Summary: It must suck to be Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman right about now. The Senator’s dramatic reversal of his position on marriage equality, from opposition to support, together with his disclosure that his 21-year-old son Will, a junior at Yale, is gay, has called forth attacks from marriage equality supporters and from angry, hair-on-fire extremists of the religious right. Marriage equality supporters have condemned the Ohio senator for being insufficiently empathetic, while the angry rightists have demanded that he either “change” or reject his son. Ronald Reagan pointed out that political change usually begins around the dining table, and Harvey Milk noted that the cause of LGBT civil rights usually does better when our straight neighbors actually know queerfolk. Rob Portman is going through much the same evolution that millions of Americans have gone through in the last generation. Those of us who support marriage equality should cut him and Will a break and not demand an absolute purity of motive from him that many of us would find impossible to muster in ourselves.
By: Paul S. Marchand
It seems that Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman has had a “Road to Damascus” experience with respect to the issue of marriage equality, altering his position from “oppose” to “support,” declaring his position forthrightly in an opinion piece in the Columbus, Ohio, Dispatch. Such experiences, representing as they do decisive, nay, irrevocable reversals of view, have long been a part of the cultural heritage of the Roman-Christian West.
Since the time of Saul of Tarsus’s dramatic conversion to Christianity which began with his God-confronting experience on his way to persecute followers of Jesus Movement in Damascus, the concept of a dramatic volte-face, of a 180° shift in opinion, has usually been referred to as a “Road to Damascus” experience.
Yet, the road to Damascus differs for every soul that travels it.
Both Ronald Reagan and Harvey Milk understood, perhaps even more than the late, great Tip O’Neill, that politics isn’t just local, it often begins around the dining table. Harvey Milk, in particular, understood that when advocating for equal rights for queerfolk, nothing helped get the point across quite as much as actually knowing an LGBT person.
On marriage equality, Rob Portman’s road to Damascus seems to have run right through his dining room for the most Milkian of reasons; the Senator’s son, Will, 21, a junior at Yale, is gay. Moreover, Will Portman has apparently been out to his family for the last two years.
Yet, as a unique as every human being’s road to Damascus may be, it must suck to be Rob Portman right about now. The Senator has taken considerable flak from both sides of the marriage issue. From one side, the Senator has been excoriated for lacking empathy. The gravamen of such criticism is that marriage equality was not an issue the Senator could support until the issue surfaced right in the middle of his own family; under such a construct, it is apparently more important to be supportive in the abstract than to come round to a position of support because one may have been moved by the compunctions of family.
Social conservatives have excoriated both Portman père and Portman fils, the father for supporting marriage equality, and the son for simply being gay. The Senator has been attacked for allegedly lacking principle and not standing up for “godly ways,” while he has been urged, often in the nastiest terms imaginable, to subject his son to so-called reparative therapy, and to reject his son and cast him out if his son refuses to “change.” The sheer nastiness of the commentors on the discussion thread attached to Sen. Portman’s op-ed piece in the Dispatch, calling down the wrath and ill will of an angry Old Testament deity upon him beggared description, and was some of the most sickeningly hateful speech I have ever beheld on an Internet comment thread.
Assailed as he is from both the purist left and the angry, hair-on-fire “Christian” right over his heartfelt candor, it must suck to be Rob Portman right about now.
Yet, those of us who have been on the side of the angels in the marriage equality struggle should consider cutting Rob Portman of little bit of slack on this issue. At the risk of reifying as canonical Harvey Milk’s observation, or worse, over-linking it with Ronald Reagan’s homely political acumen, we should acknowledge that Pauline conversions like Sen. Portman’s don’t occur in abstract vacuum. Advances in civil rights for queerfolk usually occur when those of our straight neighbors who happily consign our queer butts to the back of the bus suddenly discover, mirabile dictu, that they actually know one or more gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered people.
In 2013, the reality of having a queer friend, a queer coworker, a queer neighbor, or a queer child has become so matter-of-fact that a majority of Americans have experienced it. Notwithstanding such antediluvian fools as Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, who claims that there has never been a homosexual in the recorded history of his family, most Americans are within --- at most --- two degrees of separation from a GLBT person.
Such a reality of nearness, together with the substantial statistical likelihood that while working in Washington, Sen. Portman would have encountered queerfolk on Capitol Hill, suggests not only that the Senator may well have been psychologically habituated to the possibility that one of his children might be gay, but also that Portman would have sought out counsel from persons within his own party, including former VP Dick Cheney, who were out as the parents of LGBT children. Will Portman’s coming out to his dad may not have been as much a surprise as otherwise thought.
But, neither Rob nor Will Portman will ever again have the luxury of not participating in the national conversation about civil rights and marriage equality for queerfolk. To a certain extent, I can empathize to a greater degree with Will Portman then with his father. Will Portman now finds himself injected into the vortex of the highly public debate at a time when politics has become a full contact, no holds barred, Breitbart-nasty, enterprise in which little, if any, attention ever gets paid to personal destruction or collateral damage. At best, Will Portman can hope to be spared anything but an Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame. At worst, he will be pursued, belabored, and even stalked by right-wing religious fanatics.
Still, faulting Rob Portman for being “insufficiently empathetic” strikes one as holding the Senator to an unreasonably high standard. Would it have been better if Sen. Portman did not know a single queer person, if he had acted solely out of some kind of abstract attachment to an impersonal principle? Such a view strikes one as naïve. That is not how opinions are formed. In an America in which a majority of voters want to get rid of all those scoundrels on Capitol Hill, but who remain convinced that their own Representative or senator is a fine fellow who deserves reelection, we would be foolish to think that personal considerations don’t or shouldn’t matter in politics.
Ronald Reagan was right when he noted that great political change often begins around the dining table, and Rosa Parks was right in her understanding that significant change also can happen when a single person dares to take a seat at the front of the bus.
Of course, Rob Portman is no Rosa Parks and he’s no Ronald Reagan. He is simply one of millions of Americans having to adjust a priori opinions in the face of an unquestionable reality that such opinions, if persisted in, will do harm to the very family values he professes to uphold. Blood is thicker than water, so let’s give Rob Portman --- and Will, too--- a break and leave off demanding a purity of motive from him that many of us would find impossible to muster in ourselves.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral City. Having served eight years in public office, he can understand why Rob Portman might want to be careful in his utterance, particularly when reversing himself on so live an issue as marriage equality. Mr. Marchand litigated one of the first marriage equality cases in California, twenty years ago. The views herein are his own, and are not intended to constitute legal advice.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
GOBSMACKED!
Summary: the Vatican has gobsmacked us again. New Pope Francis I is an Argentine Jesuit. First of that name, first from the Western Hemisphere, first Jesuit. We don’t know at this point whether Francis intends to honor Francis of Assisi, the apostle of poverty, or Francis Xavier, the great early Jesuit. If the new pontiff cleaves to the conservative line of his two last predecessors, he will do real damage to the church in the global North, while not necessarily contributing to the church in the global South which is now the home of most of the faithful. As other commentators have noted, we should perhaps hope and pray for a pontiff who will be more like a John XXIV than a John Paul III or a Benedict XVII. The Roman church needs a new aggiornamento, while we who are not Roman continue to watch cautiously inasmuch as the Roman Catholic Church tends to set the tone for the Christian community’s dialogue with the larger world.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Once again the Vatican demonstrates its capacity to gobsmack the world at will. The conclave has concluded its work and given the Roman church a new Bishop of Rome.
Francis I is the first pontiff to carry that name.
Francis I is also the first Pope from the Western Hemisphere, specifically, from Argentina.
Francis I is also the first Pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus.
Let’s run that by one more time: first Francis, first Western Hemisphere Pontiff, first Jesuit Pope.
