A tale of two front pages
Two front page articles caught my eye this morning: the first one in the Free Press, about a Jesuit priest coming out of the closet in protest of the Vatican’s issuance Tuesday of its policy on homosexuality and the discernment of vocation to priesthood; the second in the New York Times, about the University of the South’s retooling of its image as a “southern” institution.
In terms of the first article, I can only say that I am increasingly convinced that the Catholic Church has become nothing more than a sect, and an increasingly superfluous one at that. Undeniably, any claim which they may once have had to “universality” has been given the final blow in this recent debacle. By excluding what many experts would say is ten percent of the world’s population, they have finally “outed” themselves for the bigots that they are. I saw a book not long ago the title of which suggested that anti-Catholicism was the “last acceptable bigotry.” I would suggest that the church has once again proved that it is not to be outdone when it comes to that particular evil. What’s next, excommunication for Massachusetts Fourth District Catholics who vote for Barney Frank?
On an entirely lighter note, the Times coverage of my alma mater’s attempts to retool their image as a “kinder, gentler” Confederate institution is a fun read. Granted, I don’t really see Sewanee with any real degree of objectivity. One member of the staff, musing on my feelings for the seminary there, once described me as having the strangest case of approach-avoidance response he had ever seen. My favorite quote in the Times article is that of alumnus and regents member Jon Meacham who describes the university as "a strange combination of 'Brideshead Revisited' and 'Deliverance.'” That sort of fits in with my memories of the place.