer.
Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese Bishop Robert Finn pleaded not guilty Friday to a misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Finn had "reasonable cause" to suspect a child had been abused after learning of the images, and should have immediately alerted police according to state law.
The fact that this is a misdemeanor "should not diminish the seriousness of the charge," Baker said. "Now that the grand jury investigation has resulted in this indictment, my office will pursue this case vigorously because it is about protecting children. I want to ensure there are no future failures to report resulting in other unsuspecting victims."
Finn has acknowledged that he and other diocese officials knew for five months about hundreds of "disturbing" photos of children on a computer used by the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, but did not take the matter to police. The diocese also faces one count of failing to report suspected child abuse.
Finn has said that St. Patrick's School Principal Julie Hess raised concerns more than a year ago that Ratigan was behaving inappropriately around children, but that he did not read her written report until after Ratigan was charged with three state child pornography counts this spring. Ratigan has pleaded not guilty.
IF HE'S GUILTY, make Finn do time. What we need in instances such as this is a little justice.
In the grand scheme of things, that might be an avenue for mercy for the long-suffering American church. And it might go a long way toward persuading its "shepherds" to actually start acting like such -- and protect the sheep, not the wolves.
Forty-three words. A faceless bureaucrat cowering in a cubicle can crush fundamental human rights in 43 words. One long sentence -- embedded in one relatively short paragraph -- can present a sixth-grade girl with a dilemma not unlike that of St. Thomas More.
So far, the consequences are a bit less dire than faced by the English jurist and Catholic martyr, but once we "cut a great road through the law to get after the devil," I'm sure we'd have little problem beheading a 12-year-old for just cause.
Today, just cause for cutting down "every law in England" -- or small-town Nebraska -- to "get after the devil" begins with what have become, in these days nearer the end of the world, among the most feared words in the king's English: "We have received confirmation from the (fill in the blank)Police Department that. . . ." SUNDAY NIGHT,KETV television in Omaha reported on a schoolhouse anti-Rosary crusade in Fremont, Neb., with what amounted to a journalistic Gallic shrug. The people in the story recounted events with a beaten-down Gallic shrug that might accompany an unspoken "But the police said! What'cha gonna do?"
A sixth-grade girl said she was told that she can't wear a necklace that resembles a rosary because it violates the dress code at the Fremont Public Schools.
Elizabeth Carey, 12, said the school adopted a policy last year banning the necklaces.
"The principal said I couldn't wear my necklace at all because gangsters were wearing it," she said.
She said the necklace is part of an outfit that she hopes expresses her faith.
IN THIS crumbling American empire, receiving "confirmation" that some scumbag somewhere is wearing something to signify "Scum!" is reason enough to wreck the ordinarily innocuous for everybody. And in Fremont -- a bucolic backwater that already has cut straight to corn-fed Stalinism "to get after" undocumented Mexicans-- official word from Barney Fife is enough to impinge upon the right of Catholics to freely identify with, and practice, their faith in public schools.
We have received confirmation from the Fremont Police Department that there have been documented cases of gang activity in the Fremont community and that the wearing of a rosary as jewelry can be considered a gang symbol or a sign of gang affiliation.
THE ACTUAL cutting down of all the Bill of Rights to get after the homeboys takes just 35 words:
The wearing of rosaries as jewelry at school, at a school function, or in a vehicle used for school purposes is prohibited. Please be advised that students are subject to the various disciplinary consequences and procedures.
OF COURSE, gang bangers will be as plentiful in the Fremont public schools as they ever were . . . just without their rosary necklaces. This Franciscan friar, however, probably would be tackled and handcuffed at the door.
What the hell are we supposed to do -- "give the devil the benefit of the law?"
Superintendent Steve Sexton said the policy is for student safety.
"We had information from law enforcement that there were documented instances of gang activity in the area and we had information that states that the rosary was being used as a symbol of gang affiliation," Sexton said.
He said rosaries have been used as gang-identification symbols in Oregon, Arizona and Texas.
Omaha Catholic Archdiocese Chancellor [sic -- the former chancellor] Rev. Joseph Taphorn said it's disheartening.
"I don't think Christians should have to forfeit what is the symbol for the love of Christ because a few people want to misuse that symbol," he said.
He said the corruption of something as beloved as the rosary disgusts the church.
"One ought to be able to figure out whether she's trying to promote a gang," Taphorn said. "If she's not, why would she be punished for her right of religious freedom and religious expression?"
Carey said she doesn't even know what a gang is. She said it makes her upset that she was punished for wearing what she thought was a necklace.
"It makes me feel like I want to scream really bad," she said.
KEEP your mouth shut, kid.
