Oh, puh-leeze!

Apparently, America's Catholic bishops have been talking to themselves. This may be news to them.

But with prelates across the land gravely warning Catholics about voting for pro-abortion candidates -- and with those same Catholics studiously ignoring them to the tune of breaking 55 percent to 45 percent for the abortion enthusiast Barack Obama, according to exit poll data -- the fact of bishops' soliloquizing seems indisputable. Their moral authority seems to be about equal to the man Americans electorally recoil from tonight -- George W. Bush.

This is a painful thing to consider if one is a believing Catholic. Catholics believe -- well, Catholics used to believe -- that the church's teaching authority rests on the shoulders of their bishops. Catholics used to believe those men literally held "the keys to the Kingdom."

Catholics used to believe these men were their shepherds.

The shepherds have lost their flocks. And it has been their own damned fault.

OF COURSE, with such an ecclesiastical calamity being as horrific to contemplate as it is observably true, "orthodox" Catholicism's "amen corner" finds it much easier thing to dwell, instead, upon the persecution they see as being sure to befall us at the hands of Evil Secular Humanism.

The persecution that was to befall us in 1992. Or 1996. Or 2000, if we hadn't gone for Bush 43.

Now, folks like Steve Kellmeyer are pretty sure we're really gonna get it now:

We don't have to be happy, we do have to be joyful.

Being happy is being comfortable, healthy and well-fed.
Being joyful is knowing that God's plan is being worked out,
and our obedience and submission to it contributes to His glory.

Jesus was not happy on the Cross, but He was joyful.

We fast and pray, we ask for mercy, but we accept whatever comes, punishment or pleasure.

Times of persecution were prophesied.

If we are found worthy to be subject to them, we should rejoice.

"Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.

"It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

"Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no "root of bitterness" springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears."—Hebrews 12:3-17

Every drop of blood shed by the abortionist's scalpel will have to be repaid.

Perhaps we have been chosen to participate, be God's co-workers, as St. Paul said, in this work of redemption ...

Conversely, if the Butcher from Chicago fails in his bid, then we must raise our voices in the ancient hymns:

Non nobis, Domine, Domine,
non nobis, Domine
Sed nomini,
sed nomini,
tuo da gloriam.

Not to us, Lord,
But to your Name, be all glory.

FIRST, MR. KELLMEYER, I saw the campaign Sen. Obama's opponent ran. I know what the Butcher from Arizona stood for -- slightly less bloodshed at home, a lot more bloodshed abroad. A John McCain victory would have been nothing for which to thank the Almighty.

We pro-lifers thanked God for the victory of George W. Bush. Magnanimously, as it turns out, we blessed the name of the Lord for the judgment that was to befall us. And George W. Bush, indeed, has been a harsh judgment upon this land.

As for the Catholic Church, though, I fail to apprehend what calamity President Obama can visit upon it that it hasn't already visited upon itself. When apostasy has become normative and shepherds have been thoroughly corrupted, the only thing left for Caesar to do is kick around a corpse.

Unseemly, yes, but the damage already has been done.

The Catholic Church tonight is one where the flock heeds not its shepherds' voice. Which is no big deal when the shepherds have so little to say. At least lately . . . except to issue commands to a flock which no longer knows why, exactly, it ought to listen anymore.

FOR 14 YEARS, my wife and I volunteered in Catholic youth ministry at our suburban parish. It was a tenure I recall through the small minority of kids we saw emerge out of the youth ghetto into an adult relationship with Jesus Christ and His church.

Our parish is a large one. For 14 years, the percentage of our Catholic kids bothering to engage with the parish's ministry to them has been a small one. The number of kids emerging from that process to show real signs of still believing any of that stuff is smaller yet.

For our Catholic youth, as for their Catholic elders, their professed faith is one thing, their lives and practical beliefs are another thing entirely. For the most part, never the twain shall meet.

For the past 20 years, almost, my experience of Catholicism has been one of a mighty struggle for faith, a slow realization of the implications of that faith and an up-and-down process of living it. For nearly that long, my experience of the future of my church has been of a church pandering to the indifference of young people little interested in anything she has to offer -- a dysfunctional dance of a self-doubting institution desperate to be cool and popular but not necessarily respected.

Did I mention, also, intellectually denuded and culturally tone-deaf?

Likewise, I have watched bright young people, hungry to follow the Spirit's promptings, be disrespected, marginalized, scandalized and bored right out of Catholicism. And perhaps right out of any meaningful relationship with Christ.

THERE ARE serious consequences when a church makes grand claims for itself, then turns around and acts as if those claims are without meaning. From my perspective, here in the middle of America, I see a dying church.

I see a landscape where orthodox Catholic faith is ever more countercultural. And that's just within your average Catholic parish.

I also survey a landscape where those who most vociferously claim the mantle of "orthodox" Catholicism often confuse party politics and peculiar subculture with religious truth and "authentic Catholicism." They are as clueless as their heterodox, reverse-image dopplegangers in the church.

I suspect neither extreme would recognize "authentic Catholicism" if they saw it. In these times, in this church, who would?

LONG STORY SHORT, if persecution the church is to face, it is in large part because the Catholic Church -- for all intents and purposes, as a whole, in this country -- has cast aside the Great Commission:

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
17
When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
18
Then Jesus approached and said to them, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
20
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."

MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, the pro-life movement wouldn't, late this election night, find itself in such shambles politically if religious Americans -- particularly Catholic Americans . . . especially their shepherds -- had taken care of basics before playing politics.

Culture precedes politics. Always.

American Christians . . . American Catholics forgot that. And all Steve Kellmeyer's (for one) hyperpietistic faux submission to God's will in the face of anticipated persecution ultimately will prove no substitute for Catholics actually getting off their asses and loving their neighbor. Not to mention teaching their children.

Just like Jesus told them to do in the first place.

Oh, Lord, giveth unto us Mussolini. Not Hitler.

I'm starting to get rather offended by all this election praying.

I'M ALSO GETTING concerned that all the Catholic instigators of all the election praying allow -- either willingly or ignorantly -- good people to assume they must pray for the triumph of McCain-Palin over Obama-Biden. What good is that?

