Visit America's Past--Be Shocked and Amazed

            On a recent spring day, chattering youngsters ran helter-skelter over ground Captain John Smith trod some 400 years ago. The kids were likely having more fun than Smith and his fellow colonists ever did.

            The children frolicked at what’s now called “Historic Jamestown” where—on May 13, 1607—104 men and boys established a fort and planted the first viable English colony in the New World.

Some 400 newcomers soon joined that cluster of pioneers. They experienced dreadful hardship. Crops failed, Indians attacked, and the colonists began starving. They grew so desperate that some dug up and ate their dead neighbors’ bodies. Between 1609 and 1610 all but 60 died.

Startling, alarming Jamestown is one of three pivotal historical sites on Virginia’s coast. The other two are Williamsburg and Yorktown.

For those who might not recall and those who have not visited those sites even once, a brief explanation:

 Yorktown Battlefield is where colonial troops forced the surrender of England’s supposedly invincible forces in the Revolutionary War.  The American victory dealt the blow that finally forced caused England to grant the colonies their independence.

Colonial Williamsburg is the famous and popular restored eighteenth century city where, along with others, America’s first and third U.S. presidents plotted rebellion against England. Actors stage mini dramas in the old town’s sandy streets. The place exudes eighteenth century colonial culture.

Jamestown is actually two distinct sites in the same park-like setting: “Historic Jamestown” and “Jamestown Settlement.”

Like Williamsburg, “Jamestown Settlement,” provides “living history” exhibits, costumed guides, and craft shows.  Each site offers entertaining films, recorded narratives and dioramas showing how events there fit into America’s story.

Historic Jamestown, though, is the history buff’s and archeologist’s delight. Visitors can see archeologists and their volunteers at work.

Rugged palisades show where the colonists’ initial fort stood. Crosses mark graves, and a lodge made of poles depicts the first colonists’ dormitory.

Historic Jamestown hammers home the reality and challenges facing the pioneer colonists. It also reveals to the unsuspecting the barbarity those Englishmen imported.

There is evidence, for instance, that at least one lawbreaker had been drawn and quartered, meaning he was tied to a horse and dragged to the execution site. He was then hanged until almost dead, and, while alive, cut open so the executioner could pull out his internal organs. Finally, horses were tied to each limp and the victim’s body was pulled apart.

Unlike the pious Pilgrims who settled Massachusetts to escape religious persecution, the Jamestown settlers were part of a business venture. They invaded the Indians’ domain and ultimately reaped vengeance.

Historic Jamestown presents a complex, often surprising but realistic tale of perseverance and greed that eventually mutated into the hard but genteel southern civilization neighboring Williamsburg exhibits.

The place shows that, whatever else you might say, America’s start was dramatic—and amazing.

                                                                        ----Gus Gribbin

 

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For Pope Francis--A Smile; a Frown

       Pope Francis made a number of bishops happy and a number of nuns sad recently.

            The bishops could rejoice in the news that the Pope appointed a panel of eight bishops from around the world to overhaul the secretive and some say scheming Vatican Curia.

            America’s nuns and their many Catholic and non-Catholic admirers and followers are saddened because the Pope reaffirmed his predecessor’s reprimand of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

 The Conference, an umbrella group, represents 80 percent of the nation’s 57,000 nuns—including the popular “Nuns on the Bus,” who toured the nation in June 2012. The small group of nuns stopped at food pantries, schools, homeless shelters, and health care facilities run by nuns to highlight the work they do. In effect they were protesting the Vatican’s criticism of them.

The protest apparently has had little effect. By Papal edict the Leadership Conference, will be subjected to a “program of reform,” a scary-sounding phrase with echoes of the Inquisition or the old Soviet Union.

            But about the bishops:

It has been widely reported that bishops over the globe have complained of the curia’s intransigence and controversial decisions and for blocking access to the Pope. The curia, a powerful clique of clerical bureaucrats, has for decades—even centuries—run the affairs of the church.  It was thought that the entrenched bureaucracy was too powerful to change.

 Until now.

The new task force that will consult with Pope Francis includes Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston and archbishops from Chile, India, Germany, Congo, Australia, and Honduras.  There is one holdover from the Curia, Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, the Vatican city-state’s administrative president.  The panel will hold its first meeting in October.

