Clinton to Depose Oprah? (washingtonpost.com)

It's always an unfortunate word choice to use Clinton and "Depose" in the same sentence. Check out The Corner for suggested names of his show. I nominate "Who Wants to Blow a Millionaire?"

Antismokers going too far?
But there's an even better argument. The co-op members can keep smokers off their property because it's their property. The good people of 180 West End Avenue have every right to enjoy lives free of puppies, loud parties and cigarette smoke if they choose.

I'm not buying this argument. The Co-Op board is regulating more than "their property." They are preventing one member from disposing of his own property in the manner he sees fit. If smoking affects the common areas, they can require that the abutter manage that (by installing filters, air purifiers, etc.). But the individual apartment does not belong to the Co-Op. Co-ops have a monopoly power, and monopolies must be carefully monitored and regulated by the state, to prevent their becoming illegal or abusive.

Which Presidential Hopeful Are You?

I can't possibly be John McCain. I believe in the First amendment.

"Deep Throat"

The Linda Lovelace stories the alst week ahve reminded me to blog about the other "Deep Throat." For the record, I believe Bob Dole was Woodward and Bernstein's source during Watergate. Let future "Google" searches reflect this for all posterity. :-)

New Blog

Visit Kairos from now on for religiously-oriented blogs. I'll keep all but the most obviously political ones off this page henceforth.

I have decided that spinning off religious blogs makes the most sense. I kept running into the idea that some of the specifically religous things here were limited by the political orientation of this site, and some political ideas weere limited by the fact that I needed to talk religiously about them. So Go Forth for that stuff

O Judgment, Thou Art Fled to Brutish Beasts

My argument with my colleague the other day set me to mulling about the blinders people put on. How can it be that people can look at Saddam Hussein (to take one example) and suppose that a mere piece of paper will be sufficient to restrain or even end his evil? How can people look at Yasser Arafat and say "He does have some valid points..."?

The answer I have come to is found in a John LeCarre novel, one of the early Smiley books. (I think it was The Honourable Schoolboy but may be mistaken.) LeCarre has a good riff on why "M" won't hire people who hate communism, because they are halfway already to loving it. When someone wonders why then they bother fighting the Bolsheviks, the answer comes (I'm paraphrasing) that it is to protect the existence of "Reasonable Man."

There lies the answer. My colleague, like so many other willing but naive Americans, is a Reasonable Man. And a Reasonable Man must be an Honourable Man. "I wouldn't go blowing up civilians and myself unless I was really desperate," he thinks to himself, "so that must be how they feel." "Why do they hate us?" ask Honourable Men, for in civilized places Honourable Men apologize for having given even unintentional offense--and no one would attempt to murder 50,000 in a single swoop without having born grievous offense. Honourable Men believe that the UN will solve all the world's problems, as though that august body were somehow distinguishable from the dictatorships and kleptocracies that comprise it.

See Stanley Kurtz for a different, but complementary take on "reasonable men". As he notes, the enemy at present is neither reasonable, nor honourable. Even if that analysis fails, however, let us remember that even those who claim to be reasonable, honourable men act in ways that defy honour and reasonableness (though not necessarily reason).

Shakespeare understood it well enough, leaving Marc Anthony to remind us of it:

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
((JC, III:2)

But perhaps I wrong the honourable men whose daggers would stab us all.

Quis custodies?

Amy Welborn has asked an important question today: "One of the most frightening things about this moment is that in every other time of crisis in the Church's history, there's one force that has rescued it, and it hasn't been the hierarchy, not even, for the most part, popes. It's been religious orders...What's the modern equivalent?"

There's a group that has largely gone unheard from in recent days, but it seems to me to offer a potential solution to the problem: the Permanent Diaconate. Since the American Church reestablished this holy order in 1968, following Vatican II, the role of deacons has been one of sacrament and service. “Word, Liturgy and Charity” are the triune obligations of deacons.

There are some 13,000 deacons in the American Church, more than in the rest of the world combined. Neither entirely lay people nor fully clerics, the role of the diaconate is nevertheless sacramental, and principally focused on spreading the Word. Though many parishes use deacons seemingly exclusively to read the Gospel and assist with Communion, many other deacons are out in the front lines of Catholic interaction with the world. They run soup kitchens and rehab programs, publish newspapers, work as bankers and police officers. In short, they do everything a good Christian can do, and then they help run the Church on Sunday. Important to note is that 97% are or have been married (only 3% are divorced, compared to 12% of Catholic men over 35 as a whole).

It has been my contention for some time (even before the scandal) that the diaconate offers a solution to the shortage of vocations in the American Church. Deacons are empowered to perform all sacraments save Reconciliation and the Eucharist. A handful of deacons in every parish could greatly increase the outreach and effectiveness of even a small number of priests, placing the fate of the parish much more firmly in the hands of the parishioners. And because the deacons are canonically ordained, it will give lay members a voice outside the usually liberalizing bounds so common in the lay ministries (at least the ones I have encountered).

