WILL ARCHDIOCESE CAVE TO PFLEGER TO PLEASE TRIB EDITORIAL BOARD?

       Q.  What makes you say that?
       A.  Just because I know how the Archdiocese thinks. “Can’t we all get along?” The namby pamby Bruce Dold-orderedTribune editorial reflects a disjointed p.r. sense that means a lot to the wishy-washy of which that paper is the true exemplar.  The Sun-Times would be thrilled.  Jimmy Lago would be celebrated for putting it together.   Msgr. Ken Velo would do individual TV cameos.
       Ex-priest Bob McClory would blow kisses and say now the Church here is truly inclusive. Barbara Blaine whose face ordinarily looks contorted with grievance like a clenched fist would relax.   Hans Kung-influenced theologians would declare Pfleger’s soul has been spared from his threat to leave the Church.    The parishioners of Sabina’s would be pacified and tend to accept their new pastor knowing that Pfleger is happy.       Nothing better than sublimating a split  and papering over real conviction. Oh how Ms. Marin would be happy.   And Laura Washington and those experts on Catholic theology—Neil Steinberg and Richard Roeper.   The Cardinal would be celebrated as a true statesman of the Church.   Would that make him happy? Would it? Do kids like ice cream?  
       Q.  Not that you have a glimmer of what a possible settlement would be?
       A. I don’t. But suppose…just suppose… there comes an offer for Pfleger to head up a newly created archdiocesan office of Social Justice…so he could visit a number of parishes and do variants of his St. Sabina’s act with a hand mike where he bounced off the walls imitating Hillary Clinton. Wouldn’t that be ducky?
        Q.  Changing the subject, what was the most revealing thing that has happened about the Osama bin Laden killing since the original announcement?
       A.  A statement that I guarantee you won’t appear in the Sun-Times or the Tribune or The New York Times  or any of the network news shows.  The fact that Central Intelligence Director Leon Panetta has acknowledged that early waterboarding under Bush  produced in part information that eventuated in bin Laden’s killing.  Certainly this will not appear  in any of Lynn Sweet’s breathless daily diaries that convey how fast her little liberal heart is beating at the prospect that Barack Obama may get some mileage out of this.   Has anybody wondered why Sweet doesn’t cover the Illinois congressional delegation despite the fact that she carries the title chief of the paper’s Washington bureau?  Easy title since she’s the only one on the bureau.  She is entirely given over to Obama and his wife.  Moreover, she has now become not just incorrigible but utterly shameless—nothing more than a stenographer hewing to the party line.