Controversies: February 2006 Archives

I'm astounded. I didn't expect this at all.

ACI-Prensa's Alejandro Bermudez says that Fr. Bryan Hehir and the board of the Archdiocese of Boston's Catholic Charities will announce their refusal to obey directives ending CC's cooperation in the adoption of children by same-sex couples.

The timing of this event, an in-your-face confrontation to Archbishop (and shortly to be Cardinal) O'Malley, is of course very interesting. If this story is true, our Archbishop is soon going to set the course for the next few years: either a thoroughgoing reform to strengthen the authentic Catholic commitment of diocesan institutions and leaders, or a "truce of 2006", in Fr. Neuhaus' phrase, a truce of appeasement.

"Now, Bishop, I'm climbing out on this limb, where you told me not to go, and -- here's a saw, by the way, but don't you dare use it!"

Update: So far there's no confirmation of this in the press; is Bermudez mistaken?

Update 2: After dropping this bombshell, Mr. Bermudez says he's giving up blogging to focus on his regular work. And now he's removed the blog: why? out of embarrassment?

Dear readers, this story is starting to look like one big mistake. If it really turns out to be spurious, I apologize in advance for having given it more of an airing than it deserves.

Do recent CDF actions against certain claimed private revelations add up to a trend? Times of London commentary points to warnings about the Ida Peerdeman case and the Fr. Gobbi case, and suggests more to come.

Update: Feb. 23: The Pope met today with the bishops of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Some bonehead editor working for NASA, a 24-year-old journalism major, decided to pick a quarrel with a scientist in the agency, demanding that he use the word "theory" every time he mentioned the "Big Bang".

Perhaps he thought he was defending the concept of a world created by God, but that kind of incompetent help we don't need. I'm pleased to see the guy's been exposed for lying about his college degree and has hit the sidewalk.