Fr. Z's Blog

I bring to your attention something from The Catholic League about the recent DUI incurred by Archbishop Cordilone, newly appointed to San Francisco.  Liberals are dancing around their bonfires as if Cordilone’s head is already on a stick.

I’ve been watching the story and thinking about it. The CL piece touches on some of the things I have noticed.

TRYING TO SILENCE BISHOP CORDILEONE

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the DUI arrest of Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, the archbishop-elect of San Francisco:

Bishop Cordileone was stopped at a DUI checkpoint in San Diego last weekend; he was arrested after it was determined that his blood-alcohol level was above the legal limit. He has since apologized.

This won’t be the end of this story, but not because of what happened. What counts is who it happened to. It just so happens that Cordileone holds orthodox Catholic positions on sexuality, the kind of views hated by both secularists and left-wing Catholics. Consider Michael Sean Winters of the dissident weekly, the National Catholic Reporter. [aka Fishwrap.]

Winters, like a lot of embittered Catholic “progressives,” is obsessed with homosexuality. That is why he was unable to write one paragraph in his screed against Cordileone without mentioning this subject. The context? Winters wants the bishop to “think with greater compassion about the complicated lives we all lead today.” He also wants the bishop to show an “approriate [sic] humility and humanness.” All of this is code for “shut up and leave the culture to us.” [More simply, it’s code for “shut up”.]

Gay blog sites have also picked up on this theme. Why? San Francisco is a city where men [read: gays] are free to walk around naked in the street in front of women and children. They can even walk into McDonalds totally nude and park themselves next to Ronald McDonald, provided, the law says, they place a towel on their seat (hygiene matters). Next month homosexuals will whip each other in the street and have sex in public at the Folsom Street Fair. This is the city that Cordileone will soon inherit.

Winters, and his ilk, want nothing more than to intimidate Bishop Cordileone. They know he is bright, courageous and faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church. That is why they would like to silence him, especially on sexual issues. We stand with Bishop Cordileone and urge him not to break stride. We are confident he will not.

Now that this PR tornado has stuck, various approaches to the clean up of the wreckage are possible.  I am sure that Archbp. Cordileone will, over time, find the right words and actions to deal with the new circumstances.  I am also pretty sure that his plan will include always having a driver.  Why, by the way, do bishops drive themselves around?  I know that drivers are expensive, and I know that some people would accuse bishops of looking like elitists (the “poor” don’t have drivers, after all).  Neither am I suggesting that having a driver would give any bishop an excuse to over indulge.  This is about closing as many chinks in the armor as possible.  Given the world as it is, bishops are going to have to reduce their exposure to attacks.

There are going to be more and more attacks.  It will get to the point that if … when… a bishop runs over some old lady’s cat, the Church’s enemies will start a conga line.

In Rome, the Holy See has a pool of drivers for the prefects and secretaries of dicasteries precisely to diminish the risk of what can and does happen in life.  It is decidedly not an elitist thing.  If I am not mistaken, some US dioceses – and again I am working from memory which could be faulty – some dioceses which are “corporation sole” need to have a driver for the bishop precisely so that, should some accident take place, the assets of the diocese cannot be attacked.

Overly cautious?  Paranoid?   Uh huh.  Paranoids have enemies too.  And tell me more about how I am overly cautious.  As the saying goes, a stitch in time, saves nine.  As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  As the saying goes, for want of a nail…

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Simply put, attacks on the Church through her human shepherds are going to increase.  They are increasing.  We would do well to consider ways to limit our exposure.

But nobody asked me.

In the meantime, we know that the people who are going to howl the loudest and the longest hated him to begin with and are unlikely to come around no matter what Cordileone does.

The people CL describes are rather like ancient Donatists: there is no real forgiveness possible and they will beat you with a human mistake or fault until you are dead dead dead.

You might say a prayer for Archbp. Cordileone.

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