Personal Aside: Bill Daley’s Weird Description of Catholic…The “Tribune’s” Stretching of Credulity…Carol Marin, Mary Anne Ahern and Sneed and More.

Won’t You Come Home, Bill Daley?

In an Op Ed published in the economically and intellectually bankrupt “Tribune,” Bill Daley, the mayor’s kid brother, criticizes Cardinal Francis George of Notre Dame by saying that the prelate widens the gap between “the church, its members and the rest of America.”

Aquinas would judge Daley’s as vincible ignorance. Meaning, of course, that Daley knows better but believes the Church should allow beliefs of all kinds and ideologies…all the better to accommodate the current state of his Catholicism which is exceedingly perilous. Daley is divorced from his wife Loretta with whom he fathered three kids-- and has announced he will shortly remarry. Divorce and remarriage ends formal Catholic affiliation unless one has secured an annulment…which because of prior abuses in this country…particularly Boston with the Kennedys and John Kerry. Kerry, the richest man in the Senate, owns the world cup for gigolo now that Virginia’s John Warner has retired. Once married to Julia Thorne a multi-millionaire heiress, Kerry found her bouts of depression tiresome. Now he has another heiress: the widow of John Heinz, mega-billionaire of the catsup family.

Teresa was a widow so her Catholicity was a-OK but Heinz was divorced. No one knows if lavish contributions to specific archdiocesan charities greased an annulment as they were rumored to do so with the libertine Kennedys…or if an annulment was ever granted…since the media is too decorous to ask—but every time H.J. Heinz stock rises, Kerry falls in love with billionaire heiress Teresa Heinz (she kept her old married name) all over again.

Similarly, if the local media could drop its old protective ways and be inquisitive again, they would inquire as to whether Bill will get an annulment—but it’s very doubtful since Loretta appears to be the innocent party.

Bill’s Divorce Problem.

As a man insatiably eager to scratch an itch but can’t reach it, Daley’s ambition for political office supersedes any other consideration with him. Events seem to be blocking him every step of the way. One was the supposed messy details of his divorced. He decided not to run for governor earlier against Blago in 2002 after Alderman Dick Mell…Blago’s then loyal father-in-law… threatened to go public with the details of Daley’s divorce—which caused Daley to rethink it. Mell evidently had the goods that would have turned the campaign into a referendum on Daley’s personal life so his plans fizzled.

Daley was ready to run for governor in 2010 when testimony exploded in the Al Sanchez trial with testimony that Daley was instrumental in starting the notorious HDO (Hispanic Democratic Organization) which served as a conduit for rigged political hires in city government. When asked Daley said he “could not recall” any such meeting. Uh-huh. Of course not: that’s Daley denial! Immediately afterward he decided once again to scrap running for governor—saying he wants to see how Pat Quinn does. Uh-huh. Without this latest embarrassment, Daley would have been ready to run and obviously in the campaign would continue to call himself a Catholic—which seems to be important to his breed even if he’s not one. He might even receive communion sacraments unworthily…in order to capitalize on his affiliation as do many others who are in denial. But divorce and remarriage is the toughest hurdle for one who, like Daley, wants to continue to cash in as a Catholic. Why? There’s an historic advantage to being one politically…not breaking with the Church formally which is a political no-no… even if you receive the sacraments in sacrilege.

The stumbling block is that in the Church’s eyes, marriage is a contract: not just a civil one but a sacred covenant by which God established marriage as the natural means of procreating and educating. The Church that Daley claims he belongs to…and may not in the future through his own choice…believes that when marriage is between two baptized persons, the contract becomes a sacrament. The partners have agreed to take each other as husband and wife and to continue taking each other through death. All this Daley knows but pretends he does not.

Thus because of his coming remarriage, it is very understandable that Daley calls himself a Catholic and advocates a much wider dimension for his church in his Op Ed. He is a very smooth, corporate board-room article…far different than his oldest brother…long ago separated the articles of his Faith from his political actions…beginning when he moved into the national political arena and took on a leadership role in behalf of Bill Clinton, a pro-abort in order to please the majority of the Democratic party.

At that time, former Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey, a Democrat and pro-lifer, became a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President and wanted to address the 1992 Democratic convention but was denied permission to do so by the self-same Bill Daley, a Clinton operative who believed that Casey’s pro-life beliefs were inconsistent with the goals of the Democratic party and barred Casey by fiat. This is the same Bill Daley who wants the Catholic church to open its doors to those of broader beliefs on abortion and other issues…and be, well, “tolerant.” This is what Aquinas meant by vincible ignorance: vincible because it’s inconsistent.

