Category: Roman Catholicism

In 1960 JFK Had to Explain Himself to Texas Baptists

Published on by D. G. Hart263 Comments

In 2015 Hillary Clinton, a Methodist, needs to explain herself to Roman Catholics. And she does so by jumping on the Pope Francis bus (which is about to leave nation):

For the first time in history, we are within reach of eradicating hunger and extreme poverty. But climate change threatens that progress.

Thanks to President Obama’s leadership, the United States is rallying the world to act. Now Pope Francis is bringing his extraordinary moral leadership to the fight.

I’m grateful — as so many Americans are — for the pope’s teachings. And as president, I hope to follow his example. I will make combating climate change a top priority of my administration.

We’ve made progress in promoting clean energy. Now we must do more to help developing countries embrace lower-carbon fuel sources, and continue to pick up our pace at home.

We’ve made progress in managing our lands and waters. Now we must do more to protect our global forest, which is still being slashed and burned, and our global ocean, which is growing more acidic, threatening the lives and livelihoods of billions of people.

We’ve made progress in cleaning our air over the last 40 years. Now we must do more to protect our poorest and most vulnerable citizens — including the elderly, children and communities of color — from the worst health effects of climate change.

But in spite of the strongest possible scientific consensus about what climate change means for our environment, economy, health, and future, there are still some who deny the facts. They’re intent on obstructing progress.

We can’t let them win this fight. We have no choice. There is no Planet B.

We need to develop an ethic of stewardship, of responsibility and sustainability — in our businesses, in our governments, and as citizens of the earth. The scale of the challenge we face demands nothing less.

The great American conservationist John Muir wrote, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” Climate change threatens every place on our planet, from majestic landscapes to ordinary city streets. It threatens every facet of our economy—our agriculture, energy, transportation and tourism. And most importantly, it threatens the health, happiness, and future of every one of our children.

I want my granddaughter Charlotte to know that her grandmother did everything possible to protect and preserve God’s gift to us, this beautiful planet, our common home. That’s why I’m in this fight. And I want all children everywhere, in countries large and small, to know the same thing about their leaders.

This week, as Pope Francis visits the White House, Congress and the United Nations, I urge Americans of every faith and political persuasion to listen to what he has to say. Heed his message of God’s love for all creatures. Follow his urging to become good stewards of the earth. And do your part to fulfill our shared responsibility to our planet, our children, and our future.

Did Jesus really teach progress?

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:3-14 ESV)

The Omar Effect

Published on by D. G. Hart7 Comments

Will I be the only American to sense the insult that may lurk behind Pope Francis’ visit to the U.S.? While Ross Douthat considers the Francis effect, let’s not forget about Omar Little who worked the streets of Baltimore, the city that was the capital of American Roman Catholicism for its first 125 years at least. (Can you say Baltimore Catechism? Sure you can.)

Rorate Caeli has a set of images of the churches that Pope Francis will visit while in the U.S. But what about this one, the original Roman Catholic cathedral in the U.S.:
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Of course, a visit like this has lots of symbolism. I was relieved to see that discussion of Pope Francis arriving in the U.S. by way of a Mexican-border crossing fizzled. I imagine that photo-op went no where once adults in the room figured out how much security it would take for the pope to identify with Mexicans seeking entry to the U.S. How strange might it have appeared to have 8 to 10 black SUVs along side the pope’s little white Fiat crossing from Mexico into Texas from the town of Sarita (just north of Laredo)? Would the SUV’s have to put the papal Fiat on a flatbed to cross the river? Some are not convinced, though, that the pope is immune to posing for cameras.

Still, imagine the two-fer that Pope Francis could have executed had he spent one more day in the United States and visited a city rich in Roman Catholic history. After all, Baltimore is only 40 miles north of D.C., and only 100 south of Philadelphia. He could have honored those Roman Catholics of English descent, like John Carroll, the first American archbishop who organized Roman Catholicism in the new nation. And he could have scored points by identifying with the mourners of Freddie Gray’s death and the many others who have protested the brutality of urban police against African-Americans.

