Month: March 2010

Jonathan Bernstein replies at length.

John Allen studies Ratzinger's record on abuse. Brandishing Allen's article as a bludgeon, Carl Olson whacks my Benedict blogging:

[T]he attempts by many pundits, talking heads, and celebrity "conservative" homosexuals to place nearly all blame on Benedict XVI is frustrating (to put it mildly), but hardly surprising. Some simply jumble the facts about what really happened (or didn't happen) during Ratzinger's time in Munich, and then glibly write this sort of nonsense: "If this person headed a secular organization, or if he were a politician, he would be forced to resign." When was the last time you heard someone call for the resignation of the Secretary of Education, the head of the National Education Association, or of any teacher union for the widespread and increasingly prevalent sexual abuse of children in public schools?

As Allen reports, Benedict has, since 2003-2004, taken very concrete steps to address sexual abuse by priests, to investigate reported incidents, and to identify abusers. Compare that with a 2004 study issued by the Office of the Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education (PDF format) that flatly states, "There is no research that documents teacher union attempts to identify predators among their members."

This is spin, as a full reading of Allen's piece – which is well worth absorbing in full – makes plain. It's odd, isn't it, that Ratzinger, who has always insisted on total top-down clerical authority, was utterly unaware of the case that no one disputes he signed off on. How do we know he had no idea of what he was doing in such a sensitive case?

The cleric who served as Ratzinger's vicar general in Munich, Gerhard Gruber, assumed "full responsibility" for the original 1980 assignment, insisting that there were more than 1,000 priests in the archdiocese at the time and that Ratzinger entrusted that kind of personnel matter to subordinates.

That settles it, then. A priest found guilty of raping an eleven year-old within Ratzinger's archdiocese was transferred to Munich for therapy by Ratzinger without his having any idea of why this was happening. Sure. He has no responsibility, right? And knew nothing, right? Mark Shea piles on:

Everything that I've seen so far makes it pretty obvious that Benedict is one of the good guys here and that the recent fracas in the Euro press is a pretty transparent attempt to blame the guy for things he is not only not guilty of, but rather zealously trying to stop, as Allen makes plain.

The man who covered for Maciel for years and who in 2002 imposed total secrecy on the process is now the "good guy"? Dreher's judgment:

Rome's inability to discipline bishops, or unwillingness to, now must be faced. On the scandal, though, Joseph Ratzinger is not Karol Wojtyla, and is in fact a great improvement in this area. Don't forget that. But again, the job is not finished. Yet.

Wojtyla and Ratzinger were joined at the hip. They both enabled Maciel. They both covered up as much as they could. They both refused to take responsibiilty. Here's "the good guy" as recently as November 2002, with respect to the sex abuse crisis in America:

In the church, priests are also sinners. But I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offenses among priests is not higher than in other categories, and perhaps it is even lower. In the United States, there is constant news on this topic, but less than one percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type. The constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information or to the statistical objectivity of the facts. Therefore, one comes to the conclusion that it is intentional, manipulated, that there is a desire to discredit the church.

Sorry, guys. But the denial won't work any longer.

Matt Steinglass parses CNN's hiring of extreme partisan and RedState.com headliner Erick Erickson:

The Overton window represents a strategy of pushing the political centre in a desired ideological direction by introducing wildly extremist, unacceptable policy positions and hammering away at them until other ideas that once seemed extremist come to seem reasonable by comparison. The commenting policies at RedState worked the same way: by allowing conservative extremism while tightly restricting liberal discourse, the site tried to redefine the right as the centre.

And again, this is where the post-modern left and the Rovian left overlap: it's about creating reality out of ideology. Because there is no reality that isn't created.

But there is. And the insistence on reality, on assessing problems empirically, and in proposing solutions is what we all need to get better at. In this, Obama really is leading. But the MSM chases its own tail – or, in the words of that ultimate post-modernist, Roger Ailes, it's only about ratings. There is no reality but ratings.

Lieutenant Dan Choi, chained to the White House fence in protest against Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Full story here. Video of his arrest in an act of civil disobedience after the jump:

Kevin Carey, policy director of Education Sector, a non-partisan think tank, lays into Ravitch:

The problem with "I was wrong about everything" as the prelude to an argument is that it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the repudiator's judgment. And, in this case, the book simply trades one pre-defined agenda for another: the collected talking points of the reactionary education establishment. It is a philosophy of resentment and futility, grounded in the conviction that public schools–and the adults within them–can't really be expected to do better than they currently are.

In the end, Death and Life is painfully short on non-curricular ideas that might actually improve education for those who need it most. The last few pages contain nothing but generalities: "We must encourage schools to use measures of educational accomplishment that are appropriate to the subjects studied." "When schools are struggling, the authorities should do whatever is necessary to improve them." "Teachers must be well educated and know their subjects." That's all on page 238. The complete lack of engagement with how to do these things is striking.

Ravitch returns fire. The last thing we need in this culture, I believe, is a resistance to saying 'I was wrong." Or a denigration of those who do so.

A reader writes:

I remember well my Catholic Catechism that was very clear about how following proper civil laws was considered de rigueur for all Catholics. ("Render unto Caesar…" and all that.) And that sinning required penance, and that penance was more than a few Hail Marys. It had to be some kind of personal sacrifice and atonement.

What is so amazing about the institutional coverup of decades of sex crimes worldwide is the complete and utter lack of any type of sacrifice/atonement beyond a few apologies and some insurance money.

The ability of the hierarchy to keep priests out of jail and not suffer for their aiding/abetting/obstruction is simply amazing in its total disregard of the church's own teachings for the laity. The dual set of rules, as much as anything else, should help to tumble the edifice. Only a reversion to a St. Francis-type of worldly renouncement of temporal power statues, land, baubles, and gay red shoes will purge the Catholic Church.

Another adds:

I'm surprised the NYT was willing to use the words "molestation" and "abuse."  I think "enhanced affection" is more appropriate.

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Dan Zak was underwhelmed by the Census:

I was expecting more of the 2010 Census. It only wanted my name, birth date, age, sex and race. White, male, 26. My privacy was barely violated. What about job? Relationship status? Hobbies? Hangups? It was a severe anticlimax, but this should’ve been expected. I’ve recently plowed through some family history — specifically my mother’s maternal branch — and at this moment I have in front of me a PDF of the 1880 Census, which lists my great-great-great grandfather in similarly glib terms: White, male, 44, married, farmer, born in Germany. I guess the official legacy of the average man is but a color, an age and a sex, and maybe an occupation. Sometimes we are just a number. Thanks Census.

Ryan Avent and Matt Yglesias applaud Walmart's MoneyCenters.