Inconsistent—but then inconsistency is a jewel for Bill Daley as he pursues his vincible ignorance in other things. Now he preaches in the “Tribune” that Obama should be allowed to speak at Notre Dame because a majority of Catholics voted for him. Hmmm. He knows better than try to sell that. It’s an intriguing view of how to formulate moral law: count noses. A majority of Pennsylvanians voted for Bob Casey as auditor general and then as governor, too—but somehow those majorities didn’t affect Daley’s mind…even though Casey turned down overtures to become a Republican, staying loyal to the Democratic party.

In his Op Ed piece, Bill Daley worries that politics might somehow become intermingled with religion basis Cardinal George’s views. Good heavens we don’t want that to happen! That the ornate ceiling and walls haven’t fallen in on him in his office as Midwest Chairman of JP Morgan Chase is a tribute to the magnanimous mercy of Almighty God. The Democratic party here in Chicago entertains all manner of black preachers turning their pulpits over to the Democratic party on Sundays…as well as a blond-haired white Catholic priest, Fr. Michael Pfleger, who has made his pastorate at Saint Sabina’s a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic party…and who has threatened to split and start his own church-front church if he’s ordered out of Saint Sabina’s. And Daley worries that by objecting to the invitation extended to the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history by an ostensibly Catholic university purportedly committed to the teachings of the Church, Cardinal George has threatened to erase the line between religion and politics!

Bill Daley’s position is easy to understand. Again, it’s vincible ignorance, the quest which knows better, a quest for an apparent good over an ultimate good.

The Tribune Editorial.

Being lectured on matters of principle by the bankrupt “Tribune,” is like being called spineless by a gerbil. The paper has renounced any claim it had to its past intellectual integrity when it let its board of directors—business types with no ballast in the field of ideas—decide it should back Obama because he is black and a Chicagoan which would mean advertising dollars (which didn’t pay off)…and not to do so would generate too much heat on the paper’s sensitive backside.

Earlier the paper slid mushily to pro-abortion and pro-gay rights in order to placate the liberal mob. Now the so-called “editorial board”…a rudderless group of mostly liberals including a black woman who edited the paper’s cookbook…is headed by Bruce Dold, a Catholic, vincibly ignorant, knowing better but is a stenographer for his business department bosses and powerless to affect the paper’s editorial content. Dold or whomever he delegated to write the paper’s editorial did the usual journeyman job of stringing together irrelevancies.

It begins by saying the editorial page doesn’t “presume to tell a church how to practice its faith” but then proceeds to do so…right out of the old malleable Unitarian-cum liberal psalm book where majority—not principle—rules. It argues that by opposing Obama’s speech and honorary degree at Notre Dame was “rude” of George. It asks speciously whether Catholicism means one must refuse a president who doesn’t agree with all the beliefs of the Church. Then it recycles the Bill Daley argument: since Obama and Biden got a majority of the Catholic votes, Obama’s position should be honored by the Church. Then it concludes by simpering: “How many Catholics of the archdiocese do you think were moved to tears on Nov. 4 by the election of…[the] first African American president?” Sob-sob.

And then to ensure the tears continue flowing the page cites its once editorial editor, Don Wycliffe, a Catholic black, elevated by the editorial to a kind of Black Everyman…who feels good that another black is president: a wonderful reason to let Obama speak. For that inestimable service you can take the day off, Dold. Get some rest: It won’t be long before you start answering phones as an account exec at Edelman & Associates public relations.



Carol Marin.

Hers is a case of invincible ignorance…which absolves one for having to know better. Mal-educated and a prematurely orange haired 50ish matron with a yen for the `60s and her contact with the late Msgr. Jack Egan and his nun secretary. Egan, a Saul Alinsky revolutionary, was a throwback to the civil rights era who made damned sure that when he marched with King he…Egan… wasn’t arrested (while others who linked arms with him were). Egan convinced Marin that’s what the Church should be: women priests, elected bishops, a double-duty dispenser social benefits and a loud advocate of statism to get it done.

Once in Chicago when Alinsky’s people marched, a number of them …including a good friend of mine…were locked up for a time. Not Egan. He skipped beyond the paddy wagons and had a date with the City Council to speak with misty Irish eyes and timely weeping where he made headlines. The remainder of the group heard his testimony on the radio in jail.

Jack was a boozy old roman-collared blowhard who got himself sculpted in bronze free which rests on a pedestal at DePaul…really! As a literal gift from the MacArthur Foundation for his support of blessing its funding of “Catholics for Pro-Choice,” a letterhead group. He once told my audience in front of Andy Young that Young saved Jack’s life at Selma. When he left full of tears, Young looked at me wide-eyed and said to me privately, “who was THAT?” Young never met him before.

Fiction not fact constituted Jack’s almanac.

In memory of Egan, Catholic feminist Marin gnaws her fist in anger because the Church isn’t concerned solely with alms-giving instead of icky, sticky old male chauvinist moral dogma which makes everybody uncomfortable including Carol who wants to feel warm-warm-warm. So she interviews…guess who?...the retired provost of DePaul whom Marin describes apropos of its own brochure as “the nation’s largest Catholic university” without a solitary comma or parenthesis to observe the truth…DePaul violates the central rule of free inquiry…turning into an advocate to placate key lavender faculty members by conducting its infamous Queer Studies: 101 to young freshmen who themselves are insecure in their sexuality.

