O My O Me O Lago!
A recent story on the blog chicagocatholicnews.com…a very interesting albeit left-of-theological-center publication…shows what all of us lifelong Chicagoans know—that a good percentage of priests are Democrats and indeed are registered as such, having voted in the 2008 Illinois Democratic primary—in fact of 50 priests that the blog identified, more than half voted Democratic. That was a crucial primary for liberals…part of the Super Tuesday formulation on Feb. 5. Of the pack, two candidates who were identified as basically Illinoisans were running: Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, a transplanted New Yorker with a good many supporters here.
But in the contest, Obama was determined to be the more liberal of the two. He was the more critical of American foreign policy, was for pulling out of Iraq quickly. On social issues including the one issue that has been paramount to Catholic theology—abortion—Obama had by far the more pro-abort record. He not only favored partial birth abortion and embryonic stem cell but twice in his role as a state legislative chairman of Judiciary, killed the “born alive” bill which deprived an infant born live from a botched abortion of nutrition and comfort, allowing the infant to die without health care.
The fact that both the major Democratic presidential candidates, Obama and Clinton, were and are extremists on the issue of life meant nothing, apparently to the group of Catholic priests who took the Democratic ballot. In fact there wasn’t a pro-life candidate running for president on the Democratic side. Those who took the Democratic ballot were 90-year-old retired Auxiliary Bishop Timothy Lyne, a former rector of Holy Name Cathedral and Jimmy Lago, the layman Chancellor, who is number 3 in the administration of the archdiocese.
Lago’s choice of the Democratic ballot is unsurprising since he has had a long history of involvement with liberal causes including having marched with Caesar Chavez. In referring to him as Jimmy I’m not being overly-familiar. His name is not James but he was christened Jimmy just as his brother is not Timothy but was christened Timmy. Sort of cozy sounding, isn’t it? Jimmy Lago has been a careerist in the archdiocesan bureaucracy: having served as number 2 at Catholic Charities where funds are distributed to community organizations and having been the official lobbyist for the Church in Springfield with the legislature.
Another fairly high-ranking priest of the archdiocese who took the Democratic ballot is unsurprising: Rev. Raymond Baumart, SJ, the former president of Loyola University of Chicago whose memorable rejoinder to Catholics who criticized the pagan, largely pro-abort emphasis of the Campaign for Human Development nationally at a speech delivered by Terrance Scanlon to the City Club of Chicago, was “get a life!” The eminent Ph.D in business ethics from Northwestern obviously didn’t and may not now appreciate the delicious irony of that comment. Father Baumart carries the distinction of being a top adviser to Francis Cardinal George.
Still another Democratic primary voter who could not but help vote for a pro-abort presidential candidate since there were no pro-lifers running for the post in that party is retired Auxiliary Bishop John Gorman, D.D., the DD standing for doctor of divinity. He is a former professor of clinical psychology and has been noted as a popular lecturer at retreats and to people contemplating marriage. He is noted for driving away pro-life leafleteers who venture onto the public sidewalks outside churches in campaign times, because he publicly worries…oh how he worries…about a possible rupture in the separation of church and state—not worried evidently about the constitutional right of free speech or of people to peaceably assemble. They evidently don’t stress the rights of citizen pro-lifers under the Constitution at Loyola where he matriculated and taught.
Those who chose the Republican ballot which indicates that they voted for a pro-life candidate for president (since the only pro-abort candidate, Rudy Giuliani, had retired from the fray by that time) were Auxiliary Bishops Thomas Paprocki and Joseph Perry, both distinguished in their wholehearted support for protection of innocent unborn human life.
By the way, the official archdiocesan spokesperson, Cathleen Dolan, is reported as having contributed $250 to the campaign of Mayor Richard M. Daley, the head of The Squid and a pro-abort and supporter of gay marriage but who stresses his Irishness in a flurry of waggling, crimson-jowled ungrammatical indignation. The blog got her name from the official records of contributions in Cook county but Ms. Dolan, whose spouse was a longtime Circuit Judge, Francis Dolan, followed the general line that has been de rigeur for years of denial that she gave Daley any money notwithstanding what the records say. Her appointment as official spokesperson had been lovingly hailed by Chancellor Lago in a news release.
Cardinal George, you will be interested to know, doesn’t vote in primaries so his electoral choices are protected via the secret ballot. By way of poking fun at the editor of chicagocatholicnews.com, it could be mentioned that he has interpreted the Cardinal’s criticism of ObamaCare for greasing the way to abortion with public money as evidence of his partisan Republican affiliation rather than the issue at hand for which the Cardinal should be praised.
No Soup (Republican Debate) for You!
As said here earlier, Ms. Mary Field (and I apologize for calling her “Fields” the other day), the executive producer of WTTW-TV’s “Chicago Tonight”…has in her delicately manicured soft little hands the power to decide what issues the public will view on the partially taxpayer-paid show and who will figuratively represent points of view…(I almost wrote “contrary points of view” but Pravda Mary, major domo of state-run broadcasting, is not contrary—meaning she frowns on conservative expressions being fully expostulated on her show which propagates unalloyed liberalism. Anyhow she has ordered that while the Democratic candidates for president of the Cook county board have appeared on her show…nor your show, hers…there will be no chance whatsoever that Republican candidates will debate there.
The Republican list has two interesting candidates—Roger Keats who is a longtime former state senator and a young conservative challenger, Chicago Police Lieutenant John Garrido—but you will not see them on Ms. Mary’s public television station because she feels the less you know about them the better…and all the more important that you believe there is only one party, The Squid, offering choices of which there are no conservatives whatever.
The de-facto head of WTTW-TV is one Dan Schmidt but he has abdicated command of the content of Chicago Tonight to Ms. Field who decides what it is he will be told. And don’t try to contact either one of them because Ms. Mary doesn’t respond and Schmidt has been told not to respond. The only way to get their attention is to pursue a heavy funding boycott with the stipulation that the only day it will let up is when the two of them are let go.
No comments:
Post a Comment