As I've said before, been there and done that. We ended up with George W. Bush, who has managed to lead the nation into a disastrous and unjust war, as well as authorize both official torture of war prisoners and limited federal funding of legalized cannibalism -- also known as embryonic stem-cell research.

This is what we Catholics prayed for -- and got -- in 2000 . . . all in the name of "life."

Anyway, this is the latest from the Rev. John Corapi, a noted Catholic evangelist:

No other issue, not all other issues taken together, can constitute a proportionate reason for voting for candidates that intend to preserve and defend this holocaust of innocent human life that is abortion.

I strongly urge every one of you to make a Novena and pray the Rosary to Our Lady of Victory between October 27th and Election Day, November 4th. Pray that God’s will be done and the most innocent and utterly vulnerable of our brothers and sisters will be protected from this barbaric and grossly sinful blight on society that is abortion. No woman, and no man, has the right to choose to murder an innocent human being.

I SUPPORT FATHER CORAPI in his call for prayer. I adamantly oppose what it seems he'd have the Almighty pull off in regards to the presidential election. When it comes to casting a vote for the protection and dignity of human life, voting for John McCain over Barack Obama is like picking one method of suicide over another.

What, are we to vote for Mussolini to save ourselves from Hitler? Are we supposed to convince ourselves that ordering one scoop of degradation and death is virtuous but two scoops is the Antichrist Special?

Me, I'd just as soon pray for wisdom, revival and mercy. And for the poor unborn babies who may or may not get slaughtered in the womb. Or worse.

WHAT I REALLY WANT, though, is for the Catholic Church to act like the Catholic Church. I want bishops to be holy and act like shepherds.

I want priests to man up.

I really would rather not, as I leave Mass, be given "voter guides" that are no more than George Soros-funded apologetics for the abomination of desolation.

I just want my church to act like what it says it is. If it had been doing such for the last 50 years, perhaps I wouldn't feel like we're cultural, moral and spiritual paralytics sprawled in the roadside ditch of history.

And, finally, I no longer want to have that sick, sinking feeling that -- at this perilous time in my country's history -- the best advice I'll get from the most orthodox voices in my paralytic church is "Vote for Mussolini. It's important."

Pray for war and ruin; it's important?

Bishop Robert W. Finn, ordinary of the Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph in Missouri, wants his flock praying about the coming election.

THIS IS EXACTLY the kind of thing I was talking about in the last post. From the bishop's letter, published on the blog of the diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Key:

Our Catholic moral principles teach that a candidate’s promise of economic prosperity is insufficient to justify their constant support of abortion laws, including partial-birth abortion, and infanticide for born-alive infants. Promotion of the Freedom of Choice Act is a pledge to eliminate every single limit on abortions achieved over the last thirty-five years. The real freedom that is ours in Jesus Christ compels us, not to take life, but to defend it.

Together with the other Bishops of Missouri I am calling on all the faithful to make this last week before the election a week of prayer for our nation - a week of prayer for the protection of Human Life.

Join me in calling upon Mary in this month of the rosary. In 1571, in the midst of the Battle of Lepanto, when the future of Christian Europe was in the balance and the odds against them were overwhelming, prayer to Our Lady of the Rosary brought the decisive victory. We ask her now to watch over our country and bring us the victory of life.

I REMEMBER doing just that in 2000 -- EWTN interrupted regular programming to pray in just that manner as the Supreme Court considered Bush v. Gore. And look what's become of us.

Look. What's. Become. Of. Us.

Late-term abortion, in some cases, has been restricted minimally. But embryonic stem-cell research has not. It now occurs with limited federal funding.

We now have government-sanctioned torture of "enemy combatants."

We have a government that spies on its own citizens.

We are fighting two wars -- one patently unjust, as it turns out -- with no end in sight for either.

And do I really need to mention the economy . . . and how it got that way?

I USE EWTN 2000 as a prime illustration of "Watch out what you pray for . . . you might get it."

Back in 2000, in some manner, I think we were trying to somehow stave off divine judgment -- "Elect the 'pro-life' creep! It's important." In my opinion, it looks like judgment is exactly what we got for all our calamity avoidance, and are getting still.

That goes in spades for the Catholic Church.

The implication of Bishop Finn's prayer -- amid any number of episcopal statements just like it -- is clear: "Oh, Lord, please grant unlikely victory to thy avatar of Life, John McCain."

If that's the case, it's just a load of bull. Been there, done that, and I'm not going there again.

IN CASE you haven't noticed, "life" is hosed either way in this election. "Life" is going to have to rely on means other than politics to triumph in this sick land.

John McCain is not the solution to the problem represented by Barack Obama and what he represents. I'll vote for neither, and the Church ought not be praying for the triumph of one of these fools over the other.

I would suggest, instead, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

The real problem we face lies right in front of American Catholics, and it ripples through everything. It's this: The moral authority of American bishops rests at about zero, and the Church they lead is getting there.

Why might that be?

What Bishop Finn and all Catholics need to understand is that the chickens are starting to come home to roost. One sign of that is the bishop demanding that all Catholics pray for something fully half of Catholics no longer believe.

Why is that? Huh?

Just wondering. Is what I'm doing.

We believe in one BRAAAAAAW! . . .

It's a fact of life that when a self-important fool -- or a ship of fools, either real or perceived -- strenuously proclaims objective, countercultural truth, your "Average Joe" is likely to regard that objective truth as just more mush from the simp.

If American Catholics were to make a contemporary film about this phenomenon, we'd have to call it The Bishop's Life.

THAT'S PRETTY MUCH where the Catholic Church finds itself a couple of weeks before the 2008 presidential election, as Catholics (and everybody else) studiously ignore prelates' admonitions against voting for candidates who support intrinsic evil -- in other words, abortion rights -- without equally grave counterbalancing reason. Of course, it doesn't help that the candidate one might logically assume gets the bishes' blessing has his own "intrinsic evil" demerits and belongs to a political party which long has played pro-lifers for suckers.

