On this Sunday, the ever-generous New York Times gives Lisa Fabrizio one less thing to confess. The journalist won't have any reason to regret writing, in the wake of the newspaper's ode to cafeteria Catholics, that the Gray Lady is on a crusade against Rome.
In fact, you could say the Times is working overtime to prove Fabrizio's accusation. It's hired a homosexual man to argue that the next pope should be, if not a friend of Dorothy, then at least a friend of a friend (and no, we're not talking about Dorothy Day):
If one were to give advice to these grand old men [of the College of Cardinals] -- and they are not, I notice, seeking advice -- it would be simple. Find a cardinal who was brought up with many, many sisters, who has a lesbian in the family, a cardinal whose life has been bound up and fully informed by women, who knows the problems and challenges they face in a church where they cannot minister. Even if the next pope and his cardinals were not to change the rule against female priests quickly, it might be important, as acts of witness and of love, to enter into real dialogue with women in the church, and to be seen to listen, to take heed, as St. Patrick did centuries ago, to the other's pain."Lesbian in the family"? Is this dude talking about St. Pat—or "It's Pat"?
St. Patrick took heed to the other's pain, all right—especially when the other was in danger of perdition. He is credited with writing these words in the prayer "St. Patrick's Breastplate":
Against the demon snares of sin,But then, what did the great saint know of sensitivity? He didn't have a lesbian in the family.
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours
Against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.
Somehow, I don't think anyone's going to drive the snakes out of the New York Times anytime soon.