I'm sure that Fremont Middle School has"received confirmation from the Fremont Police Department" that there have been documented cases of gang members screaming in the Fremont community and that screaming can be "considered a sign of gang affiliation."
Sooner or later, death comes for us all. We all must meet our Maker.
Probably, no one knew this better than New Orleans' retired Archbishop Phillip Hannan, who died early Thursday at 98. In World War II, he was a paratrooper chaplain on the front lines in bloody Europe, administering last rites of the Catholic Church to American GIs and German soldiers alike amid the chaos of the battlefield.
Think about that one for a moment. If you dare.
In 1963, as an auxiliary bishop in Washington, he delivered the eulogy for his slain friend John F. Kennedy. In 1968, as archbishop of New Orleans, he did the same for Bobby Kennedy.
Hannan came to New Orleans in the devastating wake of Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and, at 92, rode out the fury of Katrina in 2005. The archbishop knew death better than most.
THIS, as recounted in The Times-Picayune, is how the old archbishop, his body finally spent, began his journey home a few days ago:
On Saturday, with the end apparently near, the few people around the archbishop's bed included his brother, Jerry Hannan, 89, who had flown in from Bethesda, Md.; the archbishop’s nephew, Tom; his oldest and closest New Orleans friend, Alden “Doc” Laborde, the oil-field entrepreneur; Saints owner Tom Benson and his wife, Gayle; restaurateur Klara Cvitanovich, who for years sent Hannan a daily take-out lunch from Drago’s; and a few others.
“It was an emotional time for all of us there,” Aymond said Thursday. “It was clear he knew some of what was going on.
“I gave no homily,” Aymond said. “I simply pointed at him and said he IS the living homily.
“He taught us in many ways how to live, but I think he taught us how to grow old gracefully.
“For a man who was independent, he became totally dependent on others, and never, ever complained about it.”
'Sounds good to me.'
Aymond said Hannan had already been anointed several times with the Sacrament of the Sick. This final Mass, the last of uncounted thousands in Hannan’s life, would be his last reception of the Eucharist.
In the early part of the ritual, Aymond and the others jointly confessed their sins in prayer, and as part of the rite, Aymond said he granted Hannan absolution from his sins in the name of Jesus.
Though weak and perhaps not entirely alert, Aymond said Hannan whispered a response.
They are what so far are his last recorded words:
He said: “Sounds good to me.”
“He was reassured, and knew God was forgiving him,” Aymond said.
On a continent 100-percent wrested from native Americans by the white man, and in a state where the United States Army rounded up the Ponca and forcibly delivered them into starvation in the Indian Territory, you have to have a lot of damned nerve to start whining about "not from here" and "carpetbaggers."
Of course, that doesn't stop some Nebraskans if there are political points to be scored.
Enter Jane Fleming Kleeb, who had the unmitigated nerve to have been born in Florida. But it gets worse. She also had the gall to have married a "Nebraskan" raised overseas . . . who has a Ph.D. from Yale. Yale!
But it gets worse than that. The Kleebs are Democrats, and they run for office -- he for the U.S. House and Senate, she for the Hastings school board.
But it gets worse than even that. Jane started something called BOLD Nebraska. We hear that it's full of lib'ruls and "radical enviro cronies" and stuff.
Furthermore, BOLD Nebraska is against the Keystone XL pipeline, through which TransCanada wants to pump Canadian "tar sands" oil trans-Nebraska on the way to Gulf Coast refineries. Kleeb had the gall to suggest it might really screw up the Nebraska Sandhills -- and the massive aquifer below them -- if this new project started belching the corrosive gunk across one of America's most environmentally sensitive regions.
But -- Dare I say it? Can you stand it? -- it gets even worse than that. Take a nitroglycerine pill. Please.
OK, I'm just going to come out with it. In the course of her carpetbaggingopposition to controversial Canadian toxic-sludge pipelines traversing much of Nebraska's water supply, Jane Kleeb. . . .
Jane Kleeb . . . .
The outsider, the carpetbagger Jane Kleeb. . . .
I CAN'T even say it, it's so horrible. The Leavenworth St. blog, as loyal and authentic a Nebraska institution as there is -- it's Republican! -- is made of sturdier stuff than I, so I'll just let it break the awful news:
Jane Kleeb likes to stick out like whenever she is out protesting or marching or generally putting on the pouty face with hands on hips.
Well she was making herself “be seen” at Pershing Auditorium in Lincoln yesterday during the State Department hearings on the Keystone XL Pipeline.
But what was she wearing? Take a look.
Yes folks, that is a “Future Farmers of America” jacket.
(snip)
We are sure Jane will say she was “urged” to wear it, or she didn’t know the rules, or she was trying to represent or some other breathless retort.
But we get it Jane. We get it with the jeans tucked into your boots and the giant belt buckle and now the FFA jacket:
You’re a poser. You are pretending to be something you are not.
