An Elegant Solution for Catholic Church: Women Cardinals

I've been thinking since my last post praising (sort of) Frances Kissling for speaking out on the Society of St. Pius X readmission and the rehabilitation of Bishop Williamson. Actions like this, while understandable, still do less than nothing to assuage the feelings of liberal Catholics. Still, nothing makes me more uncomforatble than the lack of a role for women in Church leadership.

Last year, at the International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec, I sat in an old hockey areana temporarily converted into a church and watched the opening procession of a Mass. Dozens of bishops, archbishops, Eastern patriarchs and cardinals made their way down the aisle. And while there were a few female faces -- alter servers, lectors, mostly -- it was impossible not to be aware of the gender disparity. "We have to get more women up there," was the only thought that passed through my head.

But I have hope, for there is an elegent solution out there: women cardinals. Even if Church leadership persists in arguing that the apostolic succession bans women from the priesthood, the College of Cardinals is a later creation that exists outside of the priesthood. One does not have to be a priest to be a cardinal. I retain the hope that, someday, the Church will open up this body, which directly selects the Pope, to women.

A fool's hope? Perhaps. But the same Mass at Quebec featured, to celebrate India's contributions to the Church, a sitar solo. A hundred years ago, when the U.S. took the Phillipines from the Spanish, the Church replaced the Spanish bishops who served there up to then with American ones. Change does come.

Kissling, Lefebvre et al

Browsing over to Salon.com and seeing Frances Kissling's byline is never a pleasant experience for me, but after Benedict XVI recinded the excommunication of the four Society of St. Pius X bishops, I knew that she would show up sooner or later. And here she is: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/01/29/antisemitism/

I've published responses to Kissling's earlier pieces in the Salon letters section before, so I won't go over my objections to her here. She earns her living playing the Zell Miller role in the Catholic Church, plain and simple. I don't think anyone who gives the matter any thought would really quibble with that characterization, except perhaps in degrees of magnitude.

But as someone once said, every ten years or so David Brenner tells a funny joke. This rapprochment Benedict XVI engineered with the late Bishop Lefebrve's ultraconservative group has grated on me ever since the effort began. Then on Sunday, I heard about what the one bishop said and that he still was getting back into the Church. I was scheduled to do the readings during the 9:30 Mass, so soon I found myself silently seething over the decision in full view of several hundred people.

It is tempting, of course, to blame the messenger. One suspects that Benedict tried to make peace with the right rather than the left because, ultimately, there is nothing anyone in the Church can do that will ever satisfy Kissling and those like her. And truth be told, Kissling does overstate her case a bit here. Personally, if I was donating money to the Southern Poverty Law Center, I'd like an explanation as to how an investigation of a relatively obscure Catholic splinter group forwards the center's goals. But for a liberal Catholic who remembers that the Church teaches that one does not have to be Catholic or even Christian to gain salvation, this whole business leaves a bitter taste.

If one believes in God, then it must follow that the Universe is ultimately not a democracy. And if one believes that the Church is truly the Church Millitant, then it deserves a fair hearing. But I do think back on some prominent Church leaders who have come back into favor after some time -- Lefebvre himself, obviously, but also people like Savonarola, who I asked for help before reading on Sunday. My belief is that eventually good sense will prevail.

More Pandora Musings, plus apparently Sad Songs Say So Much

Boy, do I like Pandora radio (http://www.pandora.com/), and they're not even paying me -- not that I'd refuse, of course. You just type in a song, and they make a station based entirely around it. I've already got stations for "She Moves Through the Fair," "The Great Valerio," "Decoration Day", "Matty Groves", "Bachelorette" and "Crazy Man Michael." Of course, the downside of this is a case of depression so nasty that against it my Prozac works as well as an oregano joint.

Which raises another question: why do I seek out sad music? Sometimes a third of the songs on my MP3 player are from diagnosed depressives or artists who killed themselves one way or another, including at least one from an overdose of anti-depressants. This would be excusable in someone young, whose Romantic notions of what depression can do to a person, but not for someone who knows something of its nature. Depression makes the entire world taste like ashes, and banal ashes at that.

And perhaps that is where the attraction lies. Feeling something, even sadness, is infinitly superior to feeling nothing. People may talk about listening to sad music out of a sense of community via empathy, but really I think a closer analogy is to what Rod Steiger's character does at the end of The Pawnbroker: he pushes his hand through a spike.

Who said obituaries cannot be funny?

Certainly not me, someone who's been reading the "Irish Funny Pages" as long as he can remember. Although I will agree that film producer Charles Schneer's obituary in the New York Times was probably not the best place for the following tidbit:

"Mr. Schneer also produced a biopic about the Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, released in the United States in 1960 as I Aim at the Stars. (The comedian Mort Sahl made short work of the title, amending it to read: “I Aim at the Stars — but Sometimes Hit London.")