Missing an opportunity like that suggests a pontiff that knows not life in the United States. We get our first Bishop of Rome from the Americas and he turns out to be — well — European.

Same As It Ever Was

Published on by D. G. Hart19 Comments

Alexis de Tocqueville on Roman Catholicism and the United States well before Bryan and the Jasons:

At the present time, more than in any previous age, we find Catholics turning into unbelievers and Protestants turning Catholic. Catholicism seen from the inside seems to be losing, but seen from the outside, to be gaining. There is a reason for this.

Our contemporaries are naturally little disposed to belief, but once they accept religion at all, there is a hidden instinct within them which unconsciously urges them toward Catholicsm. Many of the doctrines and customs of the Roman Chuch astonish them, but they feel a secret admiration for its discipline, and its extraordinary unity attracts them.

If Catholicism could ultimately escape from the political animosities to which it has given rise, I am almost certain that that same spirit of the age which now seems so contrary to it would turn into a powerful ally and it would suddenly make great conquests.

George Will on Pope Francis:

Francis’s fact-free flamboyance reduces him to a shepherd whose selectively reverent flock, genuflecting only at green altars, is tiny relative to the publicity it receives from media otherwise disdainful of his church. Secular people with anti-Catholic agendas drain his prestige, a dwindling asset, into promotion of policies inimical to the most vulnerable people and unrelated to what once was the papacy’s very different salvific mission.

He stands against modernity, rationality, science and, ultimately, the spontaneous creativity of open societies in which people and their desires are not problems but precious resources. Americans cannot simultaneously honor him and celebrate their nation’s premises.

I know lots of apologists are upset with Will. But when you think how archly conservative the papacy was at the time of the Syllabus of Errors (1864) and how much the bishops at Vatican 2 wanted to open up the church to the modern world, Will has a point. Maybe Pope Francis is right about modernity. But that’s not what Vatican 2 set out to do.

#nocherrypicking

You Know What Would Really Be Audacious?

Published on by D. G. Hart117 Comments

So the papal visit to the United States has even more people reaching above their pay grades, trying to interpret that the chief interpreter is really up to. Is Pope Francis a lefty, is he a traditionalist, will anything change on marriage? So far Bryan and the Jasons are stuck.

What I’m curious about is whether Pope Francis is a pastor who ministers the good news of Jesus Christ. Think about this. Yesterday in the Wall St. Journal William McGurn opined that the pope is mistaken in his understanding of poverty, that capitalism is far better for raising the prospects of the poor than other schemes. That seems sensible enough.

In on of the comments on McGurn’s piece, a defender of Pope Francis tried to explain for the infallible explainer:

William misses the whole point. The Pope isn’t saying capitalism is wrong, he is saying the greed of executives and stockholders is wrong. It isn’t enough to make a good salary, they have to make more than the executives at their competition. They have the attitude, what is the minimum we must pay to get someone to do the job competently and that is what we will pay. The attitude of sharing the wealth is foreign to most executives and stockholders. Stockholders are not satisfied with the return they get, they insist the returns must increase or I will take my money elsewhere. It is when greed takes over that capitalism fails.

Maybe this person also has a point. Capitalism isn’t evil. It’s people who abuse capitalism. Got it.

Here’s the thing, Pope Francis actually has the remedy for the greed of executives and stockholders. He has at his disposal the truth of the gospel (as he understands it), a Petrine ministry, and a sacramental system that could actually change the hearts and minds of New York City financiers. Imagine if instead of visiting political figures, the pope went to Wall St. and preached. Short of a Cornelius Van Til moment, imagine if he had Cardinal Dolan set up a bunch of meetings in the board rooms of corporate New York and he explained the sinfulness of the human condition and the possibility of grace in the sacraments (not to mention the assistance of the Blessed Virgin). Wouldn’t that be something a pastor would do?