You know, like pretending to care about the Sandhills or aquifer, when you’re really just trying to stop the the Canadian oil at the behest of your radical enviro cronies and sugar daddies.
NO,THOSE engaging in the fine art of American politics never pretend to be something they're not. Absolutely unheard of.
Can you imagine Mitt Romney in blue jeans? George H.W. Bush in a supermarket checkout line? Michael Dukakis in a tank? Hillary Clinton speaking with a Southern drawl in a black Baptist church?
Deal we must, though, with Jane Kleeb in cowboy boots . . . and a Future Farmers of America jacket.
Apparently, you're not supposed to wear cowboy boots unless your day job involves trudging through cow patties. And you're not supposed to wear an FFA jacket if you're not actually a member. It's kind of like present-day tea partiers -- who live in suburban comfort and only make vague threats about revolting against "tyrants" -- dressing up like it's 1775 and waving Gadsden flags.
In a comment, the state Republican Party Chairman Mark Fahleson explains how much worse:
Wow–that’s not really Jane Kleeb wearing an FFA jacket, is it? As the former president of the Waverly FFA Chapter who remains proud of and thankful for his FFA experience, I can assure you that the hallowed blue corduroy is sacrosanct. A non-member (even a former member like me) wearing the jacket is like a non-Catholic taking communion at Mass. Whether it’s non-physicians wearing white coats at pressers or faux cowboys posing as Nebraska ranchers, apparently what matters to Nebraska’s leftists is the visual, not the truth.
MIGHTY BIG TALK for someone from Kansas City, Mo., doing his level best to tar an "outsider" who stands against Canadian carpetbaggers (ones with a long history of leaky pipelines) cutting through the Nebraska Sandhills with a toxic-sludge superhighway.
Of course, I am not surprised that the head of the Nebraska GOP hails from Missouri. I'm from Louisiana, myself, and we Southerners know a thing or two about Republican carpetbaggers.
What really concerns me, though, is that someone can be so warped by politics and partisanship that he can compare an FFA jacket to the Holy Eucharist.
Catholics believe that the consecrated bread and wine has become the actual body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. If you don't believe that, you have no business partaking of it, and you have real problems in calling yourself Catholic.
We call it "communion" for a reason -- it is both sign and cause of our unity as Catholics and of God within us. The Catechism of the Catholic Churchsays this about Holy Communion:
The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life."136 "The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch."137
"The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit."138
Finally, by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all.139
In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith: "Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking."140
AND THE Nebraska Republicans' secular sacrament of the day, the Holy FFA Jacket? It's just a jacket.
Granted, it means a lot to a lot of FFA members who earned one, but when you unstick yourself from stupid and gain a little perspective, you realize that blue corduroy jacket is a lot like the faux outrage of political hacks -- you can get along just fine without it. And them.
They don't make charismatic religious luminaries like they used to.
And even back in the day, especially in the Catholic universe, the record was spotty. For every Bishop Fulton Sheen, you also had a Father Charles Coughlin.
It's only gotten worse from there. Today, we have an entire order established by a dead, now-discredited pervert. We have bishops complicit in covering up child sexual abuse by priests.
We have a church in which the historical practice of Catholicism has become foreign to actual Catholics. And we have many "orthodox" Catholics so desperate for authenticity, authority and moral teaching that they latch on to the craziest things -- and people.
The list of such recent -- and, frankly, cultish -- figures is a long one, starting with the Rev. Marcial Maciel, serial abuser, personality-cult figure and founder of the Legion of Christ and its lay organization, Regnum Christi. Among them are "rock-star priests" like Father Ken Roberts, Father Thomas Euteneuer . . . and now Father John Corapi.
All have "fallen" amid sex scandals. All have diehard followers who, in some cases even years later, are sure "they" framed their man because he "told it like it is."
The desperation and confusion of the faithful amid the collapse of catechesis, practice and authority within Catholicism reminds me of the wayward penguin recently discovered in New Zealand. It had lost its bearings, swam far from its Antarctic home and was found eating wet sand, thinking it snow.
Catholics now are "liberal" or "conservative," warring factions rallying behind "orthodox" or "progressive" gurus and sure that God is on their side. Never do they wonder whether they are on God's.
And they follow their guru, like lemmings, to the edge of the abyss. Some jump. Others beg their guru not to leave them, because such dynamism is so hard to come by that the Kingdom of Heaven may not survive its loss.That may be an overstatement -- but not much of one.
IRONICALLY ENOUGH, it was Corapi who gave us the best explanation of our current sad state of affairs, both literal and figurative. The priest -- whose now-former religious order today adjudged him guilty of various transgressions, sexual and otherwise -- hypocritically, it now seems, "told it like it is" in an interview with Legatus magazine.
