Alcoholic, Heterodox Priest Removes Himself From Catholic Church

Deo gratias.

Fr. William Hausen, a profound embarrassment to the Church of Pittsburgh, has taken his leave:

The Rev. William Hausen knows just what he'll do when he gets the letter notifying him of his formal excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church: Frame it.

The Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese announced Thursday that Hausen "has incurred automatic excommunication" by starting a splinter church. The diocese sent Hausen notification of the pronouncement via certified letter, said the Rev. Ronald Lengwin, diocesan spokesman.

Hausen, 66, of Sewickley, said he received notice of a certified letter but didn't have time to pick it up from the post office; he was going to the Andre Rieu concert last night at Mellon Arena....

I don't want to seem harsh, Faithful Reader, but I say this: It's about time! and Good riddance.

Surely, in a way, this is nothing to rejoice over: this is a lost soul who is, it seems, quite happy to continue to lead others astray. But he's also a recalcitrant, contumacious, rebellious subversive, and it's far better — it's simply honest — to have His Lostness lead others astray from a banquet room than from a Catholic church.

(Thanks, Amy.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 05/07/04 07:18:48 PM
Categorized as Religious.

Still Comfortable?

WaPo notes today a new ad campaign from American Life League:

A Roman Catholic antiabortion group launched an advertising campaign against Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington yesterday, attacking him for saying he is not comfortable denying Communion to Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and other Catholic members of Congress who support abortion rights.

The Virginia-based American Life League said the advertisements are the beginning of a $500,000 print ad campaign targeting bishops who are reluctant to punish Catholic politicians for taking policy positions that defy the church. The first ad shows Jesus in agony on the cross and asks: "Cardinal McCarrick: Are you comfortable now?" ....

Later, we see that Cardinal McCarrick's "spokeswoman" is a very witty dissembler:

The cardinal's spokeswoman, Susan Gibbs, said he had not seen the full-page advertisement that began running yesterday in the Washington Times, the Catholic weekly the Wanderer and the conservative journal Human Events because he was in Italy following meetings with Pope John Paul II last week. But Gibbs responded to the campaign's rhetorical question about McCarrick's comfort by saying that he "is very comfortably in communion with the church on this issue."

"In our teaching, the primary responsibility is on the individual whether to receive Communion after serious reflection on whether they are in the proper state," she said. "The cardinal has been clear that he would be very reluctant to use the Eucharist as a political sanction." ....

If we let them — McCarrick & Gibbs — get away with (1) lying about "our teaching" and (2) casting this issue as a "political sanction", we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Then, a professor at Holy Cross in Worcester reveals himself to be either profoundly ignorant or another dissembler, or both:

.... David O'Brien, a professor of Roman Catholic studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., said McCarrick appears to be trying to find a middle road between punishing politicians and remaining silent. He said all bishops must "protect the integrity of the church's teaching" by speaking out against the "grave scandal" that results from high-profile Catholics flouting church doctrine.

But, he said, "if they push this too hard, it could easily backfire on them. People are going to say, 'Where is their moral leadership on a whole lot of issues? How many bishops have resigned because of their mishandling of sexual abuse? Why didn't they speak on the war in Iraq? What effort did they make to bring to the attention of their own people the positions they've taken on war, capital punishment and poverty?" ....

Why didn't they speak on the war in Iraq? is a question that could be asked only by (1) the ignorant or (2) the deceptive.

(Thanks, Fr. Wilson.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 05/07/04 06:41:06 PM
Categorized as Religious.

Episcopal Spine Alert

A just-discovered weblog.

You know it's cool because it blogrolls The Blog from the Core. :-)

(Thanks, Mark.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 05/07/04 06:17:07 PM
Categorized as Religious.

Excommunication. Excommunication? Excommunication!

April 16, 1962, the Archbishop of New Orleans excommunicated three Catholics for continuing "to hinder his orders or provoke the devoted people of this venerable archdiocese to disobedience or rebellion in the matter of opening our schools to all Catholic children" during desegregation.

(Thanks, Bill.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 05/07/04 05:57:09 PM
Categorized as Religious.

"Seven — And Climbing"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCXCIII

From Deborah Orin at the New York Post yesterday.

It was bizarre yesterday to hear John Kerry criticize President Bush over the Iraqi prisoner-abuse scandal, considering Kerry publicly confessed to committing war "atrocities" when he served in Vietnam.

"Yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers," Kerry told "Meet the Press" in 1971, ticking off "free-fire zones" and burning villages in violation of the Geneva Convention.

In testifying before Congress in 1971, Kerry also claimed U.S. troops committed rapes, cut off ears, electrically shocked genitals, razed villages and poisoned food.

He now says some of his words were inappropriate but has never recanted his claims of U.S. atrocities by himself and others — recanting would mean saying he lied in sworn testimony to Congress.

Perhaps that's why Kerry at first was so cautious on the prisoner-abuse issue and yesterday spoke so gingerly as he said the U.S. response was "slow and inappropriate.

It's the latest case where Kerry's campaign seems hamstrung, with his record coming back to haunt him. That's fueled a near-panic in Democratic ranks that isn't really justified by the polls, although he is slipping.

Other worries:

* Kerry is having trouble exciting black voters — the most loyal Democrats — and black and Latino leaders (like Al Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile) complain his inner circle is all white.

* Kerry still has no war room, despite Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's warning that it's vital. Ex-Clinton staffer Howard Wolfson was hired to run a war room, but left after 41/2 days. Word is, other Kerry aides felt threatened.

So on a 1-to-10 scale, how high is the panic meter gone?

"Seven — and climbing," says a New York Dem.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 05/07/04 06:50:20 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & John Kerry.

"The Big Steal"

Prof. Peter Wood writes at NRO yesterday:

.... Why is college so expensive? Why does federal aid never really succeed in making college more affordable? These shouldn't be deep mysteries. For over a decade I participated in university meetings aimed at determining my university's annual tuition increases. The only real question was, "How much can we get away with?" And the only real worry was that, if we overreached, we might move to the dreaded top of the list for largest increases. Most years, it fell to me to draft a letter to parents from the Chairman of the Board explaining that the tuition increase reflected this or that combination of new construction projects and programs.

Title IV funds and other federal financial aid are seen by colleges and universities as money that is there for the taking. Tuition is set high enough to capture those funds and whatever else we think can be extracted from parents. Perhaps there are college administrators who don't see federal student aid in quite this way, but I haven't met them. But I don't mean to imply that college administrators are driven solely by profit maximization. One reason that many prefer sky-high tuitions is that it enables them to act as social engineers. The larger the income from tuition, the more money they have on hand for scholarships for students who cannot afford the tuition.

One might think that the easier way to expand access for impoverished students is to maintain low tuitions, and indeed some colleges do just that. But it isn't the prevailing pattern. Perhaps that is because many colleges and universities grow to like the pleasures of living large. Large sports complexes, star faculty members, big science, and a shimmering image mean a lot to college administrators and a fair number of faculty members too.

We seem to have devised a historical trap for ourselves. Most Americans believe a college degree is a prerequisite for a prosperous life; most accept that college is inherently expensive; most are grateful for the assistance that the federal government offers in meeting this huge financial burden; and most take a vicarious pleasure in the very institutional vanity that drives the price of college ever higher. Is there a way out of these mutually-reinforcing assumptions?...

You don't suppose, Faithful Reader, that analysis like this could provide some clue as to why health care is so expensive when so much of it is covered by third-party payers, do you?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 05/07/04 06:42:16 AM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.