Same Old Crooked WTTW 2 Against 1 Game but Hackett Wins. Fox 1 Against 1 Fairer: Hackett Wins There, Too!
Q. Let’s take WTTW first. That was the Chicago Tonight panel on the suspension of Fr. Michael Pfleger by the Cardinal…also the hurry-up beatification of JPII. You’re referring to Mrs. Mary Anne Hackett, president and CEO of Catholic Citizens of Illinois.A. Yes. There as per usual we had the usually lopsided structure of two liberal Catholics…knowing and having interviewed both adversaries I would judge Barbara Blaine is more nominal than active… against one.
Both belong to the Catholic Left. Robert McClory is a teacher, journalist and resigned priest who’s written a laudatory book about Pfleger. McClory…a former assistant at St. Sabina’s pre-Pfleger who left the priesthood to marry… has in the course of thirty years aligned himself with the most leftward fringes of radical heretical theology: a Hans Kung-style supporter of “participatory democratization” of church structure to the extent that the holder of the papacy is only first among equals and oft-times hardly that. The rock of Peter becomes only one aspect of Church governance, sharing with bishops and…ahem….”theologians” who hold equal sway.
McClory has long been an opponent of Humanae Vitae, an advocate of relaxed strictures on abortion, a devotee of an ultra loosened concept of mortal sin…under a slanted version of what normally is known as “Fundamental Option”-- where one can only commit it if he pronounces abject alienation from God—else a good Act of Contrition will clear it up…a supporter of women priests, a more “humanitarian” concept of gay rights. In essence his concept is diametrically adverse to the 2,000 plus years of authentic dogmatic theology.
The second participant for the Left was Barbara Blaine of SNAP (Survival Network of Those Abused by Priests) who should not have participated in the Pfleger discussion since pedophilia and child abuse is not been involved in that melee—just the matter of priestly obedience and insubordination.
She was obviously there to weigh in on later-discussed issue about JPII’s style of church governance…but she pitched in also on Pfleger where her clerical pedophilia views were not relevant. She was included because executive producer Mary Field feels that on every issue—politics, economics, urban policy, whatever—it is mandatory that there should be a thumb on every scale to tip discussions to the Left…believing that the marketing formulae of the station would be compromised by equal access to ideas.
However it could be said that the panel moderator, Eddie Arruza that he made a conscientious effort to include Hackett’s views. Just a shame that the station feels so insecure it can’t run a one-on-one show…but that’s good old Mary Field and her so-called employer Danny Schmidt (salary: $450,000 flavored by taxpayer largesse which he is zealously eager to retain) for you.
Q. NEVERTHELESS MARY ANNE HACKETT DID WELL?
a. I call her the best lay expositor of the Catholic faith in any TV panel whom I have ever seen. I don't like to use the commonly applied word "apologist" because it can be so closely tied to the word "apology".
HER PERFORMANCE HERE ONCE AGAIN RATIFIES THE JUDGMENT I MADE WHEN WE FORMED “Catholic citizens of illinois” that we must get somebody to run this who in addition to being a superb manager is an extraordinarily good communicator. AT THAT TIME MARY ANNE WAS RUNNING ILLINOIS RIGHT TO LIFE—AND SOMEBODY MENTIONED TO ME, “you mean somebody like mary anne hackett!”
“NO,” I SAID, “I DON’T MEAN SOMEBODY LIKE MARY ANNE HACKETT—I MEAN mary anne hackett!” FORTUNATELY SHE TOOK ON THE RUNNING OF BOTH ORGANIZATIONS FOR A LONG TIME. UNDER HER LEADERSHIP CCI HAS GROWN IN SIZE AND INFLUENCE. BEFORE WE BEGAN, TV STATIONS AND RADIO 0UTLETS WERE ROUNDING UP ANDY GREELEY AND OTHERS TO EXPRESS A SO-CALLED “catholic position.” now we seem to have at least a beginning chance at defending the church and authentic doctrine
Q. what about the portion on whether jpii should be beatified this quickly?
A. Here mcclory fought the idea, serving up the dense soup of hans kung-flavored theology…OBVIOUSLY CALCULATED TO MIS-LEAD ARRUZA THAT THIS IS PART OF CHURCH DOGMA… charging that jp ii had tried to reverse the flow of church governance to pre-vatican ii. quite unconvincing FOR THOSE OF US WHO HAVE READ KUNG AND KNOW MCCLORY.