Life seems to be imitating art of late at the Vatican. When Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI resigned, life seemed to be imitating the plot line of a Morris West novel, whether it be The Shoes of the Fisherman or The Clowns of God. Now, life seems to be imitating Walter F. Murphy’s novel The Vicar Of Christ.
Murphy’s 1981 novel now seems eerily prescient, postulating as it does a fictional Pope Francis I from the Western Hemisphere. Though Murphy’s Francis is an American, we should perhaps not be so gobsmacked at the idea of an Argentine Pope. The majority of the world’s Roman Catholics now reside, like the majority of the world’s Anglicans, in what is often referred to as the global South. Still, the new pontiff’s choice of the name Francis seems a departure that no one had expected.
Already, a bit of controversy has begun to arise over whether the quondam cardinal-Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose the name Francis to honor St. Francis of Assisi, or whether he chose it to honor Ignatius Loyola’s able and dedicated assistant St. Francis Xavier. The Assisi reference makes sense if the new pontiff intends to pursue an agenda of the Roman church not only being poor, but of being seen to be poor. After all, St. Francis of Assisi has gone down in the history of the church as a staunch advocate of holy poverty.
On the other hand, invoking St. Francis Xavier makes some sense for a pontiff who, for the first time in history, comes out of the Society of Jesus. Xavier, after all, is one of the great and notable Jesuit saints.
No matter which Francis Papa Francesco had in mind, the task awaiting him would be enough to try the resolve of either Francis of Assisi or Francis Xavier.
To certain extent, we who are not of the Roman obedience have a luxury of being able to view the challenges confronting our Roman brethren and sistren from a somewhat broader perspective than that of those Roman Catholic brethren and sistren. Not being in the metaphorical forest, we can see both the forest and the trees.
Francis I will need reserves of patience and openness of mind which seem to have evaded John Paul II in his later years and for which Benedict XVI (having been in charge of the Holy Office) is not viewed as having possessed. The new Pope is widely regarded as being from the so-called conservative wing of the church. If he opts to continue the kind of conservative agenda set under John Paul II and carried forward under Benedict, he will spend his pontificate desperately attempting to stem the tide of crisis by papering over the cracks in the edifice of the institutional church.
On the other hand, if Francis I opts to attempt to reclaim the momentum of Vatican II that Paul VI frittered improvidently away, he may find himself facing an angry backlash from ultramontane curialists and conservative bishops in the global North who have come to see themselves as water carriers for conservative political movements in their own countries. At all events, the new pontiff will have to address sympathetically the significant social changes in the global North that have cost the Roman Catholic Church dearly in terms of declining numbers of faithful laity and committed clergy.
The last thing our Roman brethren and sistren need is a pontiff to thunder against the principled decisions they make with respect to the most profound and intimate issues of their own lives. A Pope who seeks to reinforce and militantly reaffirm every jot and tittle of Paul VI’s breathtakingly ill considered encyclical Humanae Vitae, or to impose hyper-conservative doctrinal and/or dogmatic litmus tests on his faithful may well find himself stuck administering a church of the global South from a beleaguered outpost in a global North that has left him behind.
While the coming of any new pontiff (and this is my fifth) causes me to entertain a certain degree of skepticism, I am prepared for the very short time being to give Pope Francis I the benefit of some small fraction of doubt. It may be that the perspective of a pontiff from both the Western Hemisphere and the global South, who comes out of the Jesuit experience (and who is thus emphatically not Opus Dei) may awaken him to the critical need for a new aggiornamento. It is half a century since good Pope John XXIII dared to fling open the windows and bring both light and air into a church that had stultified under his predecessor Pius XII.
As an Anglican, I would like to be cautiously optimistic about such a development. Those of us outside the Roman observance owe ourselves and our fellow non-Roman Catholics a duty to the truth to acknowledge that the Roman Catholic Church is very much the elephant in the Christian room, and that what Rome does still has an outsized impact on the way the rest of the world views the Christian community. Thus, we should neither deny nor pooh-pooh what has happened in the Vatican today. Instead, we should hope --- even pray --- that Francis I will have the grace to lead his church out of the doctrinaire traps into which his predecessors allowed it to fall.
If Jorge Mario Bergoglio truly wishes to embody the visions of Francis of Assisi and Francis Xavier, he should, as more than one commentator has noted, be more John XXIV than John Paul III or Benedict XVII. Vatican III, anybody?
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City, California. As an Anglican, he understands, pace Donald Rumsfeld, that you don’t deal with the ecclesial bodies you want, but with the ecclesial bodies you’ve got. Though he is Anglican, he has a pragmatic understanding of the influence any Roman Pontiff can bring to bear. The views contained herein are not intended as legal advice, and should not be so taken. By the same token, those views are also not intended, and should not be taken as, catechesis or instruction in the Faith. At all events, the views contained herein are his own.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Once again the Vatican demonstrates its capacity to gobsmack the world at will. The conclave has concluded its work and given the Roman church a new Bishop of Rome.
Francis I is the first pontiff to carry that name.
Francis I is also the first Pope from the Western Hemisphere, specifically, from Argentina.
Francis I is also the first Pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus.
Let’s run that by one more time: first Francis, first Western Hemisphere Pontiff, first Jesuit Pope.
Life seems to be imitating art of late at the Vatican. When Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI resigned, life seemed to be imitating the plot line of a Morris West novel, whether it be The Shoes of the Fisherman or The Clowns of God. Now, life seems to be imitating Walter F. Murphy’s novel The Vicar Of Christ.
Murphy’s 1981 novel now seems eerily prescient, postulating as it does a fictional Pope Francis I from the Western Hemisphere. Though Murphy’s Francis is an American, we should perhaps not be so gobsmacked at the idea of an Argentine Pope. The majority of the world’s Roman Catholics now reside, like the majority of the world’s Anglicans, in what is often referred to as the global South. Still, the new pontiff’s choice of the name Francis seems a departure that no one had expected.
Already, a bit of controversy has begun to arise over whether the quondam cardinal-Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose the name Francis to honor St. Francis of Assisi, or whether he chose it to honor Ignatius Loyola’s able and dedicated assistant St. Francis Xavier. The Assisi reference makes sense if the new pontiff intends to pursue an agenda of the Roman church not only being poor, but of being seen to be poor. After all, St. Francis of Assisi has gone down in the history of the church as a staunch advocate of holy poverty.
On the other hand, invoking St. Francis Xavier makes some sense for a pontiff who, for the first time in history, comes out of the Society of Jesus. Xavier, after all, is one of the great and notable Jesuit saints.
No matter which Francis Papa Francesco had in mind, the task awaiting him would be enough to try the resolve of either Francis of Assisi or Francis Xavier.
To certain extent, we who are not of the Roman obedience have a luxury of being able to view the challenges confronting our Roman brethren and sistren from a somewhat broader perspective than that of those Roman Catholic brethren and sistren. Not being in the metaphorical forest, we can see both the forest and the trees.
Francis I will need reserves of patience and openness of mind which seem to have evaded John Paul II in his later years and for which Benedict XVI (having been in charge of the Holy Office) is not viewed as having possessed. The new Pope is widely regarded as being from the so-called conservative wing of the church. If he opts to continue the kind of conservative agenda set under John Paul II and carried forward under Benedict, he will spend his pontificate desperately attempting to stem the tide of crisis by papering over the cracks in the edifice of the institutional church.
On the other hand, if Francis I opts to attempt to reclaim the momentum of Vatican II that Paul VI frittered improvidently away, he may find himself facing an angry backlash from ultramontane curialists and conservative bishops in the global North who have come to see themselves as water carriers for conservative political movements in their own countries. At all events, the new pontiff will have to address sympathetically the significant social changes in the global North that have cost the Roman Catholic Church dearly in terms of declining numbers of faithful laity and committed clergy.