Not that your average Catholic has much more than a 50-50 chance of actually being pro-life -- a fact that, in large part, may be traced back to the plot line of our mythical film.

And the plot line to our mythical film -- The Bishop's Life -- has everything to do with how (and why) American bishops will be playing host to all kinds of chickens coming home to roost. Which, of course, goes back to American bishops' complete loss of moral authority during the past half century. The last of it disappeared around 2002 in the clerical sex-abuse scandals, when the prelates who seek to tell you that voting for pro-abortion politicians is, depending on your motivation, either "formal cooperation" or "remote material cooperation" in evil were exposed as "formal" or "remote material" hypocrites.

Objectively, why should "Joe the Catholic" listen to a damn thing His Excellency has to say about, well . . . anything amid the ruins of a church where pulpit appeals for the diocesan annual appeal far outnumber any appeals for Catholics to uphold the sanctity of human life?

WHY SHOULD any of us give a damn what says this bench of bloated, bleating bishops when, as one invokes the fires of hell against pro-choice pols and the Catholics who love them, another dithers as parish staffs in his diocese stuff parish bulletins with "Catholic voter guides" produced by the George Soros-funded umbrella group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, or at least groups affiliated with it?

It's just like what happens to your PC when you load it up with poorly written programs -- garbage in, garbage out.

Sunday evening, I found some garbage stuffed into my church bulletin. Produced by the NETWORK Education Program, a voter chart expanded upon every wonderful thing Barack Obama promises about ending the Iraq War, expanding health services and paid sick-child leave, but had this to say about the Democrat's position on abortion:

Opposes an abortion ban.

IN CONSIDERING John McCain -- and note, please, that I can abide neither John McCain nor his sleazy campaign -- here's the NETWORK party line:

Supports an abortion ban with exceptions in cases of rape, incest and risk to the mother's life. In 2005, voted against expanding health services and education to reduce unintended pregnancy. Will seek ways to promote adoption as a first alternative to abortion.

AFTER LOOKING at this disingenuous piece of goo -- a disingenuous piece of goo with catchphrases like "conscientious Catholics" and "consistent ethic of life" all over it -- I told my Republican wife that I, as an old-fashioned liberal Democrat, was offended. Liberal Democrats used to be a lot of things, but smarmy, devious and disingenuous were not among them.

A "religious" organization that takes money from George Soros (who also funds the pro-abortion, heterodox likes of Catholics for a Free Choice) has no moral right to even utter words such as "conscientious" or "consistent ethic of life." A parish bureaucracy that tries to put an imprimatur on partisan propaganda needs a clear message from the local bishop: Get your heads out of your ass, or find new jobs at Democratic headquarters.

Like THAT will happen. A blind eye can be turned upon any sort of heterodoxy, political shilling or liturgical abuse, it seems, so long as the annual appeal gets pushed hard enough from the pulpit.

After all, at least in Omaha, Feed My Sheep = Pimp My House. Maybe, though, this year's appeal can help add lots of coop space to the chancery and Archbishop Elden Curtiss' pending retirement digs. Maybe all the annual appeals across all of America's dioceses can be tapped to build hundreds . . . thousands . . . millions of coops on church properties all across the land.

All the better to house all those chickens coming home to roost.

ALL THOSE CHICKENS started their long journey when bishops forgot who they were and why they were here. When prelates forgot what they believed and why they should proclaim it, teach it . . . and live it.

Catholics' fowl journey got under way well and good when their leaders lost their faith and proclaimed themselves ever closer to a therapeutic deity. It gained fellow travelers when church bureaucrats decided it might be more "enlightened" to teach children crap and call it catechism.

Er . . . religious education.

Chickens are coming home to roost in a church where Catholics figure they not only don't have to believe any of that mess but don't have to pretend they do, either. In chanceries where, for too long, fat wallets have been equated with a healthy church. And where, for much too long, there has been an unwritten 11th commandment: Do as I say, not as I do.

Chickens are coming home to roost, boys. They will know their shepherds by the chickens*** on the chasubles.

Taking the brown acid in San Jose

I didn't know how right I was.

Here we find, courtesy of YouTube, video of what the Catholic dissident group Call to Action billed as the closing Mass of its West Coast conference last week in San Jose. That's one possible explanation -- I think.

A MORE PLAUSIBLE explanation, I suspect, is this is old footage of hippies reenacting 1964's Godzilla vs. the Thing as they turned on and tuned in at a 1967 Summer of Love "be in."

In the opening scene, we see Wavy Gravy, abstractly costumed as "Godzilla," chase Sharon Tate and a shaven-headed Sly Stone around the Cal-Berkeley student-union ballroom as Abbie Hoffman (in costume as a Mr. Potato Head version of Mothra) seeks to "save" Ms. Tate and turn "Tokyo" on to some "really good s***, maaaaan."

The reenactment was a "sensory production" for the benefit of the "be in" attendees, all of whom had been given the brown acid at the door. As you can see, the LSD had fully kicked in by mid-video, and a successful trip was had by all.

The flashbacks, they'd we'd deal with later.

HAT TIP: Fratres blog

Bong hits for Jesus

Marijuana, marijuana, LSD, LSD,
Scientists make it, hippies take it,
Why can't we? Why can't we?

That was the schoolyard ditty we sophisticates of the third grade used to sing in 1969. Almost 40 years later, I now have an answer to "Why can't we?":


LOOK AT WHAT those who did hath wrought . . . the "progressive" insanity despoiling every aspect of civic life touched today by that beachhead of the Baby Boom generation, the happenin' guys and gals who smoked 'em if they had 'em back in the day and really haven't come down since.

The above scene is from the closing Mass at the 2008 West Coast Call To Action Conference, held in San Jose, Calif. Of course, it was.

You know, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass . . . pretty serious stuff. Transcendent, even.

That's why these Einsteins thought it wholly appropriate to "let it all hang out" with . . . what the hell ARE those, anyway? Giant puppets?

