I have now been putting out a daily blog for three years. I do it six times a week because I properly take Sunday off. Roughly speaking, I have put out a thousand of them and have seldom repeated the subject. That is fairly easily done because there are so many exciting and interesting things about which to comment or complain.
My editor keeps me posted on how many hits I get in a given day or month and from what part of the country or the world they are coming. I am reaching a lot of people, many of whom are personal friends or longtime acquaintances, but I have no illusions (although the hits are in the hundreds and hundreds) – I know that it is not the New York Times!
I have been retired for a number of years, am still enjoying moderately good health despite an occasional replacement and find that the opportunity to speak out on the issues around me is very gratifying. I try to maintain something of a balance with one-third of the subjects purely religious and the other two-thirds on political, social, or historical issues. Of course, there are very few political and social concerns that don’t have some type of religious underpinnings so it makes it easier to tie them all together.
I do have one limitation that bothers me, and that is that I am not always able to answer individual questions, but I never fail to answer a written letter. If you are really concerned about something, just drop a note to Bishop John McCarthy, 6225 Highway 290 East, Austin, Texas 78723.
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“The thought that keeps nagging at me is this: If you look at Bishop Olmsted and Sister Margaret as the protagonists in this battle, one of them truly seems to me to have emulated the life of Jesus. And it’s not the bishop, who has spent much of his adult life as a Vatican bureaucrat climbing the career ladder. It’s Sister Margaret, who like so many nuns has toiled for decades on behalf of the neediest and sickest among us.” So says the New York Times article by Nicolas Kristof last week.
This, of course, is referring to the painful and difficult situation in St. Joseph’s Hospital, in Phoenix, where the hospital’s ethics committee, faced with the agonizing situation where both mother and child were dying, gave permission for an abortion in order to save the life of the 27 year old mother. When this became known, the Bishop excommunicated Sr. Margaret, the nun on the ethics committee who agreed with the decision. Subsequently, the Catholic hospital association backed Sr. Margaret, and so Bishop Olmsted removed the hospital’s Catholic status. The discussion continues with well-known moral theologians supporting Sr. Margaret and Cardinal George of Chicago, retiring president of the bishop’s confernce, asserting that Bishop Olmsted was within his rights to so act.
Obviously this is a tragic situation for everyone involved, most especially the mother and child. Nevertheless, I am hopeful that some benefit will come from this situation. It is extremely important that bishops, as they exercise their authority, move carefully and cautiously, not making a difficult situation worse. The bishops have the responsibility to teach and to govern. Regretfully, many are prone to teach by governance, and they are not always the same thing.
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About two weeks ago I responded to a New York Times editorial that they had become conscious of a not very well known statue of Saint Joan of Arc down at the end of 93rd Street in Manhattan. From my powerful position in my blog, I chided the New York Times for bragging about “all the news that is fit to print” and then not telling us where in the world Saint Joan of Arc came from. How did she get there? Who sponsored it? Why is she almost ignored having held back the English troops from astride that horse for not quite 100 years?
“Be careful what you pray for.” We all have heard that expression and I have to give you an example here. I searched the internet for information about this mysterious Joan of Arc statue and out came nearly 50 pages of materials. I don’t think most of us want to know that much about the statute but I have to admit it was fascinating reading. It was especially meaningful for me because it was early in the First World War and France was suffering terribly. I don’t find it in the printed program but I am sure the motivation that brought the City of New York, the Catholic community and the French Embassy together was wanting to spotlight this heroic woman who made the difference in France’s agony in the 14th century.
Viva La Belle France!
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Last week’s New York Times had an excellent article by Nicholas Kristof , who, while bemoaning the mismanagement of the sex abuse crisis, went on to point out that Church leaders are not the whole Church. He pointed out that the early Church was inclusive and democratic, including giving women important leadership positions. With the passage of time, authority has been more and more centralized into the office of the bishops, especially the Bishop of Rome.
Kristof suggested that the Church would be very blessed to make even greater use of women at all levels than is currently the case. He described his extraordinary experiences in third world countires where that amazing battalian of caregivers (Roman Catholic nuns) are busy with the orphans, the elderly, the diseased, the ignored, the helpless and the dependent. Hundreds of thousands of such people find their life made a little easier, a little less burdensome every day because of the extraordinary competence and generosity of these heroic women. Kristof’s final line is “they’re enough to make the Virgin Mary smile.” Indeed!
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I have now been putting out a daily blog for three years. I do it six times a week because I properly take Sunday off. Roughly speaking, I have put out a thousand of them and have seldom repeated the subject. That is fairly easily done because there are so many exciting and interesting things about which to comment or complain.
Themocracy