The last thing our Roman brethren and sistren need is a pontiff to thunder against the principled decisions they make with respect to the most profound and intimate issues of their own lives. A Pope who seeks to reinforce and militantly reaffirm every jot and tittle of Paul VI’s breathtakingly ill considered encyclical Humanae Vitae, or to impose hyper-conservative doctrinal and/or dogmatic litmus tests on his faithful may well find himself stuck administering a church of the global South from a beleaguered outpost in a global North that has left him behind.
While the coming of any new pontiff (and this is my fifth) causes me to entertain a certain degree of skepticism, I am prepared for the very short time being to give Pope Francis I the benefit of some small fraction of doubt. It may be that the perspective of a pontiff from both the Western Hemisphere and the global South, who comes out of the Jesuit experience (and who is thus emphatically not Opus Dei) may awaken him to the critical need for a new aggiornamento. It is half a century since good Pope John XXIII dared to fling open the windows and bring both light and air into a church that had stultified under his predecessor Pius XII.
As an Anglican, I would like to be cautiously optimistic about such a development. Those of us outside the Roman observance owe ourselves and our fellow non-Roman Catholics a duty to the truth to acknowledge that the Roman Catholic Church is very much the elephant in the Christian room, and that what Rome does still has an outsized impact on the way the rest of the world views the Christian community. Thus, we should neither deny nor pooh-pooh what has happened in the Vatican today. Instead, we should hope --- even pray --- that Francis I will have the grace to lead his church out of the doctrinaire traps into which his predecessors allowed it to fall.
If Jorge Mario Bergoglio truly wishes to embody the visions of Francis of Assisi and Francis Xavier, he should, as more than one commentator has noted, be more John XXIV than John Paul III or Benedict XVII. Vatican III, anybody?
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City, California. As an Anglican, he understands, pace Donald Rumsfeld, that you don’t deal with the ecclesial bodies you want, but with the ecclesial bodies you’ve got. Though he is Anglican, he has a pragmatic understanding of the influence any Roman Pontiff can bring to bear. The views contained herein are not intended as legal advice, and should not be so taken. By the same token, those views are also not intended, and should not be taken as, catechesis or instruction in the Faith. At all events, the views contained herein are his own.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
A MEDITATION FOR LÆTARE SUNDAY
Summary: today is Lætare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent. The Latin verb lætifico, from which the title Lætare is taken, implies rejoicing. Yet it is not the hectic rejoicing we would normally associate with the concept of joy, but rather the consciousness of incipient joy we feel in the coming of spring, and the sense of things approaching fruition. Though I am aware that there may be some who will take exception to a meditation on Lætare Sunday occurring in a concededly secular and somewhat political blog, I must crave indulgence. There is more to life than politics, and more to life then quotidian temporal pursuits. Those who wish to take umbrage are free to do so, but Lætare Sunday is hardly a time for people to harsh each other’s mellows. As the days grow longer with the coming of daylight saving time, we feel within ourselves that sense of things being made new; we should be grateful therefor.
By: Paul S. Marchand
There are two Sundays in the kalendar of the Church year set aside by name for "rejoicing." The first is Gaudete Sunday (III Advent), and the second is Lætare Sunday (IV Lent). Though both gaudeo and lætifico are now routinely translated out of classical Latin as meaning "rejoice," they, like most word doublets, are not strictly synonymous. In several Latin-English dictionaries, for example, lætifico is translated as "to fertilize, to cheer, to gladden," and "to delight." The related word lætus is variously translated as "fat," "rich," "fertile," "glad," "joyful," and "happy." Gaudeo, on the other hand, is translated simply as "to rejoice."
In many ways, there is a distinct difference between rejoicing and happiness. The first implies almost an isolated occurrence; the second suggests a state of being. The spouses rejoice at the wedding feast; by God's good grace they may find lifelong happiness together, even if that life offers few occasions for anything akin to the revels of their nuptial day.
Thus, the sense of gaudete is one of a celebration, of cutting loose to mark a memorable occasion —a great victory, a wedding, a baptism, a graduation, an anniversary— that does not happen every day, and which stands out apart from the quotidian rhythms of our existence. Perhaps the single most perfect illustration of gaudete is the immortal photograph of the sailor and his girl kissing in Times Square on V-J Day, 1945. There is a frenetic, hectic quality to gaudete, (as there is in fact a frenetic, hectic sense of Gaudete Sunday, coming as it does during the flurry of the holiday season), that tends not to lend itself to deep thought or meditation, but rather to ecstacies and spectacle.
Lætare, by contrast, is slower, neither hectic nor frenetic; its sense is one of things growing to fruition, a sense of the intrinsic goodness of God's creation, fat, fertile, and rich with the potential that only a passionately loving God can call into being. Who, watching the earth's natural springtime increase, cannot be imbued with a sense of gladness in beholding it? When the hills don their coats of green, and the verbena mantles the desert with its Lenten purple, and the freshly sown fields begin to give forth their produce, one would have to possess a heart of stone not to apprehend the wonder of God's creation, as God renews the face of the earth.
Here is no hectic flurry of activity; here is no sudden need to make merry. Here instead is the coming together of God's creative, redemptive, and sanctifying power, carried out almost imperceptibly, yet more irresistible than the power of the mightiest glacier or of the deepest ocean swell. Apprehending the sense of things coming together to renew the face of the earth and to further God's divine economy, we begin to apprehend the sense of gladness Lætare Sunday is intended to awaken in us. Subtly, as Fr. Andrew Green of St. Paul in the Desert in Palm Springs once noted, the Lenten emphasis is shifting.
We have heretofore been three Sundays in the wilderness, taking time to reconsider ourselves and our lives, for that is the precise purpose of a penitential season. Indeed, in Latin, the word Pœnitentiæ implies reconsideration. Any first year student of the law of contracts can tell you that the Locus Pœnitentiæ is that "Place of Reconsideration" in which one party to a contract may back out: before the hammer falls at auction, or during the statutory three-day period prescribed in many States to permit a consumer to withdraw from a credit contract. A Penitentiary is that place in which our incarcerated convicts will (we hope) reconsider their actions and find repentance before returning to society. Even the returning prodigal necessarily passed through a period of reconsideration, leading to a repentance experience that turned him once again toward home and family, as we are all called to turn again toward our spiritual home in God's Kingdom.
Yet at some point, God calls us to leave off a heavy regimen of repentance in favor of opening our eyes to the fruits of repentance, to see with clear eyes, with tested eyes, with enlightened eyes, the beauty of holiness that suffuses creation, and to be glad therein. And thus our emphasis shifts, we find ourselves confronting not so much the necessity of periodic re-examination of our own lives —for, as Fr. Green notes, an excessive emphasis on re-examination can easily turn into prideful egoism— so much as we open our hearts to the realization that Lent is also a preparation for Easter, a time for allowing the seeds of our faith to sprout anew in the richness of the Spirit.
As our emphasis shifts, of course, it becomes incumbent upon us also to be aware that our apprehension of things coming to fruition, our sense of gladness at the earth's increase, necessarily presupposes a trust in God and in God's good providence that ofttimes seems incomprehensible to the temporal world. We live in a society that tends to organize itself without reference to first things, or to eternal things, preferring to concentrate on the immediately verifiable here and now. Over against stubborn empiricists who refuse to believe what they cannot see, we, like Thomas the Apostle, profess and confess a Lord and a God whose ways are emphatically not the ways of the temporal world. Ours is a faith based on patience, on solidarity, and on a quiet confidence that the transitory things which attract the passing adoration of that temporal world are powerless to distract us from the Way of the Cross.
