Daley & George.
It started with a high clerical source telling me that Mayor Daley called Francis Cardinal George on the phone and urged the prelate not to remove Fr. Michael Pfleger permanently. It was seconded when another knowledgeable (not high but well placed) source with connections in the city administration confirmed the call was made. It confirms what this column has maintained—that Pfleger is an important albeit ad hoc leader in Daley’s Democratic party who has been to Daley’s summer cottage and has shared the mayoral private box at White Sox games. Pfleger’s command of thousands of troops (most of them non-Catholic) who go to his church for Sunday (railing and screaming hate for whitey notwithstanding) is a home for political activism which is indispensable to the party. And as we know, the lay chancellor, Jimmy Lago, is an ex-precinct captain with heavy-heavy Democratic and liberal ties. And as we also know, “it can be said the Republican party never had a soul.”
One of the major law firms in this town is Daley & George…Michael Daley, the mayor’s brother and Jim George a partner. Daley & George may stand for another partnership. Can I prove the phone call was made? Nope. But was the suspension harmful to Pfleger and the Democratic party? Far from it: it gave Pfleger a new lease on life. It is not the first time the Catholic church here in Chicago and elsewhere has been made a pawn in politics courtesy of partnerships such as this. The Kennedys and Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston; the Democrats in the Congress and Theodore Cardinal McCarrick who spared them embarrassment by willfully subverting Ratzinger’s letter opposing pro-abort Catholic politicians being allowed to receive the Eucharist.
Earlier, George Cardinal Mundelein and FDR. FDR to Attorney General Francis Biddle to the IRS to threaten Dubuque archbishop Francis Beckman which got rid of a pesky independent-minded and anti-war prelate by threatening him with IRS action on paintings he had purchased as an investment for the archdiocese, leading to pressure for his forced recall by U. S., Catholic hierarchy including Mundelein. FDR to Thomas (Tommy the Cork) Corcoran to Mundelein, getting Mundelein’s approval on the nature of an appointment to the Vatican, not for an ambassador (that would be too risky in the anti-Catholic climate) but a special emissary, the retired U.S. Steel president (and a Protestant) Myron C. Taylor. FDR to Edward Cardinal Mooney of Detroit via Mundelein silencing Fr. Charles E. Coughlin because he was irritating Roosevelt. Note: Coughlin was an early day Pfleger and should have been silenced as a hate monger.
Earlier in the 20th century it goes back to Theodore Roosevelt and St. Paul archbishop John Ireland, Ireland giving the president political advice and the president lobbying for Ireland to get the red hat (which didn’t work and in fact killed any chance Ireland had).
Kmiec teaches constitutional law at Pepperdine? Too bad he wasn't around to teach one of the program's more distinguished alums... our esteemed Gover-not Hairbrush who proudly earned a "C" in that subject.
ReplyDeleteOught to count for something. Your characterization of Coughlin is probably error. Chapter and Verse? or just bowing to the media (who generally gets it wrong)? I expect, counting the Imprimaters they would amount to hundreds and hundreds in number. Don't get sandbagged as you were in the Joseph McCarthy matter.
ReplyDeleteThe mission of the Church is to teach the Gospel and the Magisterial teachings of the Church. When this is subjecated to the agenda of a Political Party--it is the Gospel and the Church which suffers.And this is so sad.
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