It would seem there is no serious matter my generation -- and our children -- can't respond to in the most unserious ways. Like this, for another egregious example:

THIS IS FROM a story on FOXNews.com, about the Code Pink protests outside a Marine recruting center in Berkeley. California. Of course, they were:

Code Pink is now resorting to witchcraft to beef up the number of its supporters protesting Berkeley's controversial Marine Corps Recruiting Center.

The women's anti-war group has told ralliers to come equipped with spells and pointy hats Friday for "Witches, clowns and sirens day," the last of the group's weeklong homage to Mother's Day.

"Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we're going to end war," Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.

The group's week of themed protests, which included days to galvanize grannies and bring-your-daughter-to-protest, appears to have done little to boost its flagging numbers.

A FOX News camera, which has a 24/7 live shot of the recruiting center's front door, recorded little action, and the gatherings have, until this point, been ill attended.

SERIOUS MATTER. Silly, unserious response. Typical of life in these United States, in this time.

You know what we are, maaaaaaaaannn? We're screwed, dude.

Like . . . totally. You know?

'Jesus Is for Losers' and other wise words

Christian music really needed Steve Taylor to save it from not only a piety overload, but also from a thought shortfall.

Unfortunately for Taylor, evangelicals' piety oftentimes overloaded their thought process. (Note: Jesus IS for losers.) And the biting satire of "I Blew Up the Clinic Real Good" was lost on every side of the abortion debate.

It sucks being a genius. But it's great that, years later, we can watch all that genius on YouTube.

Beauty is not skank deep

For traditional Christians and modern Westerners, it's not a difficult task to find areas of profound disagreement with Islam and then beat those divides into gaping chasms of civilizational conflict.

This particularly would be true in the years since violent jihadists flew jetliners full of innocents into skyscrapers full of innocents in a bid to poke a finger into the eye of the Great Satan.

That, however, does nothing to help us -- as Christians and modern Westerners -- come to the difficult realization that, in so many ways, we are the Great Satan.

Or, at a minimum, willing and enthusiastic dupes of Satan.

IN THAT LIGHT, perhaps it would be useful to explore one area where Christians and thoughtful Westerners can have common cause with thoughtful Muslims -- or at least ought to have common cause with those who profess Islam.

I would submit that the devil's greatest success among Western modernists has been in equating "freedom" with the grossest debasements of human dignity, which by extension are the most profound slurs against a Creator who made mankind in His image. The means of debasement are legion, but they all are rooted in denying the fundamental nature and dignity of -- and, yes, divine image within -- human beings by recognizing them solely as objects.

Not as people, but as things.

Satan's second greatest success among modern Westerners has been in convincing them to run right past the concept of "tolerance" into the abyss where what we profess has nothing to do with how we live.

As one who has toiled for a decade and a half as a volunteer in Catholic youth ministry, let me illustrate this concept from that vantage point.

It's not only possible but, indeed, probable to have large numbers of self-professed Catholic teen-agers -- teen-agers who have gone through Confirmation and made solemn promises therein -- to think nothing of dressing like hookers, defining a "good date" as one that ends inside the pants of a young woman, getting wasted every weekend or otherwise behaving in a manner indistinguishable from the most hardcore of nihilists.

THE STARK REALITY of what used to be known as Christendom is a spent culture in which belief is alienated from practice, humanity is alienated from its fundamental nature and, finally, humans are profoundly alienated from their Creator and one another. Its logical -- and inevitable -- end is Death.

I think that's a cultural critique that orthodox Christians and mainstream Muslims not only could both embrace, but also could see as grounds for cooperation.

Which brings me to "the Hijab Challenge."

The Hijab Challenge was the brainchild of a Muslim columnist for The Daily Reveille, my old college newspaper at Louisiana State University. Briefly, what Shirien Elmasraya did was, I think, brilliant -- an in-your-face throwing down the gauntlet to American society's notion of feminine "beauty."

DOES OUR NOTION of womanly "beauty" mainly involve who a woman is, or merely what standard equipment she comes with? Do we value what is divine, or do we prefer to turn a multidimensional imago dei into nothing more than a one-dimensional object -- a thing to be used for our own ignoble purposes:

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column challenging University women to wear the hijab - or headscarf - for a day.

A handful of girls took on my challenge this past Friday. They came to campus adorned by the beauty of the hijab.

They went to class, hung out with their friends and lived their daily routine wearing something they normally wouldn't wear.

But anyone who didn't know them personally would most likely assume these women were Muslim, and they were most likely oppressed.

In the past year and a half I've written, I've probably gotten more hate mail and hate comments below my articles online than just about anyone else on The Daily Reveille's staff.

Some of those who would comment would regurgitate over and over again that women in Islam are oppressed, we are backwards and we need to be liberated from our hijab.

I, in turn, wanted to liberate the people who hold these views from the oppression of media brainwashing and prejudice by challenging them to wear hijab for a day and see what it is really like - the result?

None of those who accused me of being oppressed took on my challenge. They are so afraid of reality and so embarrassed to be proven wrong that they did not even bother defending their claim by agreeing to participate.

So let it be known that your words never did and never will hold any weight with me.

Half of my life, I didn't wear hijab. I was oppressed by society and beauty magazines who told me and my peers that less clothes means more beauty.

To me, the hijab is liberating.

One of the women who decided to take on my challenge was Melissa Breen, mass communication sophomore.

"In order for people to truly be open-minded, they must be willing to step outside of their comfort zones," Breen said.

Breen's friend Sarah Berard, English junior, also decided to participate.

"In order to truly love and respect other people, you have to try to understand them. So as a Roman Catholic, for me, the hijab challenge was an opportunity to come to a better understanding of Muslim women," Berard said.

Michelle Richardson, anthropology junior, said it was a special cultural experience.

"It helped demonstrate to the world and to myself that you are not any less of a free, powerful woman for making the personal choice of wearing the hijab," she said.

WE LIVE IN A CULTURE that makes a fetish of "edginess" and rebellion. What that culture fails to appreciate is that the only revolt here is against truth. Make that Truth, with a capital "T."

