The Black Madonna

Hope is a Gift

This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.

2005 de luxe magix video

Frank Keating has resigned as Chairman of the Catholic lay review board founded after last year's National Council of Bishops meeting. He wrote an op-ed in today's New York Times.

Sadly, a few church leaders, including some in large dioceses, chose to resist and obstruct the board. When we asked valid questions, they gave us few or no answers. Where information and cooperation was called for, we received delay or an outright refusal to help.

These few leaders turned to their lawyers when they should have looked into their hearts — and I expressed my disgust with them. I am a candid person, and that makes some people uncomfortable. So be it. Obstructing justice, excusing and concealing those who victimize innocent children: these are not the actions of holy men. They are sins — and they are crimes. God may hold them accountable in the next world, but we will certainly hold them accountable in this one.

Unfortunately, I don't share the Governor's hopefulness. The child abuse scandal was merely a very public manifestation of a community in serious trouble - a condition that will continue to hang over the Church until something drastic changes.

That drastic change will not come any sooner than the installment of a new pontiff.

I had a theology professor in college who bluntly told us that he looked forward to the death of the current pope. He explained that he prayed for John Paul's health and well-being, but believed as a matter of principle that the pope's administration was running counter to the necessary church reforms begun by John XXIII. At the time, I discounted this opinion as the perverted viewpoint of a notorious (but good-intentioned) liberal.

Little did I know that he would be proven to be the sane one, and our own priests were the perverts.

A miter full of denial

This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.

Yet another public Catholic recites his woes, this time E.J. Dionne, who spends an entire column discussing the plight of the post-Keating Catholic lay review board.

But beyond the internal politics is a problem of spiritual leadership. "We're in month 18 of the most serious crisis in the history of the American Catholic Church," says Scott Appleby, a Notre Dame professor of religious history who addressed the bishops last year. "And we have yet to hear from leading figures in the church about how we should make moral, ethical, theological and spiritual sense of what happened."

Lay Catholic leader Peggy Steinfels argues that much of the responsibility for doing this now falls on the lay board: "They have to write a final report that's not just numbers and statistics but also explains to people why this happened -- and tells the truth." The truth may not protect bishops from lawsuits, but, as the New Testament says, it could make them free.

Why is it that after all we've been through, the bishops are waiting until next spring for a bunch of lay people (who they constantly insist are irrelevant) to tell them what to do? Is there no one among the ecclesiastics willing to stand up and - GASP! - preach the Gospel?

Disillusionment doesn't even begin to describe my attitude toward the church these days.

The Rebellion Strikes Back

This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.

Bill Buckley, the Old Man of the Grand Old Party, has taken the lectern, and has he got a funny story to tell...

Attorney General Pryor has run into the high risk of sassing critically situated senators. Not that there was ever any possibility that Sen. Feingold would vote to confirm the nomination of Pryor to the court of appeals. The 41-year-old Pryor had given the committee an answer to the big question. He said it with a straight face. Said it as matter-of-factly as if he had been asked by the short- order cook if he wanted his steak well-done. The great question:

"Mr. Pryor, you once said that you thought the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade was `the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.' Do you still think that?"

"Oh yes," said Pryor.

When asked whether he thought that that decision had had moral consequences, he said, oh yes. He explained: "It has led to the slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children."

Woo-hoo! There's more funnies from the Pryor hearings, so read the article. Gotta catch that rerun on C-SPAN2.

Gay-bashing, bad - Catholic-bashing, good

This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.

I respect Andrew Sullivan for much of his writing, but the one thing where we differ wildly is obvious. And no, it's not proof of my homophobia, because many times I can discount his opinion as, well, his opinion, and be done with it. But he is so arrogantly sure he is right on matters of sex, he allows himself to be just as prejudiced against his opponents on the issue as he thinks they are of him.

Lately his number one enemy has been Rich Santorum. For example, in referring to the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas yesterday:

Sex in our culture — gay and straight and everything between — is no longer restricted to procreation. OK, there are some exceptions: Pennsylvania's GOP Sen. Rick Santorum, for example, who has six kids, apparently follows strict Catholic doctrine and abhors every nonprocreative sexual act.

Yes, he does. Is that so evil? While I can't say I "abhor" nonprocreative sex, I recognize that it is a sin, and my confessor has been forced to counsel me many times on this fact. Luckily, he and the Sacrament are still there for me when I fall prey to it.

Rick and I will pray for you, Andrew. Even if you think we're medieval for it.