On Holy-Water Gate

I saw this documentary on Showtime last night and I thought it was ironic that it was also the same day when Deep Throat of Watergate finally de-skulked into the news spotlight. The documentary was kinda newbish - without the Ken Burns dramatics - but the story it told was compelling. I have to admit I was in the cynical camp when this issue finally got out in 2002 - afterall, I went to Catholic schools all my life - and if there's a new rich defendant the lawyers would want to litigate (after the tobacco companies), it would be the Catholic Church. I so wanted to believe that the nuns and priests who educated me were a few whiskers short of perfection.

But - the sex abuse came to light and we all know what happened. If you ask me, Cardinal Law's new Roman assignment was not only a promotion, it was nothing short of a Vatican-imposed immunity from US prosecution. (Plus - he gets to be in the same city as Delia!!! How lucky is that?!)

Delia Gallagher, during the whole CNN Pope-palooza, was a big defender of Pope B16 and his role in the US sex abuse scandal. It was her job, afterall, to relay the views of the Vatican to mortals like us. She was also in Dallas in 2002 for the first US Bishop Conference on this issue - but alas, no cameo of her in the documentary (believe me, I looked!) - although from the transcript, Leon Harris got to flirt with her big time! (Lucky bastard!)

Which brings me to my deep thoughts: hard as it was to accept the flaws in my Church, it was also a defining moment - priests aren't perfect, the Church isn't perfect, and even the velvet curtains of the Vatican cannot keep the truth from coming out. A lot of my fellow Catholics call for the return to the mystery and sanctity of the Latin mass - *cough* Robert Moynihan *cough* - as if it would bring back what we seem to have lost. But wasn't that the same period that produced all this church secrecy and the flock's unquestioning subservience? I guess in a world as unstable and dangerous as we have now, we long for the days of old when the Sunday mass was this big production of foreign language and smoky altars. We long for a mystery outside of ourselves because the mystery within is much harder to deal with. By demystifying the mass - the central part of the Catholic faith - the Vatican inadvertently demystified itself as well. Oooppsss...

Maybe it IS different in Latin, but I will come with a warning label: Have asthma - allergic to incense smoke