Rick Kogan.
Yesterday I responded to one who signed himself Rick Kogan who reported that in my column on the Chicago media, I committed no fewer than 14 grammatical errors. Naturally everyone at The Chicago Daily Observer thought it was the Rick Kogan who writes for The Tribune and broadcasts occasionally on WGN.
I THOUGHT it was funny since I don’t know Rick Kogan and felt he has no reason to display animosity to me…and now we find out that the correspondent was not the journalist Rick Kogan at all—but either someone else with his name or one who wished to misrepresent him.
The journalist Rick Kogan wrote The Observer to explain it was not him so for my comments about him yesterday I apologize because I thought it was the real Rick Kogan. Have I lost you so far? Well, there’s more. The real Rick Kogan wrote: “Well, there may indeed be another Rick Kogan out there but this Rick Kogan who works for the Tribune and has worked for the Sun-Times and Daily News and appreciates commentary of any kind, even over-heated and wrong-headed, did not send the previous message.” Complicated, huh?
To him I say: Accept this as a half apology. For my having criticized you since I believed you were the real Rick Kogan. But since you imply my article was over-heated and wrong-headed…I will take half of it back. Oh, what the hell, Real Rick: let’s forget it altogether and have a drink at the place that replaced Riccardo’s.
The Church Militant.
The late Robert Novak told me that he became a Catholic after reading the history of the Church. He decided to convert because, he says, any church that could survive the ignominy of clergy who have disgraced it for 2,000 years must be divine. Good point—and these two news items reaffirm Novak’s point.
Clerical Bubblehead No 1.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn has recorded a robo-call…going to every registered voter in a certain city council district…praising Democratic Assemblyman Vito Lopez. It doesn’t bother Bishop DiMarzio one whit that Lopez, a Catholic, has been endorsed by NARAL (National Abortion Rights League) and has sponsored a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in New York. The reason for the prelate’s warm praise: Lopez helped derail a bill that would have lifted the statute of limitations against pedophilia priests and other clergy accused of indecent acts. The bishop says he doesn’t call upon voters to reelect Lopez…who is facing a very tight squeeze for reelection… but he just wants to thank him on behalf of the Brooklyn diocese.
Clerical Bubblehead No. 2.
Santa Fe [N.M.] Archbishop Michael Sheehan told the National Catholic Reporter last week that he supported Notre Dame’s decision to confer an honorary degree on President Obama and further cannot understand the reason for what he called the “big scene” of protests against Obama’s address and honorary degree. “We don’t want to isolate ourselves from the rest of America by our strong views on abortion and the other things,” he said. What “other things?” Probably the items listed in the 10 commandments. He exhibited his further ignorance thusly: “We’d be like the Amish, you know, kind of isolated from society, if we kept pulling back because of a single issue.”
Both deserve the Thomas Cranmer Medal…named for the Archbishop of Canterbury [1489-1556] who processed the request of Henry VIII to the pope for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon and handed the Church to Henry as his plaything, designating him sovereign head of the Church of England. Unfortunately weasel Cranmer got caught between the switches and when Mary I, a Catholic, ascended the throne she took it rather hard that wily old Cranmer had renounced his and her faith and converted to Protestantism. So she locked him up and condemned him to death. Then Cranmer experienced a most nervous, jittery re-conversion to Catholicism. Then when he found out his re-conversion to Catholicism would do him no good, he…let’s see how one says this…re-re-re-converted to Protestantism. His head was lopped off by Bloody Mary (who was no more bloody than Henry) and…believe it or not…this weak vessel Cranmer was proclaimed a martyr to Anglicanism.
To both DiMarzio and Sheehan the Cranmer medal…with our salutations.
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