Curious! A man in a big red hat!

At Left: Cardinal-in-waiting Seán O'Malley poses in Rome with an admirer.

Boston Archbishop Seán (danged accents!) Patrick O'Malley is getting kicked upstairs! Hooray! There are worse choices!

We at TCC truly see the soon-to-be Cardinal as a good man. Not necessarily a great man, at least not yet, but a good man for the job. O'Malley has done away with much of the accumulated pomp and self-importance of his office, while appearing as a humble man of God. Anybody who walks around New England in sandals in winter can't be all bad. Of course, one bishop does not a diocese make, and there are still plenty of bungling harebrained holdovers from the Law era to give one pause.

So here's a quick prayer for our new "Prince of the Church":

Dear Lord,

Thank you for managing to get us a decent servant as your head shepherd in Boston. May he grow in holiness and grace in the service of your people. May he learn that we in the laity are less his subjects than his brothers and sisters -- whose advice and counsel are often Yours. May he learn to discern the wolves and nitwits among his brother bishops and priests, and that in short order! May he learn to rule with softness with his people and sternly with himself. May he be entirely free of the Bishops' Disease -- sucking up to the pope at the expense of his conscience.

Do forgive him his shortcomings, and help him to unite his people in love and justice.

Hoping this is not too fantastical a request, even for you, O Omnipotent Father, we ask this through Christ, our Lord,

Amen.

Criminalizing charity

At left, LA Cardinal John Mahoney brushes up on his law-breaking skills at this week's Ash Wednesday service in LA.

Ah, the brilliant minds on Capitol Hill are at it again, thinking up all kinds of ways to make we the people do their work.

This time, they are enlisting us in the INS -- the Immigration and Naturalization Service -- and tasking us with the job of fixing the problem of illegal aliens, which our representatives in Congress have worked so hard to repair in the 4-1/2 years since 9/11.

"But how can we help?" you may ask. Why, by refusing to assist any illegal immigrant in any way, or risk being charged with aiding and abetting!

House Bill 4437, sponsored by James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin and Peter King of New York, would expand the definition of "alien smuggling". What's wrong with that? According to a New York Times editorial the bill would make it a crime to help an illegal alien by "working in a soup kitchen, driving a friend to a bus stop or caring for a neighbor's baby."

Sounds like a stupid idea put forth by some obscure and demented pol? Guess again. According to the The Orange County (CA) Register, "The House version passed Dec. 16 by a vote of 239 to 182."

Maybe we should rename it from the "House of Representatives" to the "House of 239 Numbskulls."

So if you know an illegal -- say your Mom or Dad or grandma -- then pouring them a cup of coffee or doing their PJs would make you a criminal. If their house was on fire, the firemen who put out the blaze would face fines or jail time. The barber who cut their hair and the doctor who stitched them up would land in the pokey. Only in America!

Luckily, saner heads are raising their voices in protest, among them LA's Cardinal John Mahoney, who is even calling for priests in his diocese to ignore the law, should it pass. Nothing like a little civil disobedience to get the blood flowing. You go, Cardinal J!

LA Bishop Jaime Soto (hmm, Hispanic name, maybe he's one of them?), Auxiliary Bishop of Orange County calls the bill "wildly impractical." He imagines being hauled into court if he sees an illegal "in the Communion line or [who] wants to bury their grandmother or asks us to provide religious instruction for their children or baptize their babies." It doesn't take Maxwell Smart to see the idiocy of this bill.

Aside from the sheer idiocy of the law, there's that nagging issue of constitutionality. If I help an illegal based on my religious beliefs, will sending me to jail infringe on my right to practice my faith? And if lawyers can't defend clients who are illegals, doesn't that hamper their right to a fair trial?

Makes you wonder about the sanity and competence of the boobs in DC. They've had years to beef up our borders and this is the best they can come up with? Yikes.

Boston bishops blast their boots -- again

I'm not sure why, but the Boston bishops are once more taking aim at the tassels on their loafers.

Yesterday, the Boston Globe reported that the bishops were gearing up to fight gay adoptions in the state. Today, the Globe is reporting something more serious -- that 7 members of the board of Catholic Charities of Boston have resigned in protest of the decision.

I'm of two minds about this. First, I admit to a perverse admiration of the bishops: at least they are putting their money where their mouth is. They have formulated an opinion, and they are pursuing it wherever it leads -- even if it ticks off their most loyal and wealthy supporters. This follows the example of Christ -- in a rather dopey way, I grant you -- who told the truth regardless of (and in full awareness of) the consequences. In Christ's case, the consequence was the Cross. In the bishops' case, the consequence is a further loss of public support and funding. Sadly, this translates into loss of influence and a decreased ability to fulfill the Church's mission to help the poor -- many of them children.

But my "other mind" keeps nagging me.

First of all, why fight gay adoption? Why this fight at this time?

It's not like gays are hoarding all the helpless orphans, crowding out married hetero couples who want to adopt. No. There are plenty of kids out there who need a home. And even if you believe that a functional mother/father-led home is the ideal, is it really a better choice to leave a child homeless and unloved than in a family with two Moms or two Dads?

Then, there's that pesky issue of the Boston Archdiocese sticking its nose in to "save" children from gay adoptees when it did so little to save the children from predacious priest-rapists. I have to admit, though, that being abandoned by the Church is a step up from sodomy. A small step, but a crucial one...

The Church leaders -- soon-to-be Cardinal Sean O'Malley foremost among them -- seem to prefer the placid halls of academe to the rough and dangerous streets. In their scholarly aerie, one is lauded for never compromising a principle. One discerns God's will in the dry leaves of catechisms and textbooks. But in the real world, one must pick one's battles in order to preserve one's resources for battles worth fighting. In the real world, principles often collide, and children do not have the luxury of waiting centuries for the Holy Spirit to manifest his will. In the real world, a child stands to gain by being loved -- whether by one Mom or Dad -- or two.

Why is it that when it comes to safeguarding children, the bishops only circle their wagons around themselves?