Reports in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the National Catholic Reporter state that the idea of such a taskforce was raised during the days before the election of the new Pope. But it apparently originated in the course of the Second Vatican Council that Pope John XXIII called for in 1959. The Council sessions ran from 1962 to 1965.

To the delight of Catholic “liberals” who applauded the changes encouraged by the Council, Pope Francis seems to agree with them.

 In a National Catholic Reporter story dated April 16, Thomas C. Fox wrote that Pope Francis recently called the Council “a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit.” In a homily, the Pope admonished those who “…don’t want to change,” adding,” what’s more, there are those who wish to turn the clock back.” He called such people “stubborn.”

It is difficult to reconcile the spirit of understanding and kindness Pope Francis has so far projected with his stand regarding the nuns.

Repression of the nuns, whose writings, speeches, and decisions regarding conference speakers will be scrutinized and censored, clashes with the openness and free speech cherished by U.S. citizens.

The nuns have been scolded for their “feminism.” This apparently refers to their reported tolerance for the notion that the Church should consider the ordination of women.

 Moreover in the most bizarre charge, the nuns were accused of focusing on caring for the sick, depraved, despised, and needy among us rather than challenging those who countenance abortion rights and gay marriage.

It’s hard to see those who do such good punished so harshly.

                                                                         ---Gus Gribbin

 

Who’s Afraid of North Korea’s Bad, Belligerent Kim Jong-un?

            North Korea, that cruel, destitute,sword-rattling nation, ranks along with such nations as Berkina Fasco, Tuvalu, and Comorous as nations Americans rarely, if ever, think about. Until, that is, North Korea declares it’s goings to bomb Austin Texas and A-bomb South Korea.

            Obviously North Korea and its chub-chub dictator with the shaved sideburns and bowl-shaped haircut don’t like obscurity.

            But the way the country’s leadership goes about seeking attention is odd. No insane.

The country issues warnings that it is about to invade its neighbor. It broadcasts videos of troops in live-fire exercises, and images of its fat dictator studying military maps with ranks of Army officers at his back. And there are photos of armed women soldiers marching—one trooper wearing high heels.

It’s really not common these days for nations to give advance notice they’re going to invade or attack a neighbor or enemy.  Remember Pearl Harbor?

Sure, North Korea owns A-bombs and it may be able to mount one on a ballistic missile. But while North Korea has fewer than 10 bombs with an unknown number “active” (or effective as a bomb) the United States has 7,700 with 2,150 active. And the world knows that if South Korea is attacked, the United States is pledged to defend her. And the U.S. defense is capable of delivering devastation.l

So North Korea’s actions are farcical. We’re witnessing slap-stick comedy.

 North Korea is like a Chihuahua barking and snarling at a Doberman Pinscher. If the tiny dog attacked it would lose its head in one bite.

Indeed tiny dogs bark at bigger dogs because they are fearful and show bravado to assure the big guys won’t bother them. And big dogs mostly just ignore their little K9 cousins.

In fact, even though some news accounts refer to the “North Korea crisis,” most of the world seems more confused than seriously worried about the North’s threats. Still, government and military officials must prepare for the utterly remote chance that either by accident or intent North Korea creates a violent incident.

There is a mildly amusing aspect to the situation North Korea has caused. That’s because media pundits, foreign affairs scholars, and think-tank fellows fall all over themselves on news shows trying to explain North Korea’s unexplainable actions. All eventually concede no one knows what’s in the mind of the Pyongyang dictator or his handlers. All theories seem to defy the test of logic, as some “experts” admit.

However Andrei Lankov, a history professor at Kookmin University in Seongbuk-gu, a city near Seoul in South Korea, has a suggestion. In a New York Times Op-Ed Page article, he writes:

“…It does not make sense to credulously take their [North Korea’s] fake belligerence at face value and give them the attention they want now. It would be better if people in Washington and New York took a lesson from the people of Seoul.” In Seoul, he notes, it’s business as usual.

A final thought though:

If after this blog is posted and read and North Korea actually makes good on any of his taunts and threats--well, let’s just pretend the blog were never written.

                                                                                    ---Gus Gribbin

 

 

 

Will the Surprising New Pope Fulfill Our Hopes?

Pope Francis has been making wonderful surprise gestures. Hopeful signs.

