Cardinal Law, one of the late pope’s favored abetters of child abuse, will be in the conclave picking the next Pope. He also just gave a lengthy interview with ABC News, refusing to answer any questions on the church’s record on the abuse of children and teens in its care. It’s an important rule: don’t just listen to what the hierarchy says; look at what they do.
SCHIAVO THIS: A bizarre echo of the Schiavo case in Australia. A man who attacked his wife wants to keep her in a persistent vegetative state so he can avoid being charged with her murder. My head is spinning.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Old Trout-ism has been sadly missing lately on the public stage. The current queen isn’t theatrical enough to carry it off. Old Trout-ism was at its height with Queen Mary, the immensely grand wife of King George V. Think big picture hats, shoes wide enough to handle a muddy field, a generous monobosom alternating at night with deep cleavage and a heavy-duty diamond necklace nestling in the valley. Camilla will be great at this look.” – Tina Brown, writing about the monarchy, her best subject.
NO PURPLE HEARTS, PLEASE: A gay soldier awarded the Purple Heart asks to stay in the military and serve openly. He’s got to be kidding. The military will get rid of him as soon as they can.
EMAIL OF THE DAY I: “I want to call into question your use of statistics to argue against the effectiveness of John Paul II’s tenure as Pope. I’ll flag two points because I need to get back to work.
1) The decline in the number of priests. I do not know how to account for the decline. You attribute it to the Pope. However, it’s certainly a logical possibility that there would have been even more of a decline had he not been Pope. Consider two factors which might have contributed but were not due to his papacy. (A) Sociological changes in the West. Here in the US, we are becoming more materialistic and having smaller families. I suspect that neither is conducive to large numbers of people signing up to be priests. Nor are these two likely the consequences of the Pope’s actions. (B) Changes in the perception of priests. Vatican II redefined the role of priests. Given that much of the mystique and power of the priesthood has been (in my view) diminished, fewer are going to feel the tug of these factors and become priests. And that’s not an altogether bad thing of itself. But it has nothing to do with John Paul II.
2) The decline in numbers of people attending Church. I think that Church attendance is a very weak indicator of whether someone is a “good” Catholic, and, so, whether the Church is thriving. Certainly attending church regularly is important to developing one’s faith. We are part of the community of God, so how can we thrive off by our lonesomes? But there is so much more to the Catholic faith than church attendance. If there are fewer people attending Church, but they are doing this act more out of response to the gift of life and of love from God than were the multitudes once upon a time, I’d be inclined to think that the Church is now healthier. I’d add that the sociological changes for priesthood that I described above might also apply here. Correlation simply is not causation.
I step back and allow myself to not know what the overall outcome of this papacy will be. I suspect we won’t know for centuries. In the meantime, I can have faith that God is present to us, and that as we inexorably yield to truth (for what else is there?), the Kingdom will continue to grow. And I can rejoice in what I perceive to have been a genuinely deep-felt sense of spirituality that John Paul II lived for us all to see. In that context, I’ll voice concerns about particular actions of the Church, but I do so with a lot of humility (seeing how much my views have changed as I’ve learned both faith and life) and from the context that I’ve just described.”
EMAIL OF THE DAY II: “Twenty four years ago I was a young priest who had been assigned to the chancery as vocation director. JPII just came on the scene and like many others, I wondered what the future of my ministry would look like with him at the helm. For a while I tried to convince myself and others that he was the perfect choice for pope since his obvious narrowness was stirring an energy in the church that would finally force the laity and clergy to stand up and say “Whoa!”
Twelve years later my “Whoa” became “Enough” and I left active ministry and while I still believe JPII has caused many to take a clearer stand on what they believe, I am saddened by the regressive place he has left the church. I just read some of his Last Will and Testimony and was heartened by his request for forgiveness. I forgive him for trying to turn me into a poparatchik and for not accepting me as a gay man and I pray that he rests in peace.”
The Dish 