Otherwise, what we preceive as "edgy" is merely pedestrian slavishness to a warped and dehumanizing status quo, and what we perceive as "beauty" is predicated on appealing to some of our uglier impulses. Thus blinded, it's difficult for the modern American to appreciate Ms. Elmasraya for the revolutionary she is.

And entirely too easy to laugh and say "Look at the backward Muslim" instead of acknowledge the rot in our own self-mutilated culture.

A Gideon checked out, and he left it no doubt

This is my pocket Gideon's Bible that I got in December 1971. In my public school in Louisiana.

Then again, second-hand cigarette smoke was legal -- and pervasive -- back then, too.

ISN'T IT WONDERFUL how very advanced we are today? Now, the long arm of the law can grab a Gideon by the scruff of the neck and shake him until every Bible is loosed and swept out of the reach of susceptible grammar schoolers.

This, reports The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, is how a federal court intends to bring "progress" to the Christianist holdout of Tangipahoa Parish:

The Tangipahoa Parish School Board violated the First Amendment by allowing Gideons International to pass out pocket Bibles to Loranger fifth-graders during school hours in May, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Just hours after the decision became public, the School Board voted 8-0 to seek an appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“We are somewhat surprised, but very disappointed with the judge’s decision,” board attorney Chris Moody said after the vote.

The decision notches another legal victory for the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, which has sued the board seven times over religion-in-schools issues, including the lawsuit that led to this ruling.

Two more suits are pending.

In an 11-page order, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier wrote the practice cited in the lawsuit is unconstitutional under multiple standards of federal case law designed to test whether government and religion are too closely entangled.

The Bible distribution was “ultimately coercive” on an elementary school child, “a religious activity without a secular purpose” and “amounted to promotion of Christianity by the School Board,” Barbier wrote.

His order granted an ACLU motion for summary judgment and rejected one from the board, court records show.

(snip)

On May 17, the ACLU sued the board on behalf of the unnamed Loranger Middle School fifth-grader and her father.

He was identified only as “John Roe”; the child as “Jane Roe,” records show.

The child and her parents are Roman Catholic. While both Christian, the Roman Catholic and Gideon Bibles have some differences.

Gideons International, which was not a defendant, is “an interdenominational association of Christian business and professional men,” according to its Web site.

Known for distributing free Bibles, the group this year marks its 100th year of placing Bibles in hotel and motel rooms.

The original suit alleges that on May 9, students were allowed to leave class to pick up Bibles from Gideons International representatives in front of the Principal’s Office, but were given the option to stay behind if they did not want one.

Barbier noted Principal Andre Pellerin notified fifth-grade teachers in an e-mail about the Gideons but told them to stress to students “they DO NOT have to get a (B)ible.”

Still, Barbier found the child was pressured to take a Bible, noting the special care courts have recognized schools must take with impressionable elementary schoolchildren.

WHILE I CAN appreciate the "separation of church and state," at what point does slavish devotion to that nebulous principle become a repressive state-mandated quest to separate the vast majority of people in places like Loranger, La., from their faith and from their cultural patrimony? After all, if one cannot be exposed to ideas or culture in a public school, where, pray tell, is education going to be committed?

The Gideons were handing out Bibles at Loranger Middle School, and not even in the classroom at that. No child had to take one.

Yet that is considered "coercive" by the courts. I wonder whether the American Civil Liberties Union and the federal judge would analyze the facts of the case differently if the Gideons had been handing out condoms.

I wonder, too, whether the ruling might have been different if -- as part of a world-geography lesson -- an imam had spoken to a class about Islam and what Muslims believe, then handed out pocket Korans to the children as a gift.

ALMOST 40 YEARS AGO, when I received my first Gideons Bible as a fifth grader at Villa del Rey Elementary in Baton Rouge, it truly was a learning experience for a kid who had only the most tenuous -- not to mention warped -- acquaintance with Christianity as properly understood.

For all intents and purposes, I was being raised as a pagan, though not an intentional pagan. That first Gideons Bible wasn't so much an act of proselytism as it was a broadening of a 10-year-old kid's horizons.

The next year, not only did we get another Gideons New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs, but we also got led in daily devotions by our devoutly Baptist sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Horn. What we did was read the Psalms. Out loud. In class.

Times were different then . . . obviously. And I will grant that what Mrs. Horn did was pretty blatantly unconstitutional.

Still, looking back on that political incorrectness run amok -- if only we had known what political incorrectness was in 1972 -- I'm so very happy that my teacher, a prison chaplain's wife, violated my constitutional rights.

Objectively, I learned something important about one of the foundational books of Western civilization. Subjectively, I developed a love for the Psalms.

And on an evangelistic level. those seeds planted by Mrs. Horn would begin to sprout nearly 20 years later, added as they were to the seeds sown via the quiet example of my devoutly Catholic aunt and uncle.

That education stuff, it's a dangerous thing. It takes on many forms, and you never know exactly where you're going to end up once it takes off.

UNLESS, of course, you ideologically scour all the education right out of those places it used to thrive. When our schools become intellectual, cultural and religious wastelands in the guise of some neo-Puritan "constitutional correctness," we know exactly where we -- and our children -- will be going.

Nowhere.

He is risen! He is risen, indeed!

Matthew

Chapter 28

1
After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
2
And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.
3
His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow.
4
The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men.
5
Then the angel said to the women in reply, "Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified.
6
He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
7
Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.' Behold, I have told you."
8
Then they went away quickly from the tomb, fearful yet overjoyed, and ran to announce this to his disciples.
9
And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them. They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage.
10
Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me."
11
While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had happened.
12
They assembled with the elders and took counsel; then they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers,
13
telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep.'
14
And if this gets to the ears of the governor, we will satisfy (him) and keep you out of trouble."
15
The soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has circulated among the Jews to the present (day).
16
The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
17
When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
18
Then Jesus approached and said to them, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
20
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."

Gimme that old-time anti-Semitism. . . .

Oftentimes, it gets real weird real fast in the Catholic ghetto.