Imagine this as well, not only could he point the world’s capitalists to a life of virtue, he also has the remedy for these folks should an insufficient number of them convert and follow Jesus. If the world continues to warm and catastrophe happens, Pope Francis is actually sitting on the goods for a good life in the world to come.

Not too shabby.

But popes don’t do this and this is one of the greatest problems of episcopacy — it removes ministers from their flocks, or makes the pastors of flocks that are beyond their capacities. If Tim Keller has trouble visiting all the people who belong to Redeemer PCA, imagine the pope’s challenge of visiting 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, in addition to evangelizing Wall Street’s financial tycoons.

Peter Steinfels, by the way, as a liberal Roman Catholic is not pleased by all the attention on Pope Francis since Steinfels believes that Roman Catholicism “is bigger than one man.” Well, Protestants have been saying that about Christianity for some time, though they have also said Christianity is all about the God-man, Jesus Christ. Even so, Steinfels is pointing in the direction of the serious flaws that come with episcopacy and especially one whose universal jurisdiction makes the ordinary efforts of priests look irrelevant. Talk about subsidiarity.

Even so, if as J. Gresham Machen said, ministers have something that the world can never give, isn’t that even more true (on Roman Catholic grounds) of the papacy? He has it all — truth, ministry, sacraments. And what do popes do? To the untrained Protestant eye, it looks like a modern encyclical merely becomes a conversation starter. It’s a jumping off point for the faithful (now much better educated than the immigrant church that paid, prayed, and obeyed) to show off their expertise.

And to answer his critics, Pope Francis says that he could affirm the Nicene Creed. Yes, he could do that. But why not teach it? Why not explain it? Why not take it to the executives of Wall Street, Berlin, London, Rome even?

This is one reason why I think the church has become modernist. Sure, you can say the Nicene Creed. But do you believe it? Even more, does it inform your ministry? But if you think you are a moral life coach for the world’s population, a source for thinking virtuously about human flourishing, the leader who will point the world’s systems to a better and more just way — if you think of this world as home rather than as a foreign land — then you very well might engage in all sorts of pious thoughts about the world system of finance and technology and not consider that if you saved more people from their sins and put them on a path to holiness, maybe this world would be a better place.

When you are accustomed to mixing it up with emperors, monarchs, and presidents, mixing with the ordinary laity — even the ones making guhzillion figures — looks, well, shabby.

Apostolic Audacity

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

A new sermon series from 1 Corinthians stimulated thoughts about apostolic greetings in the New Testament. Here are the ones Paul used with Corinth:

Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:1-3 ESV)

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:1-2 ESV)

Compare that to the first pope (ahem):

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:
May grace and peace be multiplied to you. (1 Peter 1:1-2 ESV)

Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. (2 Peter 1:1-2 ESV)

Now to round out the comparison, one from John Paul II:

Venerable Brothers and Dear Sons and Daughters,
Greetings and apostolic Blessing

What’s striking about Paul’s greetings is that if Peter were as supreme among the apostles as papal defenders allege, you might think Paul would acknowledge Peter or the wider body of apostles since his status was in dispute. But he claims to be called directly by God and has as much authority as any apostle does. Peter’s claims are even more subdued than Paul’s — an apostle compared to an apostle “by the will of God.”

When you do read the New Testament, Matt 16:18 sure does seem like a slender reed on which to rest all of the Roman See’s authoritative weight. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that confirmed somewhere else in the New Testament? And for the guys who get more pages than anyone else — Paul and Luke (especially if Luke is the author of Hebrews) — you would think they would have gotten the “on this rock” memo.

What If?

Published on by D. G. Hart11 Comments

Fr. Dwight thinks that ecumenical talks between Anglicans and Roman Catholics are at a dead end:

Unless there is some unexpected turnaround in the Church of England and the Anglican churches of the developed world, GAFCON is the Anglican Communion of the future. If so, what does this development mean for Anglican-Roman Catholic ecumenism?