 He has shown concern for people:

 Ignoring security, he leaves his armored car to mingle with the St. Peter’s Square crowd. He urges humility and care for the poor in his homilies.  And in the week this is written, he is conducting Holy Week services at a juvenile detention center rather than at St. Peter’s Basilica.  

What’s more, Pope Francis has opted not to live in the elegant and isolating Vatican papal apartment. He will lodge permanently in the pedestrian hotel when he stayed prior to his election. He wants to be with people—ordinary priests and others doing business with the Vatican.

The changes are inspiring.

For many Americans, though, hope in Pope Francis will be fulfilled if and when he acts to heal the wounds and scandal caused by pedophile priests and callus bishops and when—and if--he leashes the Vatican hounds yapping at our American nuns.

It may be unreasonable to think the Pope was advised of two St. Patrick’s Day broadcasts on American television. Had learned about them, he would have gotten a good idea how U.S. Catholics and others currently feel about the institution he heads.

Meet the Press proved especially revealing.

David Gregory, the NBC program’s host, conversed with four public figures known to be Catholics: Chris Matthews, NBC political commentator and host of his own show; Ana Navarro, GOP political strategist; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, author and former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, and Frank Keating, politician and former GOP Governor of California.  All expressed the hope that Pope Francis would at last change the Church’s trajectory. They indicated why.

Said Mr. Matthews:

“…A lot of us that go to church talk about it. It really doesn’t sound right on television. But there’s always been a real suspicion…about the way the church handled sexual abuse of altar boys…it was never dealt with quick enough.

“…The slowness made a lot of us suspicious they were covering up more than just this…. every Catholic that goes to church thinks like this. They don’t like talking about it; maybe I shouldn’t have…but the church wasn’t on top of this thing. And people say, ‘Wait a minute, what side are they on, the priests’ or the altar boys?’ They should be on the side of the altar boys.”

 “I don’t think you should be feeling any Catholic guild about talking about this,” Ms. Navarro declared. “We must air it out. And I think this pope needs to understand…. I can tell you, I’m a Catholic who’s grown very distant from the church, and it has been over this sexual scandal.

“I just can’t get over the cover-up. I can’t get over putting the institution above the people. This [election of Pope Francis] is something that I hope he brings me back. And I think there’s a lot of American Catholics who feel the same way. We want that hope. We want the hope from the new pope, and hope that he brings it back. ”

Ms. Townsend has aired her feelings in her book, Failing America’s Faithful: How Today’s Churches Are Mixing God and Politics and Losing Their Way. On Meet the Press, though, she noted that for decades American Church leaders have focused almost exclusively on sexual matters and downplayed the Church’s social agenda.

“That and the scandals leave you suspicious,” she said. “The Church always has a range of issues, and what are they focused on? Unfortunately, in the last 20 years, I would say they focused mostly on sex. And I hope that with this pope, they’ll focus more on something that brings us together rather than individually saying, ‘You’re bad on sex.’ It’s just the church of sex.”

Of course the Church has been more than a church concerned about sex. It has been a church of fear also—the hierarchy’s fear of opinions that challenge current Vatican rules.

Church leaders especially fear outspoken U.S. nuns who declare for the equality of women in the Church.  The nuns have been called “insubordinate,” “radical feminists” who have created a “crisis” and are “undermining the Church.” A censor has been appointed to scrutinize all the nuns’ writings and the words of speakers at their meetings.

 In a nation where free expression of ideas is a prized, insisted-on right, the Vatican’s action against the nuns seems harsh, even churlish.

The CBS program 60 Minutes depicted the standoff between America’s nuns and the Vatican. The program aired interviews with Sister Pat Farrell, head of the Leadership Conference of Nuns, and with J. Peter Sartain, Seattle’s archbishop. The archbishop has been appointed watchdog over the Conference, which represents 80 percent of the nation’s 57,000 U.S. Catholic nuns.

Importantly, 60 Minutes’ videos showed the nuns doing basic good works, doing what many of us call ”God’s will”—feeding the hungry, caring for the sick and dispossessed, counseling addicts, teaching poor children and comforting society’s rejects. Among the nuns there are nurses and lawyers dedicating their talents and their lives to help the needy.

Yet the Vatican chastised the nuns for doing such work to the exclusion of campaigning against same sex marriage and abortion. Many Catholics and non-Catholics were appalled.