A world that has grown old, a world that seeks to beguile itself with sensation and momentary pleasures, looks at this Lenten time with frank incomprehension. Yet, with God's help, this time is readily understandable; a patient people, a solid people, a faithful people, finds in these days of Lent a time of gladness, a time of thanksgiving at the earth's increase, a time of cheer even in repentance, and most of all, a time of expectancy of Resurrection.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City, California. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily those of any organization, diocese, or parish. This post is an adaptation of a post originally written almost 20 years ago, and updated since. It is not intended as, and should not be construed as, legal advice or as catechesis/instruction in the Faith.
By: Paul S. Marchand
There are two Sundays in the kalendar of the Church year set aside by name for "rejoicing." The first is Gaudete Sunday (III Advent), and the second is Lætare Sunday (IV Lent). Though both gaudeo and lætifico are now routinely translated out of classical Latin as meaning "rejoice," they, like most word doublets, are not strictly synonymous. In several Latin-English dictionaries, for example, lætifico is translated as "to fertilize, to cheer, to gladden," and "to delight." The related word lætus is variously translated as "fat," "rich," "fertile," "glad," "joyful," and "happy." Gaudeo, on the other hand, is translated simply as "to rejoice."
In many ways, there is a distinct difference between rejoicing and happiness. The first implies almost an isolated occurrence; the second suggests a state of being. The spouses rejoice at the wedding feast; by God's good grace they may find lifelong happiness together, even if that life offers few occasions for anything akin to the revels of their nuptial day.
Thus, the sense of gaudete is one of a celebration, of cutting loose to mark a memorable occasion —a great victory, a wedding, a baptism, a graduation, an anniversary— that does not happen every day, and which stands out apart from the quotidian rhythms of our existence. Perhaps the single most perfect illustration of gaudete is the immortal photograph of the sailor and his girl kissing in Times Square on V-J Day, 1945. There is a frenetic, hectic quality to gaudete, (as there is in fact a frenetic, hectic sense of Gaudete Sunday, coming as it does during the flurry of the holiday season), that tends not to lend itself to deep thought or meditation, but rather to ecstacies and spectacle.
Lætare, by contrast, is slower, neither hectic nor frenetic; its sense is one of things growing to fruition, a sense of the intrinsic goodness of God's creation, fat, fertile, and rich with the potential that only a passionately loving God can call into being. Who, watching the earth's natural springtime increase, cannot be imbued with a sense of gladness in beholding it? When the hills don their coats of green, and the verbena mantles the desert with its Lenten purple, and the freshly sown fields begin to give forth their produce, one would have to possess a heart of stone not to apprehend the wonder of God's creation, as God renews the face of the earth.
Here is no hectic flurry of activity; here is no sudden need to make merry. Here instead is the coming together of God's creative, redemptive, and sanctifying power, carried out almost imperceptibly, yet more irresistible than the power of the mightiest glacier or of the deepest ocean swell. Apprehending the sense of things coming together to renew the face of the earth and to further God's divine economy, we begin to apprehend the sense of gladness Lætare Sunday is intended to awaken in us. Subtly, as Fr. Andrew Green of St. Paul in the Desert in Palm Springs once noted, the Lenten emphasis is shifting.
We have heretofore been three Sundays in the wilderness, taking time to reconsider ourselves and our lives, for that is the precise purpose of a penitential season. Indeed, in Latin, the word Pœnitentiæ implies reconsideration. Any first year student of the law of contracts can tell you that the Locus Pœnitentiæ is that "Place of Reconsideration" in which one party to a contract may back out: before the hammer falls at auction, or during the statutory three-day period prescribed in many States to permit a consumer to withdraw from a credit contract. A Penitentiary is that place in which our incarcerated convicts will (we hope) reconsider their actions and find repentance before returning to society. Even the returning prodigal necessarily passed through a period of reconsideration, leading to a repentance experience that turned him once again toward home and family, as we are all called to turn again toward our spiritual home in God's Kingdom.
Yet at some point, God calls us to leave off a heavy regimen of repentance in favor of opening our eyes to the fruits of repentance, to see with clear eyes, with tested eyes, with enlightened eyes, the beauty of holiness that suffuses creation, and to be glad therein. And thus our emphasis shifts, we find ourselves confronting not so much the necessity of periodic re-examination of our own lives —for, as Fr. Green notes, an excessive emphasis on re-examination can easily turn into prideful egoism— so much as we open our hearts to the realization that Lent is also a preparation for Easter, a time for allowing the seeds of our faith to sprout anew in the richness of the Spirit.
As our emphasis shifts, of course, it becomes incumbent upon us also to be aware that our apprehension of things coming to fruition, our sense of gladness at the earth's increase, necessarily presupposes a trust in God and in God's good providence that ofttimes seems incomprehensible to the temporal world. We live in a society that tends to organize itself without reference to first things, or to eternal things, preferring to concentrate on the immediately verifiable here and now. Over against stubborn empiricists who refuse to believe what they cannot see, we, like Thomas the Apostle, profess and confess a Lord and a God whose ways are emphatically not the ways of the temporal world. Ours is a faith based on patience, on solidarity, and on a quiet confidence that the transitory things which attract the passing adoration of that temporal world are powerless to distract us from the Way of the Cross.
A world that has grown old, a world that seeks to beguile itself with sensation and momentary pleasures, looks at this Lenten time with frank incomprehension. Yet, with God's help, this time is readily understandable; a patient people, a solid people, a faithful people, finds in these days of Lent a time of gladness, a time of thanksgiving at the earth's increase, a time of cheer even in repentance, and most of all, a time of expectancy of Resurrection.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City, California. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily those of any organization, diocese, or parish. This post is an adaptation of a post originally written almost 20 years ago, and updated since. It is not intended as, and should not be construed as, legal advice or as catechesis/instruction in the Faith.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
A VICTORY FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY MARRED BY WEASELLY EQUIVOCATION AND A “SEDE VACANTE”
Summary: Embattled Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen DeRosa put in one of the poorest performances of her career last night with her cynical and craven effort to sidestep her responsibilities as an elected official and cast an up or down vote on Cathedral City’s historic marriage equality resolution. Though she claims to be a leader, DeRosa has managed to violate just about every canon of good leadership, displaying the kind of cynicism and cravenness we have come to expect from her during the nine bitter winters of her reign. She has run out of steam, she has nothing new to offer, and it really is time for her to emulate the example of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. She should not let the door hit her posterior on the way out.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Embattled Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa put in one of the poorest, worst and most cravenly cynical performances of her entire time in public office last night when she abstained from voting on the Council’s historic resolution in support of full marriage equality, a resolution that passed with the "aye" votes of every other member of the council present. The word “weasel” comes powerfully to mind.
Judging from the well-nigh uniformly unfavorable comments accompanying the Desert Sun’s story this morning about DeRosa’s action --- or failure of action, she has certainly managed to put her foot in it.
Council member Stan Henry, formerly police chief in Cathedral City, also managed to put his foot in it last night. Apparently, Henry thought it more important to attend a police chiefs banquet in Palm Springs rather than fulfill the duty his constituents elected him to fulfill. In the words of Ricky Ricardo, “Stan, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.” He needs to say his peccavi to the residents of this city with respect to his volitional Sede Vacante last night, and to do penance therefor.
Yet, if Stanley Henry insulted his constituents by absenting himself from his duty to attend a gathering he plainly thought was more important than doing his job, the embattled Kathleen Joan DeRosa insulted her constituents with an epic, coruscant display of calculated political cowardice and cravenness. To describe her performance as an “epic fail” is almost to understate the case.
During the Council vote on the marriage equality resolution, DeRosa read into the record an obviously preprepared statement by which she attempted to justify her abstention, claiming essentially that she had no right to vote and that Cathedral City should not be taking on this issue.