First, it should be recognized that the old form of Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue is finished. Started during the fresh optimism of the 1960s, ecumenism between Anglicans and Roman Catholics included convergence on liturgical matters running parallel with regular discussions among theologians on both sides. The problem with this model is that the Anglican theologians were invariably from the more Anglo-Catholic wing of the Anglican Church. They were also almost exclusively drawn from the Church of England and the Episcopal Church. The Africans were scarcely included. Like Cardinal Walter Kasper, most members of the Episcopal and Anglican churches didn’t think the Africans were worth listening to.

As the Anglicans on both sides of the Atlantic proceeded with their progressive agenda, discussions with the Catholic Church became increasingly strained. Despite diplomatic noises from both sides, it is generally agreed that the Anglicans have introduced such “grave obstacles to unity” as to put any real ecumenical hopes on hold. Pope Benedict XVI did not improve matters by erecting the Anglican Ordinariate — a structure within the Catholic Church that provides disenchanted Anglicans a semi-detached home within Catholicism.

But think about what Pope Francis said recently about people who are divorced:

Speaking out on one of the most contentious issues of his papacy, Pope Francis on Wednesday told a gathering at the Vatican that the church should embrace Catholics who have divorced and remarried, and that such couples “are not excommunicated, and they absolutely must not be treated that way!”

“They always belong to the church,” he added, calling on pastors to welcome Catholics who have remarried without an annulment, even though such Catholics are currently barred in most cases from receiving the Eucharist, the central sacrament of the faith.

“The church is called to be always the open house of the Father. … No closed doors! No closed doors!” Francis told the crowd at his weekly public audience, which resumed after a monthlong summer break.

Imagine if Pope Francis had been the Bishop of Rome when Henry VIII sought an annulment. If Pope Francis had been as pastoral with the English monarch as he is with today’s marriage challenged Roman Catholics, would the Reformation have happened?

The Real Peril of Discovery

Published on by D. G. Hart13 Comments

National (Roman) Catholic Reporter has two stories about the Doctrine of Discovery that raise intriguing questions for those who put their hopes in papal supremacy, authority, antiquity, and infallibility.

First, the Doctrine (which is not what attorneys do):

The first bull of consequence was issued in 1436 and titled Romanus Pontifex, he said. It concerned “the concession of the right of domination over the Guanches people” and the Canary Islands, which was taken over by the crown of Castile, a medieval state in the Iberian Peninsula.

The bull marked the first time the papacy “made it look as though no one was living there,” or had any ownership over the land being pursued by European powers, “because there were no Christians there,” Newcomb said.

That “pattern of thought” then began marching through history.

In 1452, the papal bull Dum Diversas instructed the Portuguese crown “to invade, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ, to put them into perpetual slavery, and to take away all their possessions and property.”

In 1454, another bull titled Romanus Pontifex furthered that thinking, sanctifying the seizure of non-Christian lands in parts of Africa and restating the legitimacy of enslaving non-Christian people.

In 1493, after Christopher Columbus’ fateful voyage, Inter Caetera granted Ferdinand and Isabella “full and free power, authority, and jurisdiction of every kind,” over almost all of the Americas, save for a portion of modern-day Brazil and a few island outposts.

Notice again that the social teaching of the church was going on a long time before Leo XIII, but it’s not always so congenial to modern sensibilities, so Roman Catholic social thought winds up being predominantly a 20th-century concern.

Second, what the progressive Roman Catholics want the papacy to do:

The letter called on the pope to “formally and publicly repudiate and rescind the Dum Diversas Bull of 1452, and other related bulls, which grant the Pope’s blessing ‘to capture, vanquish, and subdue the Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ and put them into perpetual slavery and to take all their possession and their property.’ We also call upon the Pope to repudiate and rescind the Inter Caetera Bull of 1493 that granted authority to Spain and Portugal to ‘take all lands and possessions’ so long as no other Christian ruler had previously claimed them. These bulls instilled the Doctrine of Discovery, the papal sanctioning of Christian enslavement and power over non-Christians.”