So weird that a generation of Catholics -- adrift in a Marty Haugen present and groping in the dark for a glorious lost Church it never knew -- will grab onto any crazy damn thing that brings to mind what it must have been like in the Good Old Days. Some turn to websites full of alleged signs, wonders and prophesies of how Mary warned that Jesus said that the Father's about to kick some cosmological ass and avenge the offended sensibilities of the True Faithful in this vale of tears.

OTHERS FIND a bishop who talks a good orthodox game and gives him the kind of fealty they ought to be reserving for Christ . . . even when the prelate turns out to be a better wolf than he is a shepherd. As we have witnessed again and again since 2001 in the Scandals.

And others, still, go around trying to rehabilitate notoriously nutty, anti-Semitic radio priests from the 1930s. Yes, I mean that demagogue of the Depression-era airwaves, the Rev. Charles E. Coughlin.

Unsurprisingly, I stumbled across this last phenomenon because of the Catholic Blog Awards. It's that time of the year in the Catholic blogosphere, and various members of "St. Blog's Parish" are campaigning for Best Whatever of 2008.

The awards are administered by cyberCatholics.com, based in Abbeville, La. (Oh, Lord, why are all these things in my home state?) And if you go to the cyberCatholics.com home page -- which advertises nominations for the Catholic Blog Awards, incidentally -- and if you scroll down a bit, you will see a column of "guest contributors."

Actually, make that guest contributor. All of the highlighted articles (for example, "Wikipedia is Marxist!") are by the same Canadian guy, Stephen Volk. One of them, naturally, is a press release for the website FatherCoughlin.com:

For everthing [sic] there is a season! Knowing that "Satan" means "slander," it's time to call a firm halt against the decades of unwarranted liberal slander towards Father Charles Coughlin…

While this man should by now be hailed as one of America's great heroes - who tirelessly fought for the poor during the Great Depression - his name is still being sloshed in the mud of liberal propaganda.

I have read many first editions by and about Father Coughlin. It is easy to conclude that he was never an antisemite. Absolute nonsense. But in the charisms of the Church he did have powerful, powerful God-given Gifts of Wisdom, Discernment and Knowledge:

"I do ask , however, an insane world to distinguish between the innocent Jew and the guilty Jew as much as I would ask the same insane world to distinguish between the innocent gentile and the guilty gentile."

Is this not completely fair? Or does the Bible not say, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

To clear up decades of confusion, www.FatherCoughlin.com is now open! As a Grand Opening Gift to you, go now to download your FREE complete book by Father Charles Coughlin, "Am I an AntiSemite?" Then check back often for FREE download of all his radio programs!

Why the urgency? Because today's "political correctness" is cultural Marxism.

Once again, we need strong, visionary leadership to prayerfully and boldly combat this before our civilization is left in ruins!

WAS FATHER COUGHLIN an anti-Semite? Here's a clue, from a Time magazine article, dated Nov. 14, 1938:

In Switzerland four years ago a book went on trial—the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion—in a suit brought and won by the Swiss Jewish Community against two booksellers (TIME, Nov. 12, 1934). This notorious work, first published in Russia 33 years ago and circulated more or less surreptitiously throughout the western world since then, purported to expose a Jewish plot to destroy Christian civilization, dominate the earth. The Protocols, as the Swiss court found, have been repeatedly proved a fraud.

(snip)

Yet in the past two months Rev. Charles Edward Coughlin, rabble-rousing radio priest, has published the Protocols in his weekly Social Justice. Brushing aside the matter of their authenticity, Father Coughlin repeatedly stressed their "factuality," quoted Henry Ford (a onetime believer in the Protocols) : "They fit in with what is going on." Father Coughlin's point, buttered with many a some-of-my-best- friends-are-Jews disclaimer of antiSemitism, has been that Jews are to blame for Communism, that the aims of the Protocols closely resemble those of Communism—and of the New Deal, the C. I. O., numerous other Coughlin bogies.

Last week a fellow priest went to bat against the authenticity of the Protocols and, inferentially, against Jew-Baiter Coughlin. He was Rev. Michael Joseph ("Mike") Ahern, jovial, witty Jesuit, head of the geology department at Weston College near Boston. On his Sunday radio Catholic Truth Period, Father Ahern drew upon European Catholic sources to demolish the Protocols.

He closed his talk with a quotation from a recent talk by Pope Pius XI which, although published in European Catholic papers, has not been publicized in the U. S.* Said the Pope: "It is not possible for Christians to take part in antiSemitism. We fully acknowledge that everybody has the right to defend himself, protect himself against whatever threatens his legitimate interests. But anti-Semitism is inadmissible. We are all Semites spiritually."

OF COURSE, the careful historian must consider his primary-source material. After all, this article was in Time, and Time was part of the media and -- as Coughlin often told his radio audience -- the press is dominated by the Jews.

Or so true anti-Semites would have us believe.

While Coughlin was serializing the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" -- a modern-day favorite of Islamic radicals everywhere -- in his national newspaper, something big was about to happen in Nazi Germany. The night of Nov. 9 - 10, 1938, came to be known as Kristallnacht.

A month later, Coughlin continued a series of radio talks proposing that the Nazis weren't right, necessarily, but they had their reasons for going after the Jews. Make sure you click on Undercover Black Man's audio links.

Here's what, again, Time reported about the first of Coughlin's post-Kristallnacht radio programs in its Nov. 28, 1938, edition:

Although all week U. S. radio had been speaking with thunderous unanimity against Nazi pogroms, Father Coughlin made resounding reservations when he joined the chorus. Nazi persecution of Jews was bad, he said, but communist persecution of Christians was worse. Admitting that his sources were Nazi, he said that 56 out of 59 members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the U. S. S. R. were Jews. He also accused Kuhn, Loeb & Co. of giving financial aid to the Bolshevik Revolution, attributed that accusation to a British White Paper.

Promptly Station WMCA (Manhattan) spoke for itself, followed its broadcast of the speech with more than the usual disclaimer of responsibility. Said the WMCA announcer: "Unfortunately, Father Coughlin has uttered certain mistakes of fact."

BOY, THOSE LEFTIST media Jews really had it in for that preacher of the True Faith, didn't they?