If what the nuns do is insubordinate, let’s have more nunish insubordination. I f these educated highly articulate and completely loyal ladies of the Church think they should have equality in Church affairs, well, they have earned it.

And it’s practically certain that  a talented and devoted women running a diocese would have been on the side of the altar boys, as Chris Matthews put it, and not prone to shield monster rapist priests.

                                                                                ----Gus Gribbin

Can Absolute Faith Be Bad? “Absolutely,” a Philosopher Says

“Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.”

               Eric Hoffer, the “longshoreman philosopher,” said that.

 His insight raises a timely question during the Lenten season and when there is so much news about the Catholic faith and faith in general. But is Hoffer correct?

                First—for those who might not remember Eric Hoffer:

 He is the Bronx-born thinker whose ten critically acclaimed books and pithy aphorisms earned him a substantial readership and critical acclaim during the mid-20^th century. In February 1983 President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

 Hoffer was born in 1902 and died in May 1983—three months after receiving the medal. He lived a hard-scrabble life doing odd jobs, working as a crop picker, spending time homeless, and working for years on San Francisco’s docks.

 At first glimpse Mr. Hoffer’s observation about faith sounds heretical. It wars with the prodding of clerics who cajole followers to believe “with all their heart, mind, and soul” in the power of God, in the words of the Bible or Koran, in the dogmas and rites of their religions, and, among other things, in the power of prayer, “which can move mountains.”

After all, didn’t Jesus mildly rebuke the apostle Thomas—“Doubting Thomas”—for his skepticism? Perhaps you’ll remember the scriptural account:

                After Jesus’ death and resurrection, he appeared to a few followers. Thomas wasn’t among them. When told of the apparition, Thomas declared he would believe that tale only if he could meet Jesus personally and see the nail marks in his hands and feel the spear wound in his side.

Jesus returned when Thomas was around. He invited Thomas to examine his hands and to finger the wound in his side. Thomas did and was convinced.

  Jesus said “You believe because you have seen me. Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.”  (In some translations the term “happy” is stated as “blessed.”)

In any event, Jesus seems to allow little room for skepticism.

                Hoffer, on the other hand, likely would give Doubting Thomas high marks. 

Why? Consider the meaning of faith.

Faith is the “confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.” It is “belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.” So states the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. (Italics and boldface mine.)

Faith has power because believers yield it to the idea, person, or object they vest belief in. Faith is a choice. The believer chooses to accept the validity and trustworthiness of a religion, a political theory, a medical procedure, an invention, a friend--and themselves. Believers reject all arguments or proofs against their choice.

 Faith then is a sort of self-induced blindness. It allows or causes us to block consideration of challenging statements and sometimes even thoughts.

It’s easy to see how power corrupts. Think of Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, and any other dictator who committed horrible crimes, yet maintained a fervent following.

And there are bewildering examples of the power of those who inspire faith.

 The Rev Sun Myung Moon, for instance, an electrical engineer from Korea, founded the Unification Church. He called himself “The Messiah,” and said Jesus had failed in his mission, but that he, the Rev. Moon, would fulfill it.

Skeptics might question his qualifications for the job. He divorced one wife, had a child out of wedlock, and remarried a third woman. He was convicted in the United States of tax evasion and conspiracy. He seemed not to live a saintly life. Yet numbers of his disciples—“the Moonies”—begged and sold trinkets on streets and in airports. The Rev. Moon parlayed the funds collected from around the world into successful businesses. He profited hugely and lived lavishly from his followers’ work and donations.

 The Rev. Moon’s power was such that tens of thousands of his followers allowed him and his wife to choose spouses for them and to marry them in mass weddings.

Jim Jones didn’t claim to be the Messiah. He was a Marxist and admitted atheist who believed he could sway people to follow his social principles by creating a religion. So he founded the Peoples’ Temple. Eventually he convinced many of his devoted followers to help him create a utopia in Jonestown, Guyana.

 The Jonestown story and its unraveling is remarkable, but best remembered because of its ending. As Alan Riding wrote in the New York Times, the tale, “…is a gripping account of how decent people can be taken in by a charismatic and crazed tyrant.”

                On November 18, 1978, when reporters and others were demanding an investigation of the Jonestown community and of Jones’ suspected abuses, he took action. He convinced 918 followers to murder their children and commit suicide. He had them drink fruit-flavored cyanide then shot himself. The event shocked the world. It was one of the largest mass suicides in history.