Maybe "it takes a thief," so to speak.
When enough Catholics become true to their calling, a great power will be unleashed. The reason we have this mess, in my estimation, is because the vast majority of Catholics have not lived their faith. We have a billion Catholics on the face of the earth. If they knew their faith, lived their faith, loved their faith, I assure you that the world would be a very different place.
The United States, the situation would be profoundly different if we had 60-70 million Catholics truly living their faith. But, of course, as many as 80% don’t even go to Mass on Sunday — and that’s a precept! So we have a long way to go. But it has to be kind of grassroots, one person at a time. That is why the Church has always encouraged personal holiness, because that is where the reform is going to come from.
(snip)
I’ve been a harsh critic of ourselves, meaning the Church leadership — priests, bishops and theologians. I don’t think we’ve done a particularly good job in my lifetime. We’ve had great popes; the top of the hierarchy has always been fantastic. But we’ve had a serious problem with “middle management.” There has been a significant problem with bishops and priests. Although, it’s better now than it was 20 years ago. However, the vast majority of Catholics aren’t even going to Church, so we shouldn’t wonder that the Church has been losing its influence on an increasingly secularized society.
You have to ask yourself why people have drifted away. I’m sure there are a lot of societal reasons. We don’t have control over those reasons, but we have control over the reasons inside the Church. You can start with the top. There is an old saying: “The fish stinks from the head down.” Lousy leadership is a disaster.
I once asked an old Carmelite nun why we have a crisis of leadership inside the Church as well as in the secular order. She never batted an eye. She had been a nun for over 60 years and a prioress for decades. She said, “That’s easy. Punishment for sin.” Why do we have bad leadership? Punishment for sin. It’s very biblical. You go back to the Old Testament and you see that leadership was removed from the people of God, the chosen people, because of infidelity to the covenant. They cried out to God because they had no priest, prophet or king. Why not? Because they were unfaithful.
One can recall what happened during the tenure of Pope Paul VI, when he came out with his landmark and prophetic encyclical Humane Vitae. Significant numbers of bishops, priests, theologians and others rejected it. They absolutely rejected it. The majority of Canadian bishops signed the infamous Winnipeg Statement that just categorically rejected Humane Vitae. That kind of rebellion is catastrophic. Paul VI was prophetic with that encyclical and much of what he warned about has come to pass.
WHO KNEW that Father Corapi might be conducting field research on infidelity and the lack of personal holiness as he spoke?
Meantime, it's the rest of us who note yet another scandal by yet another proclaimer of the gospel, then get back to our field research on the ongoing "catastrophic" effects of the ongoing Catholic "crisis of leadership" and the rebellion of those who presume to fill the vacuum.
It seems that I've been retreating headlong into the past lately.
Part of it, I guess, is some sort of rebellion against the ugliness of today's prevailing culture . . . the ugliness of what passes for civilization today, period.
Another part of it is sheer weariness at the banality and stupidity of the popular culture that's actually popular.
Most of it is boredom. I find the present dull. Radio is dull. TV is dull, most of it. Too much of music is dull.
Drudge is tedious; cable news isn't. Isn't news, that is -- cable "news" is tedious with a capital "T."
Consumer products are boring, too, but it doesn't matter because they'll be obsolete in a year, anyway.
And whatever happened to great industrial design?
Maybe I'm not the only one bored, though. Maybe lots of people are, Maybe that's why typewriters are making a comeback. Vinyl records, too.
I just bought a 1959 Olympia manual portable typewriter. All it is is a printer with elbow grease, except that it doesn't "do" artwork, but it's a lot prettier than my computer. And unlike my computer, it will still be useful in another couple of years.
It doesn't crash unless I drop it, and it works just fine when the power goes out.
I can pound away at the keyboard with two angry fingers without worry. Nothing's going to splinter, and it sounds really cool.
I can feel my words going onto paper. I am connected. I am, quite literally, "in touch."
I can pound out a literary masterpiece much as I did three decades ago on a similar device in the ancient, clamorous and quite alive newsroom of The Daily Reveille, when all of Louisiana State University could marvel at all the news I saw fit to pound onto an 8½-by-11-inch newsprint sheet secure in the bowels of an ancient Royal.
Or Underwood. Or Olympia. Maybe Olivetti.
You'd be amazed how fast you can type with two fingers. (Or maybe you wouldn't be. It's like texting with your index fingers and not your thumbs. Only much more forcefully.)
You'd also be amazed at how typing on an old Olympia, or Royal, or Underwood, or Remington is no fit pursuit for sissified fingers.
The whole process is sooooooooo not postmodern. And that's my point. Postmodern is dull and vaguely uncivilized. We have become dull . . . and vaguely uncivilized.