Marin believes she has the clinching argument as to why Obama should speak at Notre Dame. The Church faltered…stumbled all over itself on pedophilia…so it has no right to say or do anything now that would keep a pro-abortionist from receiving a Notre Dame honorary degree. Logical, no? She’s right about some of the hierarchy’s culpable conspiracy to protect pedophiles…right about the Church’s spiriting Cardinal Bernard Law out of Boston to Rome…but she does not care to record that all clerical abuses…by all clergymen not just Catholics…amounted to 4% of the total. Four percent is 4% too high and the micro-percentage that is Catholic clergy is a woeful number…especially in Chicago where complicity played a part in ordaining Dan McCormack… but Marin cannot bring herself to present the unvarnished truth—that most abuses of children in the nation come from public school teachers.

So she argues that this micro-fraction of Catholic clergy abuses and the lamentable past toleration of sexual practices should make the Church endorse Obama when he comes to Notre Dame. Her invincible ignorance prevents her from understanding that the inaccurate “Spirit of Vatican II’s” fraudulent sentimental braying ruined honest inquiry of thought and installed in its place culpable toleration of ideas that makes no distinction between good and evil, truth and falsehood—the unique tenet of rampant liberalism.

That led to toleration of misbehavior, the belief that somehow everyone has a right to express themselves sexually, to be liberated in whatever way…which led to child abuse and homosexuality which is the bane of the clergy. But Marin is forgiven: as former Texas Governor used to say in her southern twang: “Poor thing, she cain’t hep it!” Liberal toleration of right and wrong, truth and falsehood is something Marin is not equipped to understand.

Mary Anne Ahern.

When grimacing Joel Weisman orchestrated the Land of Nod on WTTW’s “Chicago Weak [sic] Review”…asking a slanted question about the Cardinal to which everybody on the panel nodded…NBC general assignment reporter Catholic, Irish-looking Ahern decided to make the most of the opportunity and did a self-promotion cameo for herself, echoing Marin’s “how do they square opposing Obama at Notre Dame when they let Cardinal Law go to Rome?” Ahern, who owes her life to Marin when Ahern choked on a morsel and Marin applied the Heimlich Maneuver to pop a chunk of food from her throat…echoed Marin with the “how do they dare block Obama when they let Law go to Rome!” A touching payback. Whenever Marin retires from the Channel 5 slot, one of her three jobs, Ahern should be first in line to become the station’s political editor…but they are so identical that nobody will know the difference.

Sun-Times Editorial and Sneed.

Michael Sneed, a several-times divorced and remarried, which very well may mean she is Catholic no more no matter how she insists. She writes a generally good gossip column for the “Sun-Times,” has good fed prosecutorial sources and has adopted a man’s name because she out-competed men in the newsroom and savors that she has all the guts and bravado of a man. Ergo: she is vinceably ignorant because she knows better. She writes in snippets so her comment was tied to Tony Blair’s conversion to Catholicism and his forthcoming speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (which used to be the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations) on “the fault lines of faith.” Fault-lines is right. Everything I read about Blair is that he is as pro-abort as is his cradle Catholic wife, Cherie—so that’s one big fault-line. Maybe the reason is that the priest who “converted” him is named Father Michael Seed. Seed, not Sneed. I kid you not.

Sneed reports George’s objection to Notre Dame’s invitation to Obama and says “gimme a break.” That means, I guess, Irish is as Irish does and Notre Dame’s graduating class which wants to tout a POTUS as speaker and honorary degree recipient is the central issue. Okay.

Meanwhile, the economically and intellectually bankrupt “Sun-Times” editorial under the stewardship of Tom McNamee, a Catholic, says Obama should receive the degree because of the electoral majority he received from Catholics. Then McNamee…about as malleable as his colleague Dold over at the bankrupt “Tribune”… ventures into theology: “The Catholic Church is pro-life. That is church doctrine. But the church is also so much more [sic]—a champion of the poor, for the oppressed, for love and peace.” Now we see. Social dispensation of goods means more than preservation of life for Mr. McNamee.

Continuing: “When the church reduces Catholic identity to unwavering allegiance to a single matter—opposition to abortion—it paradoxically erodes support for the pro-life cause while trivializing all the other excellent work of the church in Chicago and around the world.”

Hardly worth answering except to note that McNamee has raised alms giving and relief to a higher status than defense of human life…which means he’s well on his way to crafting a theology of his own. Eventually, who knows, he may be a parishioner at Fr. Michael Pfleger’s store-front church if the archdiocese ever musters the resolve to unhorse Pfleger?