Good News – Bad News

Sometimes I am just not in the mood to write a post about somebody flushing the culture down the drain or doing their best to destroy the Church I love (as if that were even possible.)

It wears me out, day after day pointing out the pointless. So today I wanted to write about good news. Perhaps I would write about the wonderful news that the Transalpine Redemptorists, a traditionalist group akin to the SSPX, has come back in to communion with Rome and has had all the canonical sanctions removed.

I looked around some more for some good news. Perhaps I would write about the Long Island man, trained archivist Ed Thompson, who has been conducting in-depth spoken-word histories of some 250 religious workers – priests nuns, and brothers on Long Island and in New York City in an effort to show the larger truth that the vast majority of priests are heroes.

As much as I wanted to write in detail about these nice stories, alas I had my hand forced when I came across one of the more imbecilic articles I have had the displeasure to stumble upon in a while. But I must admit I have mixed feelings about it, and I need your help. Who is more inane? Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, author of the absurd Failing America’s Faithful or Lisa Miller, religion editor of Newsweek. Miller writes this adoring review of Kennedy Townsend’s book.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend grew up in that kind of Roman Catholic family, the kind that—in spite of the imperfections of individual members—put country and duty above personal pain, the kind that put the suffering of those with less above the suffering of those with more. In a new book, “Failing America’s Faithful,” Kennedy Townsend joins former senator Jack Danforth and other “old school” politicians in mourning a world in which being Christian meant caring for others and making sacrifices to solve problems.

And so she suggests reforms that she believes will revitalize her beloved Catholic Church and refocus the faithful on service. The hierarchy in Rome, she says, needs to stop obsessing about sex. It needs to rethink its position on the ordination of women and married people, on abortion, on gay clergy and gay unions. “Clearly,” she says, “if we can believe in the virgin birth and that the body and blood of Christ are in the eucharist, then we can certainly believe that a woman can be a priest.” These recommendations will infuriate Catholic traditionalists, but Kennedy Townsend doesn’t care: she loves her church and she’s not leaving. “The church,” she says, “is full of possibilities.”

Tough call. You be the judge.