WE ARE out of balance. We, somewhere in our moral BIOS, know this -- thus our boredom. Thus our youngsters' newfound fascination with the low-tech hi-tech of their elders' youth. Thus, I am happy I found my 1959 Olympia at an Omaha estate sale for $5, grabbing a piece of how I used to "kick it old school back in the day" in advance of hipster-inflated pricing.
If I were in New York, for example, I would be so screwed. Exhibit A is this New York Times article from March 30:
Shoppers peered at the display, excited but hesitant, as if they’d stumbled upon a trove of strange inventions from a Jules Verne fantasy. Some snapped pictures with their iPhones.
“Can I touch it?” a young woman asked. Permission granted, she poked two buttons at once. The machine jammed. She recoiled as if it had bitten her.
“I’m in love with all of them,” said Louis Smith, 28, a lanky drummer from Williamsburg. Five minutes later, he had bought a dark blue 1968 Smith Corona Galaxie II for $150. “It’s about permanence, not being able to hit delete,” he explained. “You have to have some conviction in your thoughts. And that’s my whole philosophy of typewriters.”
Whether he knew it or not, Mr. Smith had joined a growing movement. Manual typewriters aren’t going gently into the good night of the digital era. The machines have been attracting fresh converts, many too young to be nostalgic for spooled ribbons, ink-smudged fingers and corrective fluid. And unlike the typists of yore, these folks aren’t clacking away in solitude.
They’re fetishizing old Underwoods, Smith Coronas and Remingtons, recognizing them as well designed, functional and beautiful machines, swapping them and showing them off to friends. At a series of events called “type-ins,” they’ve been gathering in bars and bookstores to flaunt a sort of post-digital style and gravitas, tapping out letters to send via snail mail and competing to see who can bang away the fastest.
IT MAY HORRIFY many of these hip young folk that they could be well on their way to becoming Catholic. Praying with rosary beads. Going to old churches with lots of statues. Lighting prayer candles. Saving prayer cards. Eating Christ.
What?
You know, tangibility. Making abstraction tactile. Making it real.
Today, we have abstracted ourselves to death, in the sense of making everything theoretical and living one's life in a state of metaphysical detachment. Words, music, interpersonal communications . . . God. It's all the same.
They exist in the cloud. In cyberspace. As hypotheticals. Anywhere but here and now.
It's positively Protestant in the Calvinist-est sense, if not downright atheist.
MP3s and iPods and iPads and laptops are all very Protestant -- perhaps even megachurch in the Joel Osteen-est sense, only without the "praising" and stuff. They're functional, utilitarian, quite non-mystical (not counting the occasional incantation in hopes of warding off a Blue Screen of Death), promise you "your best life now," and we usually have a good explanation for how it all represents "progress."
Vacuum tubes, phonographs, records and typewriters, on the other hand, are Catholic. You have to touch them, and you get "smells and bells." Especially when you get to the right margin.
DING!
You can't hear your favorite music without first touching it. You have to do something tangible beyond trolling a menu. And you get to see what you hear -- the music goes round and round, then it comes out here.
You can't express your thoughts without touching them. They are literally without form until you strike a key, which then hammers your point home -- to a sheet of paper. Which you lovingly pull from the machine and send into the great beyond, out of which it emerges to be touched -- and read -- by another human.
All very Catholic, we ancient believers in the "communion of saints," "smells and bells," statues of our heroes in the faith . . . and in feasting on the body and blood of the Creator of the universe and Savior of us all.
Good Protestants have Jesus in their hearts. We Catholics have Him in our stomachs, too. See John 6.
iPods vs. phonographs. MacBooks vs. typewriters.
MY COMPUTER and my hard drives full of music are expediencies. Tools. Purely functional and utilitarian.
My typewriter and my old record changer -- my old records -- those are affairs of the heart. I've known that since I was 4. Some young folks are just discovering it.
Sometimes, being in touch requires being in touch.
When certain activists and "progressives" prattle on and on about how "compassionate" they are, and how committed to "justice" they are, and how ever-so-tolerant they are . . . you know bigotry and hatred lie just around the corner.
From what I can gather at the group's Facebook page, Gonzalez thinks the Missionaries don't do enough for the poor and sick. He thinks destitute Indians who could be saved are, instead, dying in the sisters' care.
He and like-minded advocates of "tolerance" think the poor of India must be saved from "proselytizing fanatics" who believe in redemptive suffering.
IT'S FAIR ENOUGHto raise questions about the dealings and practices of the Missionaries of Charity after Mother Teresa's death almost 14 years ago. But that's not what this bunch of bigots is about. When you're posting pictures of a beloved Catholic nun -- one who may yet become a recognized saint in the church -- with a Hitler mustache drawn on her face, that's not "compassion." That's not "concern for the poor." That's not "tolerance."
