Regional Church Scandal Update

Question 1: How did McCarrick thrive as a predator for decades, until June 2018?

Number of promises made by Cardinals/popes to provide an answer: At least four (Wuerl, Tobin, DiNardo, and the pope)

Number of answers actually given: Zero.

Question 2: How did former-West-Virginia-bishop Michael Bransfield thrive as a predator for decades, like his old friend Theodore McCarrick, until September 2018?

Number of investigative reports selectively edited by Baltimore Archbishop William Lori with information about this: One

Number of such reports made public by Lori and Pope Francis: Zero.

Question 3: How many former seminarians in West Virginia have sued the Church in the past six months?

Answer, provided by the West-Virginia press: At least two.

How many secret settlements of these cases did the diocese reach, under the governance of William Lori? One.

How many of these cases assert that the victim tried to communicate with Lori, but got rebuffed and treated like an enemy? At least one.

Question 3: How many bishops spoke at last week’s Notre Dame University forum on the sexual abuse crisis?

Answer: One.

Who? William Lori.

Forgive me for asking, but is this a joke, Notre Dame?

During the forum, Lori told his usual self-pitying and self-justifying sob stories. And he regaled the world with his typical mind-numbingly tedious tales of his own feckless bureaucratic bumblings.

Notre Dame University: What do you mean by this charade? Glamorizing the machinations of a documented liar and cover-up artist. Are you trying to shove the reputation of our Church even deeper into the bottom of the trashcan? Do you not realize that there are some serious people out here, people who actually know the facts about what has happened in West Virginia over the course of the last year, and who see William Lori for the charlatan that he is?

John Allen and Peter Steinfels: You should be ashamed of yourselves. For playing patsy to William Lori’s endless self-justifying nonsense. You show yourselves to be the hacks that you are, more interested in a secure paycheck than in any kind of real integrity.

The RMS Titanic of Roman Catholicism in our part of the world continues to sink, my dear ones, with bloviating nabobs on the bridge. Men utterly unprepared to deal with the catastrophe that they, and the men they kissed up to when they were younger, have wrought.

Let’s try to hasten to heaven as eagerly as we can. Let’s try to help as many people as we can along the way. Part One of such a business: Living in the truth.

Which includes this fact: The Metropolitan Archbishop of our ecclesiastical province is a careerist fraud. No honest human being should trust him any farther than Lori himself can throw medicine ball.

Forty-Five Years Ago This Morning

Philippe Petit hardly imagined that terrorists would destroy the buildings twenty-seven years later.

He had also walked between the towers of Notre Dame, in 1971…

He hardly imagined that the cathedral would burn 48 years later.

It’s a sin recklessly to risk life and limb. But Petit seems to have known what he was doing.

And trusted Providence.

 

Most Heartbreaking Video Ever Uploaded

Vespers in Notre Dame this past Monday evening, 5:45 pm. (Fire broke out at 6:50pm.)

Conscience?

Judge John T. Noonan

This is the man who spoke before President Obama at Notre Dame University’s commencement exercises yesterday.

Judge Noonan agreed to speak in lieu of Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon. Out of principal, she declined to accept the University’s Laetare Medal because a pro-abortionist was to speak at the ceremony (President Obama).

When Judge Noonan agreed to speak in Mrs. Glendon’s stead, I anticipated a subtle, invigorating talk. I thought to myself: This man just might have the moxy–the spretzaturra–to outman and outfox the orator-in-chief.

Go West, Number Seven! and Cetera

…Would that the disease really were the “swine” flu, in the imprecatory sense of the word ‘swine.’ Then only the most low-down, dirty, rotten scoundrels could contract it.

Judge John T. Noonan

…The latest news out of South Bend, Indiana, is that Judge John T. Noonan will speak along with President Obama at the Notre Dame graduation.

(Mary Ann Glendon, who was previously scheduled to speak, perspicaciously declined the Laetare Award earlier this week.)

Please refrain from throwing tomatoes: For my money, of the three orators (Obama, Glendon, Noonan), Noonan promises to be the most interesting.

I am not claiming that he is correct in all his opinions. I do not even know what all his opinions are. I am simply saying that he is a very smart man, with a subtle, penetrating mind. His Power to Dissolve is one of the more illuminating books I have ever read. (It is about ecclesiastical marriage law.)

…The number seven subway in New York City is a delightful line.

You can ride it between Times Square and Grand Central in lieu of the tedious “Shuttle.” You can ride it out to Shea Stadium and the site of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs, which is where one of the wonders of the world is kept: the New York City Panorama.

The day after I ran the New York Marathon, I parked at a Queens diner, ate an omelette, and paid the owner ten dollars to keep an eye on my car for a few hours. Then I rode the Seven to Manhattan for a wonderful day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park, lunch with my brother, etc. Basically, the number seven is sweet.