Or perhaps it's just that some "Catholic" websites have a weakness for lunatic-fringe "contributors" who specialize in defending the indefensible. Like the egregious media offerings of a demagogue Catholic priest from long ago, in some mythical gilded age when everything that called itself Catholic must have been really, really Catholic.

I shudder to think of what future generations in some dystopian remnant Church might latch onto from this present era of American Catholicism. Note to Catholics of the future: The music of Marty Haugen and David Haas --to name only a couple of bad composers of my time -- sucks now, and it'll suck then, too. Be forewarned.

The Catholic ghetto is a strange and interesting place. And the things Catholics in the cultural feedback loop get caught up with brings to mind a thought that, frankly, scares the crap out of me -- everything we do is a witness to the faith. And I have proven myself lousy at this "witness" thing over and over and over again.

You see, the Catholic cultural ghetto is just like the Evangelical ghetto, or the bar-scene ghetto, or the hip-hop ghetto, or any kind of popular-culture ghetto. There's a pearl to be found here and there (for example, the glories of the gin-and-tonic or black-and-tan within the bar-scene ghetto), but there's a lot more junk and stupidity to be found there.

For example, getting stupid drunk and throwing up all over your pants and shoes after too damn many gin-and-tonics or black-and-tans.

So, while all these Catholic blogs in the Internet section of the Catholic ghetto are competing for Best Whatever in the Catholic Blog Awards -- all in good fun, it must be said -- somebody who knows squat about the Church or what she really stands for . . . what Christ really stands for . . . is going to start following the links and seeing what's there.

If we're lucky, they might find an alleged image of the Blessed Mother on a piece of burned toast.

If we're not, they'll find some wingnut making apologies for a Jew-hating priest from Radio Days past on a website called cyberCatholics.com, which runs the Catholic Blog Awards, which lots of Catholic bloggers want to win.

And in the name of truth, justice and good taste, they'll look elsewhere for . . . well . . . truth, justice and good taste.

Aw, that really sucks

The American Catholic Church is going after the Dutch Schismatics over the inerrancy of colloquialisms in the English language. Because, as St. Walker Percy warned us in "Love in the Ruins," the center would not hold.

Neither, apparently, would Catholics' sense of nuance in . . . everything.

As is evidenced by canon lawyer Edward Peters' contention that National Catholic Reporter writer Joe Feuerherd was damning the American bishops to Gehenna in a column he wrote for The Washington Post. Here's what Peters contends:

On February 24, National Catholic Reporter correspondent Joe Feuerherd, writing in the Washington Post, expressed his desire to see the bishops (of the United States) literally damned before he would fail to vote Democratic this Fall.

Feuerherd's words of contempt were not shouted in a heated argument wherein, say, a lack of time for reflection or "anger hormones" might mitigate one's culpability for uttering invectives. No, Feuerherd's curse, "the bishops be damned", was expressed in cold, deliberate, prose intended for maximum effect in a prominent national publication.

Now, Canon 1369 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law states that "a person who . . . in published writing . . . expresses insults or excites hatred or contempt against religion or the Church is to be punished with a just penalty." Canon 1373 states that "a person who publicly incites among subjects animosities or hatred against the Apostolic See or an ordinary because of some act of power or ecclesiastical ministry . . . is to be punished by an interdict or other just penalties."

I believe Feuerherd has gravely violated both of these canons.

HERE'S WHAT Feuerherd actually wrote:

The bishops seem to have forgotten that it is not simply aspirations that matter, though they seem more than willing to accept rhetoric ("I am pro-life") over results.

Why should non-Catholic Americans care about the bishops' right-wing lurch?

Because the bishops can influence a good number of the faithful, many of whom happen to be concentrated in large, electoral-vote-rich states. In the key swing state of Ohio in 2004, for example, bishops vigorously supported an anti-same-sex marriage amendment to the state constitution, which helped drive Republican voters to the polls. Bush won 55 percent of the Catholic vote in the Buckeye State, up from 50 percent in 2000 and enough to provide his margin of victory.

There's little hope, unfortunately, that the bishops will adopt a more pragmatic approach to achieving their aims anytime soon. Younger American priests, the pool from which future bishops will be chosen, overwhelmingly embrace the agenda enunciated by John Paul II.

So what's a pro-life, pro-family, antiwar, pro-immigrant, pro-economic-justice Catholic like me supposed to do in November? That's an easy one. True to my faith, I'll vote for the candidate who offers the best hope of ending an unjust war, who promotes human dignity through universal health care and immigration reform, and whose policies strengthen families and provide alternatives to those in desperate situations. Sounds like I'll be voting for the Democrat -- and the bishops be damned. (Emphasis mine -- R21.)

IF YOU BELIEVE Feuerherd literally meant to damn the bishops to hell when he said "and the bishops be damned," I shudder to think what pictures are in your head when your teen-ager declares that something "sucks."

Take your shoes off. Pour yourself a double of something, put on some Sinatra and chill.

In the context of Feuerherd's op-ed piece, "be damned" no more means a literal wish for the fires of Hades to turn the bishops into Krispy Kritters than "sucks" -- some 30-plus years removed from my junior-high days -- connotes the full . . . er . . . glory of what it did in 1974.

AS A LINGUIST, Ed Peters is a hell of a canon lawyer. Who should have common sense enough to know that if some bishop -- using all the moral authority that Catholic bishops possess these days (Hint: little to none) -- moved against Feuerherd on such specious grounds, the resulting derision would just add to the litany of woe the American Church has brought upon itself in recent years.

I am pretty sure that I skew much more orthodox Catholic than does Joe Feuerherd. Likewise, I am much less inclined to blithely cast a vote for Barack Obama than he -- which is not to say I intend to even consider casting a vote for John McCain and the Party of Endless War, Torture and Greed. As a Catholic, I have to take the Church's teachings seriously and consider what the bishops say carefully.

But if those bishops, like Ed Peters, can't find anything better to do than crack on a liberal Catholic reporter who colorfully throws some important questions their way -- questions that deserve an answer from shepherds who need to, you know, shepherd -- then to hell with them, indeed.