Yet, there remains a significant question as to the lawfulness of her decision to abstain. When I was a freshman member of the Council, we were told in no uncertain terms at ethics orientations and in other contexts, that --- unlike members of the California Legislature, which has carefully, nay, hypocritically, exempted itself from much of its own ethics legislation --- we have a duty to vote unless there exists an actual conflict of interest which would make our voting unlawful. As a general rule, a conflict of interest arises as and to the extent that a Council member might have some kind of pecuniary interest in the matter up for a vote.
DeRosa articulated absolutely no legally cognizable basis for one of the most weaselly performances by which a politician has ever disgraced Cathedral City’s council chambers. By trying to sidestep the issue, and by making obviously mendacious protestations of her support for some sort of ego-defined “equality,” DeRosa has managed to send a message to Cathedral City’s queerfolk that our rights should, by divine ordinance, be lesser things than the rights of our straight neighbors. She also sent a message to every queer boy and girl in Cathedral City struggling to come to terms with his or her sexuality that they have no friend in Kathleen Joan Leone DeRosa.
Of course, DeRosa tried to take the coward’s way out, trying to link herself to President Obama’s “evolution” on the issue of gay marriage. Her claim that she is “evolving” is unbelievably craven. Last night was the time for her to have completed her so-called evolution, and to have demonstrated that she is in fact the leader she has so often claimed to be. Real leaders take stands.
But we should know that despite her claims of leadership, Kathleen Joan DeRosa is no leader. Had she been a true leader, she would not have tried to weasel out of taking responsibility for having told Cathedral City restauranteur Mark Carnevale to “go fuck [him]self,” at an October, 2012, candidate forum at DiGS Bar here in Cathedral City. DeRosa first tried to deny the occurrence, then, when flat denials proved unavailing, she acknowledged the incident, but claimed she had been “set up.” Real leaders don’t point fingers; they take responsibility.
We haven’t seen DeRosa take a lot of responsibility. Her mayoral style has been to fix the blame, not fix the problem. To the extent that she can throw city staff under the bus, she will do so. Her reputation for vindictiveness is unbecoming a so-called leader, but it precedes her throughout the entire Coachella Valley.
She also has a reputation for blaming her poor leadership and bad manners on being from New York. I call bullshit. First, most of my own extended family are New Yorkers; my late father was born and raised in New York City, and in the nearly half a century we had together as a family, I never saw him display the kind of sheer nastiness that I have seen too often from the reigning Mayor of Cathedral City. Second, we are no longer in New York. We are in California, with a different culture and a different mode of interpersonal interaction; those who come here need to adapt themselves to our autochthonous ethics and values, and to leave their condescending colonialism behind. DeRosa has been unwilling or unable to do so.
My own critique of DeRosa’s poor, ego-driven performance as mayor is no secret. I opposed her for the mayoralty in 2008 because I felt she brought nothing of value to the table. Since then, many of my fellow residents of Cathedral City have adopted in varying measures a similar critique. Plainly, DeRosa is running out of steam. After nine long winters, perhaps it is time for DeRosa, like Henry, to give prayerful consideration to the example of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, whose pontificate formally ended earlier today. Given DeRosa’s frequent invocation of her Roman Catholic belief structure as an excuse to oppose equal rights for her queer constituents, she may profit from the example Josef Ratzinger set for his followers.
Kathy, when the time comes for you to leave, don’t let the door hit your posterior on the way out.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City, where he served eight years as a member of the city Council. The views contained herein are his own, and do not constitute legal advice. They are certainly uncongenial to the reigning Mayor of Cathedral City. Mr. Marchand is aware that his blog posts critical of the mayor are being monitored by the Cathedral City Police Department, which is self-evidently keeping watch on Cathedral City’s political dissidents.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Embattled Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa put in one of the poorest, worst and most cravenly cynical performances of her entire time in public office last night when she abstained from voting on the Council’s historic resolution in support of full marriage equality, a resolution that passed with the "aye" votes of every other member of the council present. The word “weasel” comes powerfully to mind.
Judging from the well-nigh uniformly unfavorable comments accompanying the Desert Sun’s story this morning about DeRosa’s action --- or failure of action, she has certainly managed to put her foot in it.
Council member Stan Henry, formerly police chief in Cathedral City, also managed to put his foot in it last night. Apparently, Henry thought it more important to attend a police chiefs banquet in Palm Springs rather than fulfill the duty his constituents elected him to fulfill. In the words of Ricky Ricardo, “Stan, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.” He needs to say his peccavi to the residents of this city with respect to his volitional Sede Vacante last night, and to do penance therefor.
Yet, if Stanley Henry insulted his constituents by absenting himself from his duty to attend a gathering he plainly thought was more important than doing his job, the embattled Kathleen Joan DeRosa insulted her constituents with an epic, coruscant display of calculated political cowardice and cravenness. To describe her performance as an “epic fail” is almost to understate the case.
During the Council vote on the marriage equality resolution, DeRosa read into the record an obviously preprepared statement by which she attempted to justify her abstention, claiming essentially that she had no right to vote and that Cathedral City should not be taking on this issue.
Yet, there remains a significant question as to the lawfulness of her decision to abstain. When I was a freshman member of the Council, we were told in no uncertain terms at ethics orientations and in other contexts, that --- unlike members of the California Legislature, which has carefully, nay, hypocritically, exempted itself from much of its own ethics legislation --- we have a duty to vote unless there exists an actual conflict of interest which would make our voting unlawful. As a general rule, a conflict of interest arises as and to the extent that a Council member might have some kind of pecuniary interest in the matter up for a vote.
DeRosa articulated absolutely no legally cognizable basis for one of the most weaselly performances by which a politician has ever disgraced Cathedral City’s council chambers. By trying to sidestep the issue, and by making obviously mendacious protestations of her support for some sort of ego-defined “equality,” DeRosa has managed to send a message to Cathedral City’s queerfolk that our rights should, by divine ordinance, be lesser things than the rights of our straight neighbors. She also sent a message to every queer boy and girl in Cathedral City struggling to come to terms with his or her sexuality that they have no friend in Kathleen Joan Leone DeRosa.
Of course, DeRosa tried to take the coward’s way out, trying to link herself to President Obama’s “evolution” on the issue of gay marriage. Her claim that she is “evolving” is unbelievably craven. Last night was the time for her to have completed her so-called evolution, and to have demonstrated that she is in fact the leader she has so often claimed to be. Real leaders take stands.
But we should know that despite her claims of leadership, Kathleen Joan DeRosa is no leader. Had she been a true leader, she would not have tried to weasel out of taking responsibility for having told Cathedral City restauranteur Mark Carnevale to “go fuck [him]self,” at an October, 2012, candidate forum at DiGS Bar here in Cathedral City. DeRosa first tried to deny the occurrence, then, when flat denials proved unavailing, she acknowledged the incident, but claimed she had been “set up.” Real leaders don’t point fingers; they take responsibility.
We haven’t seen DeRosa take a lot of responsibility. Her mayoral style has been to fix the blame, not fix the problem. To the extent that she can throw city staff under the bus, she will do so. Her reputation for vindictiveness is unbecoming a so-called leader, but it precedes her throughout the entire Coachella Valley.
She also has a reputation for blaming her poor leadership and bad manners on being from New York. I call bullshit. First, most of my own extended family are New Yorkers; my late father was born and raised in New York City, and in the nearly half a century we had together as a family, I never saw him display the kind of sheer nastiness that I have seen too often from the reigning Mayor of Cathedral City. Second, we are no longer in New York. We are in California, with a different culture and a different mode of interpersonal interaction; those who come here need to adapt themselves to our autochthonous ethics and values, and to leave their condescending colonialism behind. DeRosa has been unwilling or unable to do so.