And that certainly is not about love of anyone.
What it is . . . is hate. Bigotry. Defamation.
Hemley Gonzalez and his fellow travelers aren't about love of the poor. They're about hatred of the Catholic Church, religious charities in general and perhaps God Himself.
The idea that religious charities are doing amazing work is a fallacy. They often care for others to convert them to their dogma first and their compassion comes second if ever at all.
YOU CERTAINLY can't say that Gonzalez isn't all about unencumbered tenderness (unless, of course, you happen to have a dogma he and his find offensive -- then you get done up as Hitler or get nasty slogans thrown at you). And you certainly can't say he and his aren't all about talking about alleviating suffering.
According to his Facebookprofile, Gonzalez' "personal interests" involve "Achieving the end of suffering for all sentient beings." With a smiley emoticon for good measure.
Well, there's one sure way to end suffering -- one secular, utopian fanatics have been seizing upon for ages. Walker Percy nailed it in his final novel, The Thanatos Syndrome. Speaking is an old Catholic priest -- and a recovering drunk and part-time firewatcher -- Father Simon Rinaldo Smith:
"But they, the doctors, were good fellows and they had their reasons.
"The reasons were quite plausible.
"I observed some of you.
"But do you know what you are doing?
"I observe a benevolent feeling here.
"There is also tenderness.
"At the bedside of some children this morning I observed you shed tears. On television.
"Do you know where tenderness leads?"
Pause.
"Tenderness leads to the gas chamber." . . .
"Never in the history of the world have there been so many civilized tenderhearted souls as have lived in this century.
"Never in the history of the world have so many people been killed.
"More people have been killed in this century by tenderhearted souls than by cruel barbarians in all other centuries put together."
Pause.
"My brothers, let me tell you where tenderness leads."
If you're running a Catholic website -- and not only that, a Catholic apostolate, an organization meant to cooperate with God in the saving of souls -- what the hell does this have to do with anything?
I think that's a question not only Living His Life Abundantly, the apostolate run by Johnnette Benkovic that's behind the screenshot, but for a whole Catholic subculture centered on EWTN, the Eternal World Television Network. What the hell does a murderous madman's politics have to do with saving souls?
What does it have to do with the Catholic faith?
What does it even have to properly do with the culture wars, which are the bread-and-butter of "Catholic radio" and EWTN? And what would possess a "staff journalist," much less a Catholic one, to quote a story from World Net Daily (home for birthers, extreme ideologues, "tea-party patriots" and all manner of life forms on public discourse's outer limits) like it was . . . ahem . . . gospel truth?
What? WHAT DOESthishave to do with the fundamental reality of what happened in Tucson, Ariz., on Saturday?
WELL, SINCE the Democrats have put "enemy" politicians in the crosshairs, too, the Catholic Church -- or at least some holier-than-thou elements of it -- have no insights to share about the coarsening of American political discourse? The tendency toward dehumanizing one's ideological opposites? I mean, apart from "Nanny nanny boo boo!"
Does Right make right . . . or, at least, stooping to the left's level make Not Wrong?
Have the Living His Life Abundantly people -- the whole Catholic radio andEWTNcrowd, for that matter -- decided the one unforgivable sin isn't against the Holy Spirit but, actually, is "being a Democrat"? That one's highest calling in the Christian life is throwing culture-war brickbats at "Them"?
That the only people worthy of salvation (and if they think anyone is worthy of salvation, they need to hang up their scapulars . . . and their 501(c)3 tax exemption) are those who vote the right way?
Or the Right way?
I WORRY that someone, somewhere must be spreading a really bad interpretation of Matthew 25:
Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?'
And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
UHHHHHHH . . . I'm just a stupid blog guy, here, but I really, really don't think Jesus was talking about conservative politics when he placed the sheep on His right. In fact, a lot of this passage mitigates against what passes for the political right in America these days.
It's a self-evident fact, at least for those with eyes to see, that the Almighty is not a Republican. Or a Democrat, either. He may be a Fabian socialist, but don't quote me on that.
You watch, that last sentence is going to come back to haunt me -- perhaps via an article by "staff journalist" Susan Brinkmann, OCDS.
The Catholic Church has taught some basic things about human nature and moral theology quite clearly, quite consistently for a very, very, verylong time.
From the beginning, in fact.
And in our Western society, with our tradition of freedom of conscience, one is free to disagree with what the Catholic Church teaches. One is also free to leave it if its teachings so offend one's moral, theological or philosophical sensibilities.
Unfortunately, that kind of intellectual honesty got lost somewhere after the Counter-Reformation. Leading the way in this profound intellectual dishonesty -- some might call it subversion -- are "Catholic" academics.