                From 1981 to 2006, in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka some 1,200 persons detonated themselves, murdering 14,599 people. Although a mix of reasons caused the bombers to sacrifice themselves, religion played a prominent part. But whatever the immediate cause, there was fundamental faith that the self- immolation was appropriate. The bombers let themselves believe it.

                I suspect Hoffer might say he had no quarrel with belief. He would caution, though, that they shouldn’t let themselves be buffaloed.

 Which is just common sense.

                                                                                ----Gus Gribbin

Ø  Mr. Riding‘s observation appeared in his October 7, 2011 review of A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown by Julia Scheeres.

Snack Food’s Irresistible, You say? Actually, You’re Right

You don’t know Howard Moskowitz. But Howard Moskowitz knows you.

                At least he knows what kind of food will make you—and especially your children—happy and craving more, and more, and more. That is tremendously important knowledge. As applied, it has much to do with the nation’s current obesity problem.

                A fellow you might know because of his reporting and writing is Michael Moss.

 Mr. Moss, a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times investigative reporter, has mostly recently done Americans the service of explaining who Mr. Moskowitz is and how he “optimizes” products for such companies as Campbell Soup, General Food, Kraft and Pepsi Co.

The explanation comes in an article adapted from Mr. Moss’ book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. The adaptation ran as the cover story of the New York Times Magazine of February 24. Random House is scheduled to release the book this month.

 Judging from the Time’s adaptation, the book will be an easy, fascinating—indeed devastating—read. Hopefully it will become a best seller and, like such books as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, it will awaken the nation to the immense problem the processed food and grocery-store industry are complicit in causing. Perhaps it will provoke action against the processed food industry similar to that taken against the tobacco industry.

Of course, it is not news that so-called junk food isn’t good for us. Mr. Moss doesn’t break ground here. What is new is Mr. Moss’ finding that the food industry is well aware of the problem its manufactured foods are causing, but doesn’t care. The industry has consciously created and just about perfected the ability to alter products to make them addictive.

                Mr. Moss’ article explains how Mr. Moskowitz and other scientists, promoters and marketers have engineered techniques that tend to defeat adults’ will power, prodding them to consume unhealthy quantities of unhealthy foods.  Children, who have yet to learn restraint, are especially vulnerable to craving the food engineers create.

                Mr. Moss spent four years researching his book. He spoke to more than 300 former food industry scientists, marketers, and Chief Operating Officers. He gathered thousands of pages of secret memos, “from inside the food industry’s operations.”

                In his Times’ adaptation, Mr. Moss presents a group of “small case studies of a handful of characters whose work then, and perspective now, sheds light on how the foods are created and sold to people who, while not powerless, are extremely vulnerable to the intensity of these companies’ industrial formulations and selling campaigns.”

                Take Mr. Moskowitz, for instance. He is a Harvard-trained experimental psychologist who runs a White Plains, New York consulting firm. He and his team of researchers pay regular consumers to taste, smell, feel, touch, and react to whatever product is being tested. The consumers give their opinions about a food’s “mouth feel,” and other sensations that range from the item’s “dryness to gumminess to moisture release” and a host of other qualities.

 The consumers’ opinions are fed to computers. Mathematical models are created. From the resulting graphs, charts, and analyses, the Moskowitz team arrives at a product’s “bliss point.” That is the point at which the potato chip, say, has optimum appeal—the point where it is closest to addicting because it has the maximum amount of “crave.” It is the point that yields maximum resistance to an individual’s will power.

Sadly, too many of us cave in to a product’s crave.

As a result, Americans currently overeat to the extent that one third of the U.S. adult population is clinically obese. Worse, a fifth of the nation’s youngsters also are clinically obese.

It’s common knowledge that obesity is a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes. But the incidence of diabetes is increasing. It now afflicts some 24 million in the United States. Seventy-nine million have been judged pre-diabetic. Moreover gout—once fairly rare—is on the rise. The severely painful arthritic condition associated with eating rich foods and with obesity now affects 8 million.

In common usage we refer to an obese person as grossly fat. To be clinically obese individuals must weigh at least 20 percent more than their ideal weight. The trouble with obesity, aside from the inconvenience and outright hardship of lugging the extra baggage, is that obesity is a risk factor not only for diabetes but for high blood pressure and a batch of other unpleasant and threatening diseases.