My own critique of DeRosa’s poor, ego-driven performance as mayor is no secret. I opposed her for the mayoralty in 2008 because I felt she brought nothing of value to the table. Since then, many of my fellow residents of Cathedral City have adopted in varying measures a similar critique. Plainly, DeRosa is running out of steam. After nine long winters, perhaps it is time for DeRosa, like Henry, to give prayerful consideration to the example of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, whose pontificate formally ended earlier today. Given DeRosa’s frequent invocation of her Roman Catholic belief structure as an excuse to oppose equal rights for her queer constituents, she may profit from the example Josef Ratzinger set for his followers.
Kathy, when the time comes for you to leave, don’t let the door hit your posterior on the way out.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City, where he served eight years as a member of the city Council. The views contained herein are his own, and do not constitute legal advice. They are certainly uncongenial to the reigning Mayor of Cathedral City. Mr. Marchand is aware that his blog posts critical of the mayor are being monitored by the Cathedral City Police Department, which is self-evidently keeping watch on Cathedral City’s political dissidents.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
INSERT FOOT IN MOUTH, MASTICATE VIGOROUSLY, SHOOT SELF IN SAME FOOT
Summary: Councilman Stan Henry has managed to put his foot in his mouth, chew it down to the bone, and then shoot himself in that very same foot. Fearing a political “drill” in which any vote he takes on tonight’s marriage equality resolution of the city Council will antagonize some constituency he should be afraid of pissing off, the quondam police chief has taken a powder, announcing that he has “another engagement” this evening which will prevent him from fulfilling what ought to be his highest-priority responsibility. Worse, Henry has essentially gone on the record as opposing the resolution. Not only does he make no friends among the religious right to whom he and reigning mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa so assiduously pandered, but he’s also managed to piss off Cathedral city’s substantial queer nation. I had not thought it possible that even a freshman councilman could be so politically maladroit.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Cathedral City councilman Stan Henry managed to put his foot in his mouth, chew it down to the bone, and then shoot himself in that very same foot today with his divisive and ill-considered remarks on tonight’s proposed marriage equality resolution of the Cathedral City city Council.
Speaking to the Desert Sun’s Tamara Sone, Henry remarked that:
“As a police officer and then chief of police, I spent most of my adult life making sure everyone had equal rights. Why we are injecting ourselves into something we have no authority over, I don’t know,” he said. “There is already a law for civil agreements. We should be focusing on bringing businesses and jobs into the city.”
To make matters worse, the quondam police chief, a self-identified social conservative, plans to absent himself from tonight’s council meeting, citing “another engagement” and offering a claim --- incredible on its face --- that he’s not skipping out on the council meeting simply to avoid having to cast a vote that will get him in trouble with at least one major constituency.
Plainly, the quondam police chief has a lot to learn about the responsibilities he owes to the voters who elected him.
Yesterday, I observed in this blog that both Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa and Mr. Henry were facing a political dilemma known in California as a “drill.” Until is a situation in which any both a politician casts is guaranteed to piss off a particular constituency. In this case, voting in favor of marriage equality would clearly annoy the religious right voters to whom both DeRosa and Henry pandered so blatantly during the 2012 election cycle. On the other hand, voting against marriage equality would antagonize Cathedral City’s vocal, and increasingly political, queerfolk.
Obviously, something has shifted in the political calculus of Cathedral City. To the extent that DeRosa and Henry, along with defeated former councilman Bud England thought that they could get elected, and hold on permanently, to office by courting low information socially conservative voters, national events have disabused them of so foolish a notion. The Desert Sun was right to note that tonight’s vote will force DeRosa to take a definitive stand on an issue which he has tried very hard to triangulate and to tergiversate to avoid having to make any kind of actual commitment one way or another.
Henry’s problem is more simple, yet less deserving of any sympathy. Henry brings with him the baggage of three decades in the police department (and the extent to which Cathedral City has become a Police Department with a municipal corporation attached is an issue for further posts in this blog). Any gay man can tell you from experience that law enforcement has historically tended to regard itself as the guardian, custodian, and conservator of what it believes ought to be “correct” social values, and to police those values accordingly.
Over many years, there has been little love lost between law enforcement and the queer nation. For example, any historian of the City of West Hollywood can attest that West Hollywood became something of a “sanctuary” for queerfolk because of the unremitting hostility of the LAPD toward LGBT people in the City of Los Angeles during the chiefships of such top cops as William Parker and Ed Davis.
To the extent that queerfolk are, by our nature, cultural dissidents whose critique of the larger society around us often stings, we have been natural targets for the disapproval of much of the law enforcement community. Sadly, Mr. Henry seems to forget that he was not elected to represent Cathedral City’s top-heavy Police Department, but rather to represent Cathedral City’s residents, irrespective of our sexuality or religious beliefs. Moreover, Henry’s flip remark that “[t]here is already a law for civil agreements” merely displays astonishing and dangerous ignorance of history. If Stanley Henry had bothered to familiarize himself with Brown v. Board of Education,(1954) 347 U.S. 483, he would have learned that “separate but equal” is an unsustainable and unconstitutional formulation. Sadly, ignorance and arrogance seem to have met in this councilman.
Writing before the election, I warned that DeRosa would probably attempt, were Mr. Henry to be elected to the council, to “colonize” the Police Department, turning it into her own political enforcement entity. I asked whether it was a good idea for the PD to act as the mayor’s “muscle.”
Henry took exception to my remark, and very publicly impugned my integrity.
Now it is my turn to impugn his, and with a hell of a lot more justification.
To the extent that Mr. Henry has ever voted on any similar resolution in the past, he cannot now be heard to complain, and his doing so raises severe questions about his integrity and fitness for office.
If Mr. Henry cannot provide satisfactory information as to his whereabouts tonight, his absence from the council should be counted as unexcused, and he should be called upon to explain his deliberate, tactical, and inexcusable absence from a vote with respect to which his constituents have a right to know where he stands. Certainly, Henry has made himself no friends among the religious rightists he so assiduously pandered to during the campaign, and he’s also managed to antagonize the queer nation.
Because right now, all we know is that Stan Henry has taken a powder: when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Perhaps, if the thought of pissing off a constituency he’s afraid to antagonize gives him too much agita, he should follow the example of the departing Roman Pontiff, lay down his office, and allow another ---made of sterner, more forthright stuff --- to assume the responsibility of representing the residents of this community.
And perhaps he should go; I had not thought possible that even a freshman councilman could be so politically maladroit.
-XXX-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral city, California. The views set forth herein are his own, and are not to be taken as legal advice. To anyone foolish enough to attempt to retaliate against him on the basis of this blog post, he has only four words: federal civil rights litigation.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Cathedral City councilman Stan Henry managed to put his foot in his mouth, chew it down to the bone, and then shoot himself in that very same foot today with his divisive and ill-considered remarks on tonight’s proposed marriage equality resolution of the Cathedral City city Council.
Speaking to the Desert Sun’s Tamara Sone, Henry remarked that:
“As a police officer and then chief of police, I spent most of my adult life making sure everyone had equal rights. Why we are injecting ourselves into something we have no authority over, I don’t know,” he said. “There is already a law for civil agreements. We should be focusing on bringing businesses and jobs into the city.”
To make matters worse, the quondam police chief, a self-identified social conservative, plans to absent himself from tonight’s council meeting, citing “another engagement” and offering a claim --- incredible on its face --- that he’s not skipping out on the council meeting simply to avoid having to cast a vote that will get him in trouble with at least one major constituency.
Plainly, the quondam police chief has a lot to learn about the responsibilities he owes to the voters who elected him.