Two of them are mainstays of the theology department at Creighton University here in Omaha. Creighton is a Catholic school, meaning loosely that it is a place where many Catholic teenagers go to abandon their faith altogether or, perhaps, replace it with some quasi-Gnostic, self-gratifying facsimile thereof.
This brief background explains my amazement -- and glee -- that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops finally has stood up and taken down a couple of apostates within -- those who, ensconced inside the Catholic establishment, try to subvert everything Catholicism has stood for more than 2,000 years. And this academic, theological dismantling of the "work" of Creighton professors Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler is something to behold.
FEW WILL, though, because modern America -- and, indeed, the modern church -- is allergic to deep discourse, and such an involved fisking of The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology cuts against the grain of today's McNews and McThought. Here's a bit from the USCCB press release today:
In the statement, "Inadequacies in the Theological Methodology and Conclusions of The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology," the Committee asserts that the authors of The Sexual Person "base their arguments on a methodology that marks a radical departure from the Catholic theological tradition" and "reach a whole range of conclusions that are contrary to Catholic teaching."
The Committee concluded that "neither the methodology of The Sexual Person nor the conclusions that depart from authoritative Church teaching constitute authentic expressions of Catholic theology. Moreover, such conclusions, clearly in contradiction to the authentic teaching of the Church, cannot provide a true norm for moral action and in fact are harmful to one's moral and spiritual life."
The views of the two professors previously came under episcopal censure in 2007, when Archbishop Elden Curtiss, then archbishop of Omaha, published a notification in his diocesan newspaper regarding the conclusions of two articles by these professors.
Archbishop Curtiss wrote: "In these articles, Professors Lawler and Salzman argue for the moral legitimacy of some homosexual acts. Their conclusion is in serious error, and cannot be considered authentic Catholic teaching." When in 2008, Salzman and Lawler published their book, The Sexual Person, Archbishop Curtiss wrote to the Committee on Doctrine asking for assistance. After studying the book and conferring with Archbishop Curtiss's successor, Archbishop George Lucas, the Committee decided that the most effective way to address the problem presented by the book was to prepare a statement on the problematic characteristics of its methodology, which leads the authors to a number of conclusions that contradict Catholic moral teaching.
IN BRIEF, the bishops concluded the Creighton professors stretch the meanings of historical context and natural law to the breaking point, so that any interpretation of the demands of scripture and tradition can be transmogrified into "Do what thou wilt."
Needless to say, this take on moral theology might well be more at home in the Church of Satan than it is within any historical understanding of Catholicism -- or, indeed, Christianity itself.
I'm not used to saying this, but . . . good on the bishops.
Likewise, Salzman and Lawler, in their work, elevate personal experience to the level of scripture, natural law and tradition in deciding what is right, and what is sinful . . . that is, if the concept of "sin" even exists in their moral universe, such as it is.
Well, I have some personal experience with Professor Salzman. And I think my personal experience -- elevated, as he would have it, to the level of dogma -- might serve to illuminate how, in the name of "compassion," he and his ilk are more than willing to use the tragedy and pain of ordinary Catholics struggling to be faithful to their church's teaching . . . use it against those ordinary Catholics, all in the name of "liberating" those "oppressed" by the cruel vagaries of "traditionalist" Catholic doctrine.
IN THAT LIGHT, I resurrect something I posted here in January 2008. Then, I called it "I am legend."
* * *
On Christmas morning, our little house bustles with the ghosts of children who never were.
They play tug of war with the ghosts of long-dead dogs and listen to stories of "way back there then" from grandparents who live only in memory. Then we all open presents never bought, tearing through brightly colored wrapping paper that never left its cardboard tube.
And someone always plasters someone's non-existent hair with non-existent bows.
THIS CHRISTMAS, the missus and I sit down for a late supper -- the two of us -- at a table built for six as the old radio on the bookcase plays carols about a holy infant, a mother and child, on some far-away station.
Through nearly 25 years of marriage, we have come to love one another more and more deeply, and we have learned to be thankful for the blessings that are ours. But after years of infertility, then cancer surgery that took a question mark and turned it into a period, we are haunted by the ghosts of our beloved children who never were.
My wife loves babies. She has an infant-seeking radar that will guide her to every small child in a room and have it in her arms as soon as Mama or Daddy will unhand the child. Most people don't realize what a remarkable thing it is to take such grief over what never was and turn it into such love of what is.
Even if "what is" belongs to someone else.
For years, we have volunteered with our church's youth group. And for a while now, we've been going to the weddings of kids the same age as our ghosts, then watching them have their own children.