on clerical abuse where barbara blaine weighed in, i think there is no doubt that the church hierarchy here and in rome knew of the derelictions and swept them under the rug—i’ll CONCEDE That. MY GOD YEARS AGO WE HAD A BISHOP IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS WHOSE DERELCTIONS WERE UNCOVERED BY MY PAPER,THE WANDERER, WHO NEVER DID GET CANNED…AND WHO WAS ON THE ALTAR WHEN HIS SUCCESSOR WAS INCARDINATED. AND THEN, OF COURSE, THERE’S WEAKLAND, EX-ARCHBISHOP OF MILWAUKEE WHO MISAPPROPRIATED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO PAY OFF HIS MALE LOVER…FOR which I WOULD IMAGINE SHOULD TODAY BE IN JAIL. NO COSMETICS CAN COVER THESE DERELICTIONS.
AND it goes far beyond jpii although i don’t think any objective study would show him SHARING BLAME—not for BLINKING AT the abuses but relying on untried psychology and pschiatric studies that argued deviances could be cured.
all sides…liberals as well as authenticists…have been slow to recognize that allowing the seminaries to be flooded with lavenders created the mess—reflective of the decadent liberalism that invaded the church…which, candidly, mc clory by his advocacy of relaxed codes had not inconsiderable to shape. I think of kicanas the ex-rector of Mundelein who told the media if he had to do it over he'd once again ordain Dan MacCormack...after which he was promoted to Auxiliary Bishop here...Bishop of Tucson...was elected No. 2 at the USCCB with George and very nearly succeeded him as President.
Frankly, i think JP II and his predecessors…and many bishops here including George… were asleep at the switch. But then with respect to the late Pope, beatification and canonization does not imply human impeccability—else we would not have gotten peter who denied Christ three times, would we? My personal preference however would have been to hold off the beatification. i keep asking: what’s the rush? NOBODY SEEMS TO HAVE RESPONDED ADEQUATELY TO THAT QUESTION.
Q. How did the Fox debate go?
A It was curtailed but it was one-on-one and fairer. there mary anne was faced with a theologically illiterate oracular black man who thought the whole Pfleger issue was a muffling by the Cardinal of PFLEGER’S RIGHT TO free speech.
q. Did you have a chance to see other news shows on the Pfleger issue last night?
q. In addition to Fox’s general news coverage at 9 pm. I caught NBC-tv channel 5 at 6 p.m. there was the same old Pfleger biographer mc clory on film…his face clotted with anguish at ‘the great loss of MICHAEL’…with no designation that MC CLORY is a resigned priest. there was utterly no reflection of the other side of the issue THAT FAVORED THE CARDINAL…the liberals of channel 5 made sure of that.
But the worst on channel 5 was Msgr. Ken Velo, Bernardin’s ex-driver and very close friend who was eulogist at his requiem mass…the Validictory you’ll remember that preceded the gay men’s chorus’ serenade of the BERNARDIN before he was dispatched to his final eternal destination.
Why Velo was included on channel 5’s coverage was a mystery since he is a vice president of De Paul and has had nothing to do with the issue administratively. But he spoke fondly of ‘Michael’ and followed the script that his loss would be grievous for the archdiocese. I haven’t been able to fathom Velo’s exact job for De Paul except to guess possibly it’s to bestow a kind of unofficial imprimatur for the lamentable pro-gay-advocacy trend that has been going on there including offering ‘queer studies 101’ to freshmen who at a tender age are most vulnerable in their lives.
Pfleger gave it a good shot and did so much for so many. But, hey, like the Pharisees before them today's Catholic Bishops as exemplified so nicely by George, can't have someone around who doesn't follow all the rules. As a result the Church is getting smaller, but at least we'll all be like minded. And, unfortunately, small minded as well.
ReplyDeleteB as in B, S as in S.
ReplyDeleteFr. Pfleger is a priest of the Catholic Church, administering a Catholic parish. If he wanted to be a social worker or political activist, he had, and has other options. But because he's a Catholic priest, he has obligations, and he can't treat his parish as his personal sounding board.
If Fr. Pfleger himself had a broader and more flexible mind, and a clearer understanding of his parishioner's problems, he would have found a way to really help his people really build better lives. But then political showboating, rabble rousing, and a bloated sense of one's own importance have this way of poisoning and perverting even the best of intentions.
The truly sad thing is that a good (and courageous) bishop would have laid down the law on Fr. Pfleger twenty or more years ago. Back then, the needed corrections could have been much less drastic. But because this thing has been allowed to fester for so long, it's going to be a lose-lose situation for all involved.