As long ago as 1999, James Behnke, an enlightened chemist with a doctorate in food science and a Pillsbury executive, contrived to stage a meeting with the Chief Executive Officers and presidents of Kraft, Nabisco, General Mills Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and Mars.  He and other ranking food industry executives wanted to warn the company bigwigs of what was being called a national obesity epidemic. He pointed out that the processed food industry was being accused of causing the fattening of America.

 As Mr. Moss puts it, Mr. Behnke and his cohorts wanted to “warn the C.E.O.s that their companies may have gone too far in creating and marketing products that posed the greatest health concerns.”  Sincere efforts “to be part of the solution” were called for, they said. That way the industry might “defuse the criticism that’s building against us.”

The C.E.O.s rejected the warning. Since then the problems Mr. Behnke and other outlined have gotten worse.

And we Americans have seen greed inspire gluttony.

                                                                       ----Gus Gribbin

 

 

Cardinal in Abuse Scandals is Sorry—for Himself

                Poor Cardinal Roger Mahony. He says he has been humiliated.

The 76-year- old former archbishop of the Los Angeles diocese says he has been defamed and apparently hurt by people who are angry at him.

 Well sure they are.

They’re irate because recently disclosed files show he violated California law and shielded predator priests from disclosure and possible arrest for involvement in some 500 child abuse cases.  Besides, the $660 million the archdiocese paid as settlement for the crimes simply can’t compensate for the lewd sacrileges.

In a Valentine’s Day blog titled “Called to Humiliation,” the Cardinal writes that he is, “asking for the grace to endure the level of humiliation.”  He continues:

“In the past several days, I have experienced many examples of being humiliated….I have been confronted in various places by very unhappy people. I could understand the depth of their anger and outrage—at me, at the Church, at about injustices that swirl around us. Thanks to God’s special grace, I simply stood there, asking God to bless and forgive them.”

                The Cardinal says he understands. But does he?

                The “depth of anger,” has been brewing for years. It boiled over with the court-ordered release of files the Cardinal fought for years to conceal. The documents showed he knew California law required reporting child abuse incidents, yet he hushed up the crimes. He moved the accused priests around—sometimes out of state—to protect them.

 The Cardinal’s own words reveal the cover-up.

Although he underwent specifically limited questioning about the child abuse scandals some time ago, the prelate is slated to be quizzed again on Saturday, February 23. At this deposition there will be no limit on the range of questions about how he and his minions handled child-abuse cases. The Cardinal is expected to be grilled specifically about the actions of the Rev Nicolas Aguilar Rivera. Police are seeking the now-defrocked and fugitive priest in connection with molesting 26 youngsters in Los Angeles in 1987. The former priest is believed to be hiding in Mexico.

Following the new interrogation, the Cardinal will leave for Rome to participate in selection of a new Pope. Some insist he should not participate in the election. In fact, Catholics United, the non-partisan U.S. political group, has announced it is leading a nationwide effort to urge the Cardinal to recuse himself.

What’s more, the National Catholic Reporter’s John L. Allen writes in a February 19 blog that   based on a newsmagazine poll, it appears many Italians want Cardinal Mahony to “stay away” from the Papal election. Mr. Allen noted that in response to a poll by the large-circulation Catholic newsmagazine Famiglia Cristiana, one reader wrote:

“It seems inconceivable to me that he [Cardinal Mahony] doesn’t feel the moral duty to abstain from the conclave. His participation would cause further scandal to the little ones, to the weak, to the defenseless. He should stay at home and pray.”

In many of his recent blog posts, the Cardinal writes piously about his spiritual approach to dealing with the hostile barbs and “scapegoating.” It’s as if all the uproar is about him. Actually it isn’t all about him. The sustained, fomenting outrage is at the ordained monsters who rape kids.  The Cardinal is seen as just another co-conspirator.

But the rampant indignation is also about the humiliation contaminated clergymen have heaped upon wincing Catholics in the pews. It’s about a seeming lack of sympathy for the devastated victims of obscene, lustful priests. It’s about the fact that too often the victims have been treated like hostiles attacking the righteous church.

And when all is said and done, the poor cardinal’s humiliation can’t begin to match that of the predator priests’ victims.

                                                                                                                ----Gus Gribbin