Yesterday, I observed in this blog that both Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa and Mr. Henry were facing a political dilemma known in California as a “drill.” Until is a situation in which any both a politician casts is guaranteed to piss off a particular constituency. In this case, voting in favor of marriage equality would clearly annoy the religious right voters to whom both DeRosa and Henry pandered so blatantly during the 2012 election cycle. On the other hand, voting against marriage equality would antagonize Cathedral City’s vocal, and increasingly political, queerfolk.
Obviously, something has shifted in the political calculus of Cathedral City. To the extent that DeRosa and Henry, along with defeated former councilman Bud England thought that they could get elected, and hold on permanently, to office by courting low information socially conservative voters, national events have disabused them of so foolish a notion. The Desert Sun was right to note that tonight’s vote will force DeRosa to take a definitive stand on an issue which he has tried very hard to triangulate and to tergiversate to avoid having to make any kind of actual commitment one way or another.
Henry’s problem is more simple, yet less deserving of any sympathy. Henry brings with him the baggage of three decades in the police department (and the extent to which Cathedral City has become a Police Department with a municipal corporation attached is an issue for further posts in this blog). Any gay man can tell you from experience that law enforcement has historically tended to regard itself as the guardian, custodian, and conservator of what it believes ought to be “correct” social values, and to police those values accordingly.
Over many years, there has been little love lost between law enforcement and the queer nation. For example, any historian of the City of West Hollywood can attest that West Hollywood became something of a “sanctuary” for queerfolk because of the unremitting hostility of the LAPD toward LGBT people in the City of Los Angeles during the chiefships of such top cops as William Parker and Ed Davis.
To the extent that queerfolk are, by our nature, cultural dissidents whose critique of the larger society around us often stings, we have been natural targets for the disapproval of much of the law enforcement community. Sadly, Mr. Henry seems to forget that he was not elected to represent Cathedral City’s top-heavy Police Department, but rather to represent Cathedral City’s residents, irrespective of our sexuality or religious beliefs. Moreover, Henry’s flip remark that “[t]here is already a law for civil agreements” merely displays astonishing and dangerous ignorance of history. If Stanley Henry had bothered to familiarize himself with Brown v. Board of Education,(1954) 347 U.S. 483, he would have learned that “separate but equal” is an unsustainable and unconstitutional formulation. Sadly, ignorance and arrogance seem to have met in this councilman.
Writing before the election, I warned that DeRosa would probably attempt, were Mr. Henry to be elected to the council, to “colonize” the Police Department, turning it into her own political enforcement entity. I asked whether it was a good idea for the PD to act as the mayor’s “muscle.”
Henry took exception to my remark, and very publicly impugned my integrity.
Now it is my turn to impugn his, and with a hell of a lot more justification.
To the extent that Mr. Henry has ever voted on any similar resolution in the past, he cannot now be heard to complain, and his doing so raises severe questions about his integrity and fitness for office.
If Mr. Henry cannot provide satisfactory information as to his whereabouts tonight, his absence from the council should be counted as unexcused, and he should be called upon to explain his deliberate, tactical, and inexcusable absence from a vote with respect to which his constituents have a right to know where he stands. Certainly, Henry has made himself no friends among the religious rightists he so assiduously pandered to during the campaign, and he’s also managed to antagonize the queer nation.
Because right now, all we know is that Stan Henry has taken a powder: when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Perhaps, if the thought of pissing off a constituency he’s afraid to antagonize gives him too much agita, he should follow the example of the departing Roman Pontiff, lay down his office, and allow another ---made of sterner, more forthright stuff --- to assume the responsibility of representing the residents of this community.
And perhaps he should go; I had not thought possible that even a freshman councilman could be so politically maladroit.
-XXX-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral city, California. The views set forth herein are his own, and are not to be taken as legal advice. To anyone foolish enough to attempt to retaliate against him on the basis of this blog post, he has only four words: federal civil rights litigation.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
A PERFECT DRILL
Summary: The Cathedral City city council will be voting tomorrow on a resolution supporting marriage equality. Though the item is on consent, it puts Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa and freshman Council member Stan Henry in a potentially difficult spot: which constituency do they want to piss off? Do they want to precipitate an explosion from the religious right? Would they prefer instead to send a message to Cathedral city’s queerfolk that we should get our butts to the back of the municipal bus? With increasing numbers of Republicans now coming out in support of marriage equality, DeRosa in particular is in a tough spot. If she cites her Roman Catholic religion as grounds for opposition, she will put herself in a place where she can be criticized not only on sectarian grounds but also on constitutional ones as well. For Kathleen Joan DeRosa, this resolution represents a “drill,” a political dilemma in which any vote she casts will anger at least one significant constituency she needs to hold on to if she is to remain a viable politician.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Tomorrow evening, the Cathedral City city council will have before it a proposed resolution supporting full civil marriage equality for all persons, including LGBT couples. The presence of the resolution on tomorrow evening’s agenda has already begun to stir some controversy.
The item appears as item number 5 on the so-called consent agenda. Items on consent are usually voted on in a single omnibus motion, without being discussed individually.
Placing an item on consent often functions as a way of providing political cover for an office holder who may be less than enthusiastic about the item in question, but who does not want to spend a lot of time putting his or her objections on the record.
Current political scuttlebutt in Cathedral City is that there are probably three votes to adopt the resolution: Councilmembers Greg Pettis, Chuck Vasquez, and Sam Toles. Incumbent Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa and freshman councilmember Stan Henry are believed to represent the potential “no” votes.
In a sense, both DeRosa and Henry find themselves in a politically perilous position. In just the last few days, there has been a distinct swing in Republican opinion in favor of marriage equality. Even former Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has joined sometime GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman and a variety of other prominent Republicans in coming out, so to speak, for the freedom to marry. DeRosa and Henry now find themselves caught in what California political parlance calls a “drill,” in which any vote they take will significantly piss off an important constituency. To remain a viable politician, DeRosa must be able to hold both the religious right and that portion of Cathedral city’s queer community which she has thus far successfully bamboozled into supporting her.
Neither DeRosa nor Henry have the luxury of abstaining or voting “present.” California law withholds from local elected officials the luxury of being able to weasel out of a controversial vote that members of the Legislature enjoy. (The hypocrisy of the Legislature on this, and many other matters, will be the subject of a future post.) DeRosa and Henry have no choice, they must take a position on marriage equality. The best they can hope for is to be able to hide their vote inside the omnibus decision on the consent agenda.
Nonetheless, for Stan Henry, we need entertain no great expectations. He has defined himself as a social conservative, and given his law enforcement background, we may expect him to bring with him to the discussion the traditional law enforcement view of itself as the curators, custodians, and guardians of what “ought” to be “correct” social and cultural values. In short, Henry may be facing a lesser degree of political peril than his political mentor.
DeRosa, on the other hand, probably does not have the wiggle room Stan Henry does. DeRosa is well known for trying to triangulate on potentially problematic political issues; her history of tergiversation is also well known to anyone who has spent more than a few fugitive seconds familiarizing him- or herself with Cathedral City politics. It is reasonably foreseeable, therefore, that DeRosa will place on the record a “no” vote with such weaselly language as “I vote no on item number five.”
Of course, while a “no” vote on the marriage equality resolution may sit well with the religious right constituency to which DeRosa has so shamelessly pandered in recent years, it would also send a very clear message to Cathedral City’s substantial queer population that DeRosa regards us as less than full, authentic citizens of this community, and that she regards our civil rights as lesser things than those of our straight neighbors, and that we should get our butts to the back of the municipal bus.