The letter stated the papacy had done some positive work regarding the rights of indigenous peoples — such as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s supporting the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and Pope John Paul II’s asking of forgiveness for the misdeeds “of the sons and daughter of the church” — but not nearly enough.

(Recently, Pope Francis asked forgiveness in South America “not only for the offenses of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.”)

The Loretto letter included a message from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Religious Friends (Quakers), which stated:

“You [as Pope] have the power and responsibility to do more, by issuing a new papal bull that formally, directly, unequivocally rescinds and revokes the Doctrine of Discovery and the horrible, cruel, un-Christian language in those bulls that denigrates entire peoples with no justification.”

Comeaux said the Loretto letter was sent to the Vatican and to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She said the Loretto community received no response from the Vatican. U.S. bishops’ conference president Archbishop Joseph Kurtz sent a note with a “polite thank you for including me,” she said.

The sisters have contacted Kurtz, who heads the Louisville, Ky., archdiocese, and “he’s expressed interest in getting more information,” she said, “and we’re preparing [that] for him.”

The important question is why a pope should be believed in apology when we haven’t believed the truth of an earlier utterance. If the encyclicals supporting the Doctrine of Discovery were wrong, why isn’t the papal statement that says the Doctrine of Discovery was wrong and asks for forgiveness also erroneous? How do you know when the pope is right? When he conforms to modern notions of fairness and equality? But what if in 500 years, in some sort of Mad Max world, when the current civilization has collapsed and another phase of globalization is starting, with certain people discovering people previously unknown, and the former interact with the latter the way that Europeans treated natives in America, it makes sense to colonize and enslave? If those explorers and exploiters discover papal apologies for the Doctrine of Discovery and judge those apologies to be out of synch with the times, might a pope apologize for the apologies?

One last thought, do the progressive Roman Catholics always think that what comes latest (what is up-to-date) is the best guide to truth? In other words, since we moderns find Christopher Columbus barbaric (even though in Columbus’ day he was considered civilized), is whatever is most recent the way things are supposed to be? That’s an odd view for people who are looking for a papal apology since the papacy is (apparently) an ancient institution. If you really want Roman Catholicism to be up to date, don’t you get rid of the papacy altogether? Who actually believes in ecclesiastical monarchs (except perhaps the gospel allies in their most celebrated status)?

Indignity Unbecoming

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

One more small yelp about Christians spotting media bias.

Alan Jacobs faults journalists for improperly interpreting Pope Francis’ declaration of mercy for women who have had abortions:

Pope Francis has done a big, big thing: he has made it dramatically easier for women who have had abortions to be reconciled to the Church. But take a look at this NBC News headline: “Pope Francis: Priests Can Forgive Abortion If Women Are ‘Contrite’” — as though before this papal statement contrite women could not have received forgiveness!

The distinction between making forgiveness — more accurately, reconciliation and restoration to Communion, but even I won’t be a stickler for that — easier and making it possible is an important one and easy to grasp, but a reputable religion journalist insisted to me on Twitter this morning that such headlines are perfectly accurate and that my questioning them shows my ignorance of Catholic doctrine.

Apparently the BBC doesn’t agree with him, because the headline and article they posted earlier — has been revised: “Pope on abortion: Francis relaxes forgiveness rules.” Which is a big improvement in accuracy, though at least one, ahem, reputable religion journalist will think it wholly unnecessary.

Why defend the indefensible? The NBC and the original BBC headlines are plainly and simply wrong, and the stories accompanying them are factually wobbly at their best and in several places incorrect. So why say otherwise? An ideological axe to grind? Misplaced professional solidarity?