This also brought back memories of the last (OK, only) Drive-By-Truckers show I saw, where Patterson Hood talked about going to rock concerts at the Von Braun Arena in Huntsville, saying that it was years before he realized how "messed" up that was. Oh BTW, I'm trying to keep this blog relatively clean in language terms, so I bowdlerized Hood's language a bit.

Quick link to anti-Billy Joel goodness

A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of this article: http://www.slate.com/id/2209526/
Let us just say that I will never pass up a chance to testify to the sheer awfulness of Billy Joel.

Someone did recently point out to me that Joel does have some decent personal qualities; apparently he has stuck with his original band mates long past the point where most pop stars dump them for studio session players. But I certainly emphasize with Mr. Rosenbaum on his shame of growing up in the same place as Joel. In October, I grew sick of Joe Buck during the World Series, so I started listening to the radio broadcast instead. That decision spared me from hearing Patti LaBelle butcher the Star Spangled Banner. Maybe I should send Buck a note thanking him for being such an unctuous jerk.

Feeling my way through the process

I'm still not sure how all of this works yet, so I hope that I did not write myself into a corner yesterday with a political post. For now I intend to let my ADD follow its bliss, so to speak, and go wherever it takes me. So, to name a random example, if I feel the need to vent some bile about a movie I just saw -- to say, for instance, that the experience of seeing Synecdoche New York most closely parallels watching someone take an enormous dump, complete with sound effects -- then that's what I'll do.

Not that I want to be wholly negative here, either. If I like something (like, for instance, the Pandora website: http://www.pandora.com/backstage) it will wind up on my site. For now, I'm just feeling out the ground rules my mind is setting for itself.

FOCA Fun

So I'm at Mass today and I see that someone put out pre-printed postcards, ready for mailing to the local Senators and Congresspeople, opposing something called The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). The explanatory literature is, needless to say, very inflammatory; FOCA will supposedly outstrip Roe v. Wade in institutionalizing abortion in the United States.

Now at this point I should note that I voted for Obama. And Kerry. And Gore, Clinton (please ignore 1996, when I voted for Nader; there's a few hundred years in Purgatory waiting for me for encouraging him) and Dukakis. Leaving apart the abortion issue, in terms of social conscience consistent with my faith the Republicans have never come close to offering any sort of alternative. Moreover, the Pro-Life movement, generally speaking, has long since lost any scruples about how they present their case. Both they and the Republicans (and yes, I make a distinction) express their views with the subtlety of a jackhammer. And God help someone who unquestioningly uses their literature to inform their views; facts always take a secondary role to polemics. So I take a pretty jaundiced view towards the Pro-Life literature I see around my local church.

Nevertheless, I will wind up sending in the postcards. Since I started regularly attending Mass again I have never skipped the Eucharist because of my voting record. I know of at least one occasion where John Paul II knowingly gave the Eucharist to a Pro-Choice politician. But abortion bothers me. On social issues I normally take the view that legislating morals does not work, and in any event if society itself is flawed and finite, then why bother worrying about what policies it endorses? I am an American, and to me part of that means believing that we should not be penalized by the circumstances of our births. But that, of course, entails getting born, and I have never heard Reproductive Rights advocates (who themselves are somewhat scruples challenged) make a convincing argument that life definitively begins any later than conception.

Ultimately, my wish is for my party to realize that Pro-Choice advocate have become a boat anchor for the party's election hopes. Without them, Kerry would have won in 2004. Honestly, I know nothing about FOCA, and I suspect that it is not politically viable even in the current environment. As likely as not, the Pro-Life advocates are just trying to keep their followers stirred up. One gratifying trend in recent years has been the increasing success of Pro-Life Democrats, so it would surprise me if FOCA gets anywhere near a vote. But if it does, I certainly do not wish to see any expansion of abortion rights pass Congress.

Late to the Game as Always

Well, here we go. I've always wanted to be one of those people who jump onto trends before anyone else, but as my personal history has been a long series of staying too long at various fairs, here I am again, starting a blog in 2009!!!!!

On the other hand, I do tend to hang onto the bitter end once I have taken something up, which does bode well for the continuance of this little commentary. And I do think that I have something to say that others may, from time to time, find of interest. Mission statements are not part of my style, so essentially I will limit myself to saying that I will offer some observations on whatever catches my attention.

Joseph Stilwell famously used his diaries as an outlet for his bile (and Lord Knows he needed one dealing with Chiang Kai-Shek). That may happen here on occasion. I'm not sure if I should frame this fact as a warning or an enticement, but there it is.

Oh, the title. I based it on something Lenin said. Honestly, I mostly chose it because I was surprised that the title was still available, considering the relationship the United States has with China these days.