So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We're captive on the carousel of time We can't return, we can only look behind From where we came And go round and round and round In the circle game
I NOT ONLY cannot improve upon how Joni Mitchell describes the "Circle Game" of life, I -- and my wife -- have been doomed to not fully participate in it. My better half says there's one question she wants to ask Jesus when she dies, being that we live in a country where there's so few children even to adopt because so many parents don't want to be . . . and can make that so.
I'll bet you can guess what that might be.
We live in a society that feels free to take our pain and use it as a weapon to smash the natural law to politically correct bits. In fact, during one youth-group session, we sat there dumbfounded -- and seething -- as a "Catholic" theology professor speculated upon the possible ecclesiastical permissibility of "gay marriage" someday, on grounds that -- hey -- infertile couples can't fulfill the procreative nature of matrimony, either.
A roomful of societally brainwashed Roman Catholic teen-agers nodded approvingly.
I wanted to kill the son of a bitch. Who, naturally -- being a Catholic theologian teaching at a Jesuit university -- was impervious to objections raised on catechetical and natural-law grounds.
WELCOME TO THE LIFE of a childless, middle-aged Catholic couple in the Midwest. I don't relish this opportunity to give you a glimpse into our world. To tell you the truth, I've been writing this in fits and starts.
When you take a hot knife and dig around in an open wound, you tend not to have a lot of staying power.
This, however, finally made me do it. "This" being Rod Dreher's "Crunchy Con" post on an article (and online discussion) in The Atlantic Monthly about the apparently grim and lonely dotage we Baby Boomers will be facing.
In his post, Dreher quotes extensively from an online observation by Atlantic contributor Philip Longman:
Another relationship between fertility and aging is less obvious but also important to the future. Within the Baby Boom generation there was a pronounced disparity in birthrates. Those who remained childless or had just one or two children tended to be well educated, liberal, and secular. By contrast, the roughly 30 percent of Boomers who had three or more children tended be conservative, religious, and less well educated. Members of the later group, though only a minority of their own generation, produced more than 50 percent of the next generation.
Already, as I have argued elsewhere, this pattern in Boomer birth rates (which is much more extreme than in previous generations) has led to the country becoming more morally conservative and pro-family. As Dick Cavett once quipped, “If your parents forgot to have children, chances are you will as well.” The anti-natalism inherent in the modern liberal mindset leads to a gradual return of patriarchy, if only by default.
What does that mean for Boomers in retirement? A majority or near majority of younger Americans, having grown up in conservative and religious households, will tend to view childless Boomers through their parents eyes: as members of an irresponsible, alien tribe. Though the minority of Baby Boomers who rebelled against tradition have a hard time recognizing it, most people wind up adopting their parent’s belief systems, particularly if they become parents themselves. The apple rarely falls far from the tree. Accordingly, in the eyes of many, if not most, younger people, a Boomer without a family will be taken for an aging yuppie, a decaying narcissist, or ailing atheist—none of which stereotypes will be helpful in drawing public sympathy.
THAT'S. JUST. GREAT. If Longman is correct, the answer to "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?" (or 84)may well be . . . "No!"
All because my wife and I are going to be lumped together with all of the most pathological of my fellow Baby Boomers. Accused, tried, convicted and sentenced to die "alone and unloved" by the millennials and their children.
And the ghosts of our children -- our children who were so loved but never born -- will not be able to speak to their compatriots on our behalf.
They will not be able to come back to their childhood home to visit us, and to indulge the waves of childhood memories that, alas, never will engulf them. And we will not sit down together at the family table, eating my wife's wonderful cooking.
Neither will we all gather together at the Omaha homestead for my traditional Louisiana chicken-and-sausage gumbo on Christmas Eve, and I will not tell them stories of growing up down on the bayou. And my grandchildren will not ask me, "Grandpa, why did black kids and white kids have to go to separate schools?" or "Papa, how come great-grandma grew up so poor and never got to go to school?"
I WILL NEVER GET the chance to struggle at giving them my best inadequate answer, because our children and our grandchildren are not there, and we -- my wife and I -- are incomplete.
And on future Christmas mornings, our little house will bustle with the ghosts of children who never were.
They -- and their children who never were -- will play tug of war with the ghosts of long-dead dogs and listen to stories of "way back there then" from all the grandparents . . . who live only in memory. Then we all will open presents never bought, tearing through brightly colored wrapping paper that never left its cardboard tube.
And someone always will plaster someone's non-existent hair with non-existent bows.
Then after a Christmas alone with our thoughts, and with each other, the missus and I will sit down for a late supper at a table built for six as the old radio on the bookcase plays carols about a holy infant, a mother and child, on some far-away station.
So if you're walking down the street sometime And spot some hollow ancient eyes, Please don't just pass 'em by and stare As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello."
The bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., just found out the hard way that holy water won't ward off the cops.
