Month: March 2010

A reader writes:

While I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion that B16 should retire and that the charade of priestly celibacy ought also to be retired, I was startled by some twists in your route to those good ends.

You say that some men entered the priesthood to find a cure for their gay sexuality. I suspect that somewhere there may be such a priest, but overwhelmingly, we who were ordained gay were actually not in search of a cure. We had a rather high estimation of ourselves as sexual creatures. We were joining a fraternity of accomplished and respected gay men. Gay sex was certainly not off limits to us as long as we bought the duplicity and the premise that we did it secretly. As gay culture became acceptable, the need for this fraternity withered and the priesthood stopped attracting good gay candidates.

Also, I tried hard to understand and to feel your assertion that pedophile priests see their victims as less than human. I don't think I agree with that. I think that in most cases, pedophile priests saw their

victims as convenient humans.

These men were largely not part of the fraternity of gay priests whose meetings would happen at gay rectories, resorts, bars and baths. As the accusations came to light, many of us who are or were gay priests were totally surprised by the names of the accused. I think that many of them felt trapped by celibacy whereas those of us who simply shrugged it off from the time of our ordinations and led active sex lives and formed healthy relationships with adults were not their associates. They conducted their pedophile sex in secret. I think the media mistakenly paints the image of a priesthood in which all priests were aware of what was happening. I, hardly a blushing flower, was among those shocked at the extent of the situation.

The fledgling group called "Catholics for Equality" hopes to derail an unfair connection between pedophilia and gay clergy. I hope their efforts are successful, but I will say that my experience of the hierarchy makes me firmly believe that a gay bishop or cardinal – especially one who has had his career boosted by not having the kind of sex he might personally desire – might be inclined to go easy on a pedophile priest because he feels guilty about his own desires, mistakenly grouping together all forbidden fruit.

I think what many Catholics don't know is that priests are simply not well trained for celibacy. Even the ones who are not sexually active have substituted the non-celibate preoccupations of gluttony and entertainment and porn and whiskey to take the place of sex. It's a sad way of life all around.

I think B16 will retire "for health reasons" but I am afraid that we do not at this moment have a cardinal ready for election who will abolish the charade of priestly celibacy. Five years from now, there may be one courageous enough to do it, and he may be an American.

A territorial dispute over an island claimed by India and Bangladesh was resolved by global warming.

Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin chastises Catholics who dissented over HCR:

So, we had a trade organization — the Catholic Health Association — which calls itself “Catholic” and we had religious Sisters who call themselves Catholic, saying, “Sorry, bishops, you got it wrong, here is the teaching of the Church.” The Lord Jesus Christ, unworthy though the bishops are, called the bishops to lead the people in faith; He did not call anybody in the Catholic Health Association and he did not call any of the Sisters in Network.

The bishops are called to teach, sanctify, and govern. But, as I said before, with regard to the Holy Father, if people will not recognize authority, then they cannot lay responsibility at the feet of those to whom they are disobedient. The pope and the bishops are only responsible when their authority is accepted. The then-Cardinal Ratzinger himself has said, in our contemporary world, the word “obedience” has disappeared from our vocabulary and the reality of obedience has been anathematized.

Probably not the best time for a Wisconsin bishop to lecture laypeople on the social contract.

(Hat tip: Carl Olson)

Black market dealers in California are worried that legalizing pot will drive them out of business. Nick Gillespie rightly feels no pity:

Legalizing any product will almost certainly reduce its price, even if you factor in a heavy vice or excise tax which will be attached to legal weed. And it will definitely encourage more people to start growing and selling pot, increasing supply and, ceteris paribus, driving down prices. So we can all understand why pot growers might be nervous at the prospect of legalization. And hopefully they can understand why their fears about competition are no more compelling than those of any producer in a free-market economy.

(Image: Medicinal marijuana user Dave Karp smokes marijuana at the Berkeley Patients Group March 25, 2010 in Berkeley, California. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified a ballot initiative late Wednesday to legalize the possession and sale of marijuana in the State of California after proponents of the measure submitted over 690,000 signatures. The measure will appear on the November 2 general election ballot. By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

"'Take up your arms’ means voting,” – Sarah Palin.

Well: what can they say? A reader writes:

I used to Read First Things about 15 years ago, and I liked it.  I was always a pretty orthodox Catholic and it took an intellectually rigorous approach to Catholic issues and occasionally made a few political comments which I sometimes agreed with and sometimes didn't.  Something snapped in the Bush years, though.  The whole organization (led by Neuhaus) descended deeper and deeper into neocon unreality.  Anyway, I was reading something about how the Corner over at National Review, which never stops touting Catholic doctrine when it is convenient to its causes, has been utterly silent on the crushing scandal in Rome.  And I thought I would check out First Things' site, which I hadn't been to in a while.  It was astonishing. 

There are seven blogs there.  I scrolled down the first page of all of them.  I would estimate that about 80% of the posts were anti-Obama diatribes or links, or anti HCR, or anti Democrats generally.  And in those seven blogs' first pages, most of which cover at least two or three days' worth of posts, this is the only mention of the doings in the Vatican — and you'll never guess who gets the blame.

A reader nails it:

I stumbled upon this Roger Cohen article from November. It's interesting. That wasn't a great point in Obama's term, and I think he represented the conventional wisdom quite well. Reading it helps clarify for me how much stronger Obama's position is now. The fundamental question in the article is, "Can Obama close anything? Is there a middle game?"

Let's take a quick glance at the current landscape: Obama has passed the biggest reform of our health care system in decades, including near universal coverage; for all the criticism Obama took about the length of his Afghanistan deliberation, including that he was projecting a lack of resolve that would undermine the cause, we now have an undeniable momentum that's likely making some a little too optimistic; the Administration's efforts in Pakistan have resulted in some very positive trends, including an increased willingness to take on the Taliban; the reset with Russia has resulted in a new nuclear arms treaty, along with moving the Russians far closer in line with us in terms of sanctions on Iran; the economy is poised to start creating jobs; so on and so on.

It really is too easy to forget that anything meaningful or hard requires a long game.

But no one should doubt Obama's talent, strength, and ability to adapt to the job by this point. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong very soon, but I think we're entering a new stage in terms of coverage.

Concrete, big achievements tend to act as anchors. News cycles faster than ever before, but now there's an undercurrent of undeniable success and progress.

What I find remarkable was the discipline with which Obama didn't take the bait from the far right and play this game on their terms. It took the British Tories a decade and a half to lose the "Nasty Party" label. Even now it haunts them with moderate voters. Maybe America is completely different and an anti-gay, anti-green, anti-universal healthcare, pro-torture right can ride success in this country. But I suspect that Obama has called this one right; and once confidence returns that he can deliver, the energy will return.

Shorter version: the GOP just had a premature political ejaculation. Obama, meanwhile, has just got his groove on.

“Bibi has the support of Congress. It is solid. It is secure," – Nita Lowey, backing a foreign prime minister in a dispute with her own president.

That's the Vatican's word – not mine – to describe Ratzinger's chairing of a meeting that decided to transfer a known and dangerous child-rapist to therapy and then on to further child-molestation as a priest. Money quote:

Neither the Vatican nor the German archdiocese had previously mentioned in their statements that Cardinal Ratzinger was sent a memo relating to the reassignment of Father Hullermann. In his statement on Friday, Father Lombardi did not comment directly on the memo.

They can't handle this. So they won't. All they have now is denial.