I rarely disagree with Michelle Malkin. When I must, I hurt.
Liberals seeking something–anything–with which to bash Senator Rick Santorum (RC-PA) have dug up a column he wrote that is older than Ted Kennedy’s favorite whiskey.
In 2002, at the peak of the Cardinal Law Boston priest sex abuse scandal, Santorum passed at least some of the blame for the Boston church’s licentiousness on the prevailing “anything goes” attitude of Boston, its people, and its environs.
The story might have died with Kennedy’s sophomoric slur on floor of the Senate, but people like Malkin, who ought to know better, have jumped in on Kennedy’s behalf.
Today, Michelle writes:
But for Sen. Rick Santorum to single the city out as more of a fertile breeding ground for sexual abuse than the rest of the country is just wrong. And dumb. Here’s the three-year-old column that Ted Kennedy and friends are up in arms about–and I have to say that they are right, this time, to be incensed.
No, Michelle; you are wrong. As wrong as whatever the opposite of rain is.
What Santorum said, while incomplete, was absolutely right. For those on the right who forget, when Law was covering for pedophile priests, ACT-UP and Queer Nation were tossing about semen-filled condoms in St. Patrick’s Cathedral to protest the church’s “anti-gay” policies. Perhaps Michelle doesn’t remember the late 80s and 90s, but sucking up to gay activists was a popular sport–particularly in places like Boston, home of the flaming Barney Frank.
Santorum’s point must be treated logically. While he did not present it so, one can easily follow the logic inherent in his argument:
One cause of priest pedophilia is homosexual domination of many Catholic seminaries. To eliminate homosexual pedophilia among priests, one must eliminate homosexual priests. To eliminate homosexual priests, one must take steps that will reach the public’s attention. When the Boston public learns that Cardinal Law is “launching an anti-gay witch-hunt among the rectories,” the Boston public, and likely the Massachusetts legislature, will take steps to remove the Catholic church from its borders.
I must remind Michelle, Ed Morrissey, and Santorum’s other detractors that it was Massachusetts where homosexual “marriage” was un-constitutionally dictated by the state’s supreme court. It was the Massachusetts legislature that capitulated for fear of homosexual backlash.
Some argue that the percentage of priests involved in sexual abuse was lower in the Boston archdiocese than in some others. That is irrelevant. Neither of the newspaper reports Malkin cites considers the home of origin of the priests involved, nor the seminaries they attended. While this lack of data applies to Boston clergy, it certainly applies to those in Frankfurt, Ky. I know a half-dozen priests in St. Louis who did not attend a seminary in St. Louis. My parish’s associate pastor came here from the dessert Southwest, and the Tridentine Mass church I regularly attend is staffed with priests from Germany.
The fact of the matter is that licentiousness breeds sinfulness, and sinfulness leads to crime. If Christ’s church ignores God’s laws, how much easier is it for her members to ignore man’s laws? The Catholic church, particularly Pope Paul VI’s hand-off approach, the pastors and bishops who raided the sanctuaries in the 70s and 80s, and their liberal amen corner in academia share varying degrees of responsibility. Of course, the sick, weak, sin-lusting priests who defiled boys in need take the lion’s share of blame and guilt. Their punishment is both present and future.
But it is for us, the Catholics of today, to stand by our church, acknowledge the damage she has taken from the liberal assault, and call away repel boarders. Instead of attacking the one nationally known Catholic who was the courage to call the church’s spade a spade, we should applaud Santorum for pointing out the obvious. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
Lining up on this issue are Kathryn Lopez, Amy Welborn, Jay Anderson, Will Bloomfield, Professor Bainbridge, and many others. Follow the links from these links, and you’ll have an evening’s worth of good reading.
Amy Welborn posts a salient quote from a reader:
Bottom Line: the present evils the Church faces are an ingenious cooperative arrangement between the worst liberal impulses and the worst conservative ones. Liberals have agitated for dissent from the Church’s teaching and for unchastity. Conservatives, faced with this, have cravenly protected the fait accompli and the status quo. This is why, if you run across a pederast bishop, he is a liberal (that subculture whose fave rave words are “transgressive”, “pushing the envelope” etc.) while no conservative bishop is an actual pederast, though he may well be a cowardly enabler too spineless to challenge the Insurgent Clevers who… what’s the word I’m looking for? Ah! Rape our children and despoil us of the Church’s teaching.
I will ask neither Santorum nor Mark Shea (Welborn’s reader) to apologize for statements that, while offensive to some, are patently true.
Part of the Beltway Traffic Jam
UPDATE: JackLewis.com sides with Santorum