There are several potential difficulties with the diaconate, but none seem insurmountable. First, there is a deep-seated ambivalence about it within the clergy. Conservatives don't like deacons because deacons are not celibate. Liberals dislike them for the same reason. To the conservative set, it threatens to undermine celibacy. To the liberals, it threatens to weaken the case for liberalizing. Oddly enough, both cases are enhanced by a quirk of the ordination. Though a married man may be ordained a deacon, he may not remarry, should his spouse pre-decease him. (This strikes me as bizarre in the extreme, by the way. Such an attitude really does seem to me based in the "fear of sex" that so many anti-celibacy activists accuse Rome of. Perhaps there is a good theological argument for it; I have not heard it.) Additionally, at least in the case of my own diocese, there exists a bias against younger deacons. I meet the minimum age (albeit barely) for the diaconate, but this fall was strongly discouraged from applying until I am older (I am 32, and would be 35 at the time of ordination). If I don’t join the next class in two years, my life is likely to demand that I put it off until my late 40s or 50s.

Nevertheless, Deacons have historically been significant sources of strength and power within the Church. One of the most remarkable results of Vatican II was to revive the Permanent Diaconate, but its potential has yet to be realized. Perhaps this is the moment. If Bishops can be persuaded to expand the opportunity and training for deacons, they would have a new reservoir of people at a time when they need all the help they can get. By including Deacons in the plans for addressing sexual abuse by clergy, they increase the participation of parishioners substantially, while still maintaining some control over the situation. The fact that most deacons are married and parents cannot but help to improve the system of accountability. And the fact that deacons are required to maintain a life and a profession outside their ministerial duties means an expanded diaconate would moderate the problem of clericalism.

There are no doubt thousands of men like myself in the church right now who felt called both to the priesthood and parenthood, and chose the latter. It is time to call on them to help resolve this crisis. As the US Conference of Catholic Bishops itself has noted, “The diaconate is still a ministry in development, with a new identity emerging over time and in practice.”

For an overview of the Diaconate, with some good links, click here. To find out about joining in your diocese, click here.

Non Sequitur

An aptly titled cartoon for our present condition in the Church. Today's strip pretty much nails it.

In Between Naps

A remarkable blog on St. Catherine of Siena, to which I can add nothing.

The Boston Globe, surprisingly, continues to "get it."

The clergy's buried truths
Prevalence of male teenage victims in scandal points to other issues
By Donald Cozzens, 4/28/2002
The church's first step in facing the difficulties in the clergy might well be to address with compassion and sensitivity a reality it wants to deny: Many of its priests and bishops are gay.

Coming to grips with this reality is an important first step to a renewed church and a healthier priesthood.

Once again, the Boston Globe seems to be leading the way on this story, at least among the iberal media, in a way that I never previously expected. "Both pedophilia and ephebophilia are criminal, and in the eyes of most religious traditions, immoral...As the distinction takes hold, it is accompanied by the disturbing realization that most of the reported victims of priest abusers are not children, but teenage boys."

And "Commentators and behavioral specialists stress the absence of any link between sexual orientation, specifically a gay orientation, and the abuse of young children. But given the presence of large numbers of gay men in the priesthood, what is the significance of the disproportionate number of teenage boys among the victims of non-pedophile priest abusers?"

If you've been into the Catholic blogging, you already know most of what's in this. But bear in mind, this is the front page of the Sunday Globe's Focus section, not normally a place where one finds stories of this caliber, and "POV".

On to Iraq?

U.S. Blueprint to Topple Hussein Envisions Big Invasion Next Year
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, April 27 — The Bush administration, in developing a potential approach for toppling President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, is concentrating its attention on a major air campaign and ground invasion, with initial estimates contemplating the use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops.

What's left unsaid in this story is the causus belli.

Lt. Cdr. Michael Scott Speicher, USN, went missing on the first night of the air war in 1991. His F/A-18 was shot down, and though Cdr. Speicher was initially declared KIA, the remains of the aircraft were later discovered in the desert, with indications he probably succesfully ejected. 60 Minutes did a story on him in the last couple of years, and the DoD has reclassified him as MIA.

First, a little known aside about Cdr. Speicher: he took some leave from Saratoga while it transitted Suez, and spent Christmas in Bethlehem. The Associated Press interviewed him there for a wire story that appeared in many papers.

The probability that an American serviceman has languished in an Iraqi prison for 11 years while the country and the world "moved on" is intolerable. If true, a military response would be demanded whether or not we had declared a war on terror.

Unfortuntaely, my own suspicious nature makes me wonder whether Cdr. Speicher is now to be used as the cause of the War. Will we hear Pentagon briefings declaring that it has been "discovered" that the Iraqis are holding him? Will this "discovery" turn out to have been withheld from the public for a number of years, against the day we finally decided to do something about Iraq?

Cdr. Speicher has been in my constant prayers since January 1991, when he was the subject of one of the greatest homilies I have ever heard, from the chaplain at my college. I was then, and remain now, a "hawk" on Iraq. I will fiercely support any effort to remove Hussein from life in this world. But that homily reminded me of my spiritual duty too, at a time when my entire focus was on wordliness. When rumors that Cdr. Speicher survived began to apear in the media, I followed them closely. It may be a grave sin, but I prayed that he had died 11 year ago, rather than suffer the horrors survival would surely have entailed. I now hope and pray that any government revalations that appear will be genuine, sincere, and timely. But I'm doubtful.