This past week should be in the running for Most Weird Week of the Year. A presidential candidate, quietly staying at a local hotel, has to depart the building with everyone else because of chemical poisoning. A Supreme Court justice is robbed on vacation by someone wielding a machete. A Grammy Awards evening includes a musical skit featuring an assortment of people dressed like monks, a 'priest' and an altar boy [praying between two legs of a female dancer] and, oh yeah, a failed exorcism with the 'possessed' star, Nicki someone, levitating above the stage. As they say, you can't make this stuff up.
But one of the most amazing events, for those interested in church politics, is this: both retired archbishop of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony and Archbishop Charles Caput, often [and correctly] depicted as liberal and conservative respectively, have come out firmly in opposition to the president's 'accommodation' regarding the Church and insurance programs including sterilization, birth control and abortifacients, i.e. dayafter pills. Cardinal Mahony says he is 'outraged' at Obama's 'incredulous contortions' and opining that now the situation is 'worse.' Archbishop Caput calls the latest White House response 'dangerous and insulting.' It should be noted in working on the so-called 'accommodation' no bishops were consulted or invited for discussion by anyone in the White House.
According to published reports, Catholics in the cabinet warned the president not to move forward on the HHS mandate. Leon Panetta, rightly suspecting the coming fire storm, asked "What are we doing here? What is the point?" Those all important questions need to be answered.
-Fr. Patrick Dooling