But when Roman Catholics themselves don’t know what the church teaches or pay attention to the papacy, why should the press be held to a higher standard than those who answered the call to communion. Rod Dreher reports on the latest set of numbers that don’t lie (and don’t reassure about the call’s terms):

Although an overwhelming majority of Catholics (nine in ten) believe in the concept of sin, they don’t seem to agree on what, precisely, constitutes one. Fifty-seven percent of Catholics think it’s a sin to have an abortion, compared to 48 percent of the general U.S. population who say the same. Forty-four percent think homosexual behavior is sinful (about the same say this among the general public). And just 17 percent of Catholics believe its a sin to use contraceptives, while 21 percent say the same of getting a divorce.

And although those percentages are higher for those who attend Mass weekly — 73 percent of weekly churchgoers say that abortion is a sin, for instance — the numbers are still pretty low on the issue of contraception: just 31 percent of weekly Mass attendees say the use of artificial contraception is a sin.

When Rod adds that liberalizing church teaching would actually hurt more than help, I have to wonder:

This is a pretty strong piece of evidence against the idea that if Pope Francis (or any pope) liberalized church teaching and practice in certain controversial areas, it would stop the bleeding and bring back Catholics who have left the church. All it would stand to do is to discourage the core of true believers. In fact, the Pew survey appears to indicate that the teachings of the Church don’t have a lot to do with the way many individual Catholics — even regular churchgoers — think and live.

I’ve seen what the numbers do to the true believers who at least were former Protestants. Nothing discourages these folks. It’s always sunny in Rome.

The Numbers Still Don't Lie

Published on by D. G. Hart31 Comments

So what’s up with all the gloating? Yet another reminder of how limited papal infallibility and supremacy is:

Neither are Catholics uniformly on board with Francis’ many calls for social and economic justice. Most (57 percent), chiefly Democrats and women, say the Catholic church should focus more on social justice and the obligation to help the poor than on abortion and the right to life. But 33 percent of Catholics, chiefly Republicans and men, say the opposite.

Overall, Catholics are statistically in line with most Americans on current hot-button social issues:

72 percent (like 71 percent of all Americans) say government should do more to reduce the gap between rich and poor.
73 percent of Catholics (66 percent of Americans) say the U.S. government should do more to address climate change.
61 percent (63 percent of Americans) want to see a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
51 percent, chiefly Democrats, (53 percent of Americans) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
The Catholic church preaches against homosexual behavior. But PRRI finds most U.S. Catholics either don’t know or don’t heed that teaching:

53 percent of Catholics say they don’t think same-sex marriage goes against their religious beliefs.
60 percent favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.
76 percent favor laws that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people against discrimination.
65 percent oppose a policy that would allow small-business owners to refuse, based on their religious beliefs, to provide products or services to gay and lesbian people.

Reactions to the pope also reflect the complexity of the church in the United States today. Catholics are not only divided by ethnicity, generation and geography; they also differ in the ways they see the church, its role in their lives, in politics and in society.

Now if you are aware of statistics like that, aside from claims of papal audacity, why would you write this in defense of the papacy?

Catholics believe that the same infallible Spirit of Christ who filled the apostles and fired the Church into birth at Pentecost, and went on to inspire the Scriptures, still dwells in the apostolic church today. Catholics believe the church, led by the successors of the apostles, and the successor of Peter continues to proclaim and teach the gospel without fail.

Whether or not Peter was first among the disciples or the Bishop of Rome supreme among the metropolitan bishops, apparently Roman Catholics don’t listen to Christ’s vicar on earth or believe that he carries all the spiritual weight that Fr. Dwight claims. Yes, the Yankees have a lot of championship bling, but if they are not going to make the playoffs this year (not saying they won’t), don’t you cease beating your breast at least for this season?

And if you are a defender of the papacy, don’t you think about sending a memo up the chain of command to warn that so many words about so many non-essential matters may dilute the episcopal brand? You might even wonder if all those claims about superiority have gone to the Vatican’s head and clouded the bishop’s ability to discern what is truly important.

The more exalted the claims for papal audacity, the louder the numbers.