A beautiful few days in New York City. The highlight was the ordination of an old and dear friend of mine as a Jesuit priest. The ceremony was held at Fordham University in the Bronx. I went through a couple of cab-drivers before I finally found one who knew the way from Manhattan. He turned out to be a Puerto Rican Pentecostalist so I had to endure twenty minutes of Catholic-bashing before I got there. But it was worth it. I’d never been to an ordination before – and it defeated all expectations. The ceremony lasted two and a half hours and was presided over by Cardinal Egan, whose homily didn’t exactly raise expectations of an intellectually distinguished term of office. But the rite itself swept all before it. As I saw my old friend lie prostrate in the aisle, face down, as a symbol of his submission to God and the Church, I found tears coming to my eyes. As the chorus, “Veni Sancte Spiritus,” slowly ascended in octaves and volume, you could almost feel the Holy Spirit fill the place with a sort of serious joy. Part wedding, part graduation ceremony, the rite filled me with new hope and enormous admiration for my friend. He has been a priest all his life, in some ways. Some people are like that. They simply serve others – ordained or simply there. And when my friend slowly rose to his feet and the church filled with applause, it felt as if a circle had been completed, and what had been the inner core of his life could now also be his outer identity. I hugged him afterwards and almost called him father. But then I stopped myself and called him something just as sacred: friend.
EARTH TO HERBERT: Bob Herbert, ever on the cutting edge of analysis, has just discovered the notion that the Bush administration is reluctant to provide anti-HIV drugs to South Africa. He argues that the Bushies think prevention measures would be more effective since the drug regimens are too costly and complicated for countries without a decent medical infrastructure. All of this is a preamble to the point of his column – actually the point of almost every single column he writes – which is that some white people he knows or has heard about are racists. But does Herbert know that refusing anti-HIV drugs in favor of prevention measures is exactly the current policy of the South African government? If he does know, isn’t his column a deliberate attempt to divert attention from where it obviously belongs? And if he doesn’t, what on earth is he doing writing a column as ill-informed as this one?
A FEW DAYS TOO LATE: William Hague must be cursing the Guardian newspaper today. The paper has declared that a cure for baldness seems imminent. Yay! I’ve been on Propecia for a while, and I’ve definitely grown more hair. I once proposed it to William as a potential cure for his image problems, but he rightly pointed out the media would soon find out and blast him as a phony. Sucks for him. Well, actually, sucked. The bright side of losing the election is that he can get to have a life again. Here’s to more hair and more down-time for the guy. Meanwhile, I’m out tomorrow to buy shares in Glaxo SmithKline.
HARVEY MANSFIELD’S NIGHTMARE STUDENT: Harvard just graduated their first all A student. Not even a single A- in his transcript. How long before 20 percent of the class follows suit?
“DIVINELY ORDERED”: A stunning development in Anglican theology has emerged in a new catechism for the Anglican and Episcopalian churches. The catechism has been endorsed by the second highest ranking English bishop, and says the following: “Homosexuality may well not be a condition to be regretted but to have divinely ordered and positive qualities… Homosexual Christian believers should be encouraged to find in their sexual preferences such elements of moral beauty as may enhance their general understanding of Christ’s calling.” Wow. Now let’s see what the more traditional African and Asian wings of the Anglican Church have to say about this. But the very fact that this catechism has been published and endorsed from almost the very top suggests a sea-change in the West at least.
The Dish 