Already, DeRosa has made her opposition to marriage equality a matter of record, as when she declared that “as a Catholic” she could not support marriage equality, but that she might, just might, be able to support some kind of civil union. As I noted in my blog, “Cathedral City Observed,” at the time, such a position is unsustainable any longer as a matter of practical politics:
“Unfortunately for DeRosa, her effort to triangulate has been overtaken by events. 'Civil Unions' is no longer an acceptable Plan B fallback position. Politicians must now take unambiguous, non-triangulating, positions on whether Ruth and Naomi or Jonathan and David should be able to get civilly hitched and call themselves married. Marrriage, by that name, not some other, such as “Civil Unions”, is now the default position.”
(For the full post, please use this link: http://cathedralcityobserved.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-failed-effort-at-triangulation.html)
Nonetheless, like the Bourbons of France’s ancien régime, DeRosa has learned nothing and she has forgotten nothing. If she is foolish enough to oppose marriage equality on the grounds of her sectarian adherence, she will be opening herself up to a severe critique on the basis of her unwillingness to abide by the oath of office she took as mayor, which requires the oath-taker to bear “true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California.” Neither the federal nor the state constitution allows for an establishment of religion. To base a policy decision upon sectarian considerations constitutes a de facto effort to “establish” a religion, and is thus impermissible.
Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t. If DeRosa supports the marriage equality resolution, her religious right constituents will have a fit. Moreover, her increasingly skeptical constituents within the GLBT community may well question her motives and conclude that her support for the resolution was just more pandering of the type, kind, and character we have come to expect from her during the nine long winters of her regime. If she opposes the resolution, she will make an enemy of a great many, possibly a majority, of Cathedral City’s queerfolk and allies. Either way, she loses. Right about now it must suck to be her.
Bring on the drill.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served eight years as a member of the city Council. He was one of the first attorneys in California to litigate a marriage equality case, and he believes, like his patron saint, Paul the Apostle that “it is better to marry than to burn.” (1 Cor. 7:9) The views set forth herein are not intended as legal a device, and should not be taken or construed as such.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Tomorrow evening, the Cathedral City city council will have before it a proposed resolution supporting full civil marriage equality for all persons, including LGBT couples. The presence of the resolution on tomorrow evening’s agenda has already begun to stir some controversy.
The item appears as item number 5 on the so-called consent agenda. Items on consent are usually voted on in a single omnibus motion, without being discussed individually.
Placing an item on consent often functions as a way of providing political cover for an office holder who may be less than enthusiastic about the item in question, but who does not want to spend a lot of time putting his or her objections on the record.
Current political scuttlebutt in Cathedral City is that there are probably three votes to adopt the resolution: Councilmembers Greg Pettis, Chuck Vasquez, and Sam Toles. Incumbent Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa and freshman councilmember Stan Henry are believed to represent the potential “no” votes.
In a sense, both DeRosa and Henry find themselves in a politically perilous position. In just the last few days, there has been a distinct swing in Republican opinion in favor of marriage equality. Even former Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has joined sometime GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman and a variety of other prominent Republicans in coming out, so to speak, for the freedom to marry. DeRosa and Henry now find themselves caught in what California political parlance calls a “drill,” in which any vote they take will significantly piss off an important constituency. To remain a viable politician, DeRosa must be able to hold both the religious right and that portion of Cathedral city’s queer community which she has thus far successfully bamboozled into supporting her.
Neither DeRosa nor Henry have the luxury of abstaining or voting “present.” California law withholds from local elected officials the luxury of being able to weasel out of a controversial vote that members of the Legislature enjoy. (The hypocrisy of the Legislature on this, and many other matters, will be the subject of a future post.) DeRosa and Henry have no choice, they must take a position on marriage equality. The best they can hope for is to be able to hide their vote inside the omnibus decision on the consent agenda.
Nonetheless, for Stan Henry, we need entertain no great expectations. He has defined himself as a social conservative, and given his law enforcement background, we may expect him to bring with him to the discussion the traditional law enforcement view of itself as the curators, custodians, and guardians of what “ought” to be “correct” social and cultural values. In short, Henry may be facing a lesser degree of political peril than his political mentor.
DeRosa, on the other hand, probably does not have the wiggle room Stan Henry does. DeRosa is well known for trying to triangulate on potentially problematic political issues; her history of tergiversation is also well known to anyone who has spent more than a few fugitive seconds familiarizing him- or herself with Cathedral City politics. It is reasonably foreseeable, therefore, that DeRosa will place on the record a “no” vote with such weaselly language as “I vote no on item number five.”
Of course, while a “no” vote on the marriage equality resolution may sit well with the religious right constituency to which DeRosa has so shamelessly pandered in recent years, it would also send a very clear message to Cathedral City’s substantial queer population that DeRosa regards us as less than full, authentic citizens of this community, and that she regards our civil rights as lesser things than those of our straight neighbors, and that we should get our butts to the back of the municipal bus.
Already, DeRosa has made her opposition to marriage equality a matter of record, as when she declared that “as a Catholic” she could not support marriage equality, but that she might, just might, be able to support some kind of civil union. As I noted in my blog, “Cathedral City Observed,” at the time, such a position is unsustainable any longer as a matter of practical politics:
“Unfortunately for DeRosa, her effort to triangulate has been overtaken by events. 'Civil Unions' is no longer an acceptable Plan B fallback position. Politicians must now take unambiguous, non-triangulating, positions on whether Ruth and Naomi or Jonathan and David should be able to get civilly hitched and call themselves married. Marrriage, by that name, not some other, such as “Civil Unions”, is now the default position.”
(For the full post, please use this link: http://cathedralcityobserved.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-failed-effort-at-triangulation.html)
Nonetheless, like the Bourbons of France’s ancien régime, DeRosa has learned nothing and she has forgotten nothing. If she is foolish enough to oppose marriage equality on the grounds of her sectarian adherence, she will be opening herself up to a severe critique on the basis of her unwillingness to abide by the oath of office she took as mayor, which requires the oath-taker to bear “true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California.” Neither the federal nor the state constitution allows for an establishment of religion. To base a policy decision upon sectarian considerations constitutes a de facto effort to “establish” a religion, and is thus impermissible.
Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t. If DeRosa supports the marriage equality resolution, her religious right constituents will have a fit. Moreover, her increasingly skeptical constituents within the GLBT community may well question her motives and conclude that her support for the resolution was just more pandering of the type, kind, and character we have come to expect from her during the nine long winters of her regime. If she opposes the resolution, she will make an enemy of a great many, possibly a majority, of Cathedral City’s queerfolk and allies. Either way, she loses. Right about now it must suck to be her.
Bring on the drill.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served eight years as a member of the city Council. He was one of the first attorneys in California to litigate a marriage equality case, and he believes, like his patron saint, Paul the Apostle that “it is better to marry than to burn.” (1 Cor. 7:9) The views set forth herein are not intended as legal a device, and should not be taken or construed as such.
Monday, February 11, 2013
A CHURCH IN SYNCOPE: The almost unprecedented abdication of Benedict XVI
Summary: life seems to be imitating a Morris West novel today, as the world tries to digest the reality and the implications of Pope Benedict XVI’s almost unprecedented decision to abdicate. After 600 years, the world does not know what are the mechanics of a papal abdication. We do know, however, that Benedict XVI has decisively broken with the example of his predecessor, Blessed John Paul II, whose oblation of his own suffering, visible to the entire world, gave the world not only a lesson in how to face the reality of dying, but also called that world to examine its own capacity for compassion. What Karol Wojtyła offered to his church and to the world, Josef Ratzinger has chosen to withhold. There are more answers than questions out there as Roman Catholic church finds itself in syncope, waiting for the conclave that will elect a new pontiff. Will the new pontiff had more confidence in God’s providence than the lame-duck pope? We can only make the Sign of the Cross and hope for the best.
If life imitates art