Now the Number Seven is being extended by two stops to the west. And Archbishop Dolan blessed the huge tunnel drills!

What a world we live in, dear brothers and sisters in Christ! There is hardly time to take it all in. Can you believe that, on top of all this, the weekend will feature:

Caps. Celtics-Bulls. And of course, Nowitzness.

Seven Deadlies Compendium, Etc.

I woke up this morning feeling basically okay with myself. But then I discovered that I agree with Ken Woodward…(If the comic strips appearing here are too small for you to read, you can see a larger size by clicking on it.)

…According to the Law of Moses, capital crimes were to be punished by stoning to death.

The first stones were to be cast by the witnesses upon whose testimony the guilty party was convicted. Then everyone else could join in the stoning. By this violent act, the injustice of the crime would be purged from the nation.

God is perfectly just. He examines every heart. Before Him, no one is innocent.

But He has not cast a stone and done violence to the guilty ones. Rather, He subjected Himself to violence at the hands of the unjust.

By this violent act, our injustice is purged. We are not condemned to death.

God restores justice; we are pardoned; we may live.

…Here is a little compendium of my sermons on the seven deadly sins…

Pride

Greed and Envy

Anger and Lust

Gluttony and Sloth

Also, there are some new Bests above.

And I added a new feature above…a collection of the collections.

…I wish I could say that I am willing to take the sins of others upon myself, like our Lord.

I can say this, though: I do take the germs of others upon myself.

This is what communion under both species means for the priest: Taking the germs of the entire people upon yourself.

Tedious Politics

Click here for more scientific evidence that the Holy Father is right about monogamy vs. condoms.

…In a Solemn High Mass according to the pre-Vatican II Missal, the deacon kisses the hand of the priest some twenty times…

Should Notre Dame University have invited President Obama to address this year’s graduates?

Two springs ago, President Bush spoke at graduation at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. There were some protests. These protests seemed to me to be discourteous.

Notre Dame University

I do not find President Obama to be a convincing speaker. His legal position regarding procured abortion is incoherent and inhuman, as I explained last August.

Two springs ago, the peaceniks of southwest Pennsylvania howled because the evil warmonger was being honored on campus. St. Vincent President Jim Towey, formerly of the Bush administration, said that colleges need to welcome diverse viewpoints for the sake of dialogue.

Now pro-lifers are up-in-arms that America’s flagship Catholic university will honor history’s most pro-abortion U.S. President. And the University President says: “We hope for this to be the basis of an engagement with him.”

Give us a break, please. “Dialogue” obviously had nothing to do with the invitation in either of these cases.

What did have something to do with it is: The speaker in question is the President of the United States.

We live in a stable body politic; our leaders occupy stable offices. The offices are bigger than the individuals who occupy them. President Obama is wrong about legal abortion. But he is not the President of the “pro-choicers.” He is the duly elected President of the entire country.

The office of the Presidency of the United States carries genuine prestige by its own right. If the President is willing to address your graduates, don’t indulge in an uppity lie and say, “We intend to engage him in dialogue.” Just admit it: “We will be glad to have the President of our country speak to our graduates. It is an honor for us.” This is a perfectly reasonable thing for the president of any university to say.

What the President says in his speech may or may not be true, or memorable, or genuinely inspiring. But the President of the United States deserves our courteous attention, whether or not we agree with him. If he says things that are misleading or untrue, we have the freedom to point that out after he is finished. But if I disrespect my President, I am actually disrespecting myself.

P.S. Five minutes into the second half, Mizzou is beating up on the “unbeatable” Memphis Tigers! Yeah, buddy!! I’ve got Missouri picked to go all the way!

No Fears and No Pride

Alex Ovechkin

Abraham Lincoln is 200 years old. The Capitals lost a heartbreaker in Madison Square Garden on a shootout last night. And we are NOT worried about any Friday the Thirteenth.

To fear Friday the 13th is a type of superstition. “Divination” seeks knowledge about the course of events from dates, signs in the sky, or other auguries.

God provides for us every day of every month. To be afraid of Friday the 13th is a sin against the First Commandment.

Nonetheless, if you have an orange bathmat or doormat, make sure to use it on Saturday.

Stomp on anything orange, especially between noon and 2:00 p.m…

…How did Notre Dame just manage to beat Louisville by 33 points?

…Okay, here is today’s homily:

A man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh (Genesis 2:24)

The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away

Job 1:21

First: All the members of Preacher’s family would like to thank you for praying and supporting us with divine love. Please keep praying and supporting. God provides. He is good. Blessed be the name of the Lord! Everyone is still alive, thanks be to God.

We all have to take the good with the bad, however.

You would think that the Big Daddy of Big Daddies would give some relief to His unworthy servant and blogger. After all, your scribe has been launched into A.D. 2009 in a rough and tumble manner. (A sick relative and the victim of petty larceny, among other troubles.)

Everything looked so promising on Monday, December 29…