In the colloquial sense. Not the literal.

The tragedy of Elden Francis Curtiss

The great tragedy of Elden Francis Curtiss, Catholic archbishop of Omaha, Neb., is that he could write this column unironically:

There seems to be a growing number of people in our society who place a high value on spirituality, but a low value on religion, especially organized religion. It is like saying that they place a high value on democracy, but disparage democratic institutions. But how do we maintain democracy without any structures that make it possible? How do we keep a religious spirit alive in our country without any structures to support it?

Recently, I was reading some comments by Flannery O'Connor, the Catholic novelist who died in 1963 during the Second Vatican Council. In her collected letters, edited after her death under the title "The Habit of Being," Flannery writes about her experience as a Catholic with her church. She valued the church highly but was quite aware of the short-comings of some of her members. She observed that sometimes "you have to suffer as much from the church as for it. The only thing that makes the church endurable is that somehow it is the body of Christ, and on this we are fed."

Flannery O'Connor understood that the operation of the church is set-up for the sake of sinners, which creates all kinds of problems for those who are self-righteous. We do not easily accept the notion that God is as patient with the entire church as he is with each lost sheep. Some people expect the church, especially her leaders, to be perfect. The reality is that the church is holy only because Jesus stands at the center of her life. But all the members who make up the church are imperfect and sinful. This causes some people to be critical of the Catholic Church.

(snip)

Flannery did not hesitate to point out the faults she found with the church: 45 years ago she complained about the smugness she found in some clergy and laity - "do not take credit for possessing the true religion if you do not live that truth; and do not be glib in answering honest questions - a sense of mystery should give Catholic apologists a sense of humility rather than pride."

She pointed out the lack of depth in some Catholics who want to keep things nice, shallow, cute and safe - "but we are challenged at all times by the cross." And there is that perennial self-righteous on the part of some that disdains human weakness and questions any in-depth discussions about the doctrines of our faith - "the church for some people is not the body of Christ" Flannery wrote, "but a poor man's insurance policy." People need to wrestle with the church in order to refine their faith and their commitment to the Gospel message.

In addressing the need to develop a mature faith based on study and prayer, Flannery wrote that "conviction without experience makes for harshness." But experience not grounded in solid faith tends to go off on tangents. She was convinced that Christians have to struggle with their own demons in order to show compassion to other people who are struggling with their demons. The only thing worse than Christians who will not, under any circumstances, challenge bad behavior in others, are Christians who see evil in everyone else but not in themselves.

Flannery O'Connor had a remarkable insight into modern, sanitized, "empty" religion that was beginning to make inroads into society in the 1960s. This is what she wrote: "One of the effects of modern liberal Christianity is to turn, gradually, religion into poetry and therapy, to make truth vaguer and vaguer and more and more relative, to banish intellectual distinctions, to depend on feeling instead of thought, and gradually to come to believe that God has no power, that he cannot communicate with us, cannot reveal himself to us, indeed has not done so, and that religion is our own sweet invention."

I think the insights of Flannery O'Connor, writing half a century ago, were remarkably accurate. She lived and died a committed Catholic who knew that, despite the failures of her members, the Catholic Church was able to preserve the Gospel and her sacred tradition through every century. She knew that the living Christ revealed himself in the Scriptures and in the sacraments. She knew that despite its sordid history at times, and the scandal caused by some of her leaders, the church was the gift of Jesus to us - and that we should always rejoice in her continuity throughout the ages, and in the Lord's promises that the church would last to the end of time.

(snip)

It is all right to find fault with the human church, her leaders and members, when there is need for honesty and correction. Our criticism has legitimacy when we love the church and recognize that it is the presence of Jesus in our midst that is at the heart of the church's life. We need to defend the church against her detractors who want to undermine and weaken her with their own agenda.

Spirituality without religion is vague and tenuous. Religion without a church to guide it produces self-fulfilling prophecies and division. A church without continuity from Christ and the apostles lacks cohesiveness and authority. This is the reason that we are Catholics.

We should thank God everyday for the gift of the church that manages to keep Jesus at the very center of her life despite the foibles of her members. The church is weak only when we are weak. It is up to us to help keep her strong by focusing on the Lord who is always present in her midst. He is the reason for the holiness of the church despite the sinfulness of her members.

A GREAT COLUMN. I wonder whether His Excellency is aware he was making a fine argument -- with the help of Flannery O'Connor -- for sticking with a flawed institution when jackasses like himself are the ones making you want to run screaming into that dark night of the soul.

A few years ago, I was almost out the door myself because of people who were obsessed with the externals of the faith but less so with living that faith when doing so would make life a lot more untidy. Like what would happen if you called the cops on a kiddie-porn obsessed priest.

For more than a year -- daily -- I professionally inhabited a world where the most pious of Catholics covered for, sucked up to and rationalized a chancery that allowed such a priest to continue to work with kids. That is, until the cops finally arrested Father.

These people did not think something was wrong with Curtiss for valuing the "company" over Catholic children. But they did think something was quite wrong with the "secular, anti-Catholic media" for pointing out the problem.

Let me tell you, that does mess with your faith. When you are looked upon as a Bad Catholic for choosing right over wrong, and your bishop is The Embodiment of Wrong, you begin to furiously reevaluate a lot of stuff.

Ultimately, I chose to remain Catholic on quite O'Connoresque grounds. Basically, just because I worked with a bunch of hyperpious Catholics and my "shepherd" was a jackass playing chicken with an obstruction-of-justice indictment, it didn't mean the Catholic faith was a big lie.

It just meant I worked with a bunch of hyperpious Catholics and my archbishop was a jackass.

An amazingly non-introspective jackass who can write an objectively fine column that -- in the context of Curtiss' dysfunctional little see on the prairie -- is just another Holy S*** Moment in the collective life of his Bad Catholic flock.

Oh, and since the archbishop says it's OK to criticize the Church, now . . . he needs to sell that $389,000 retirement flop the archdiocese bought for him and use the proceeds to help the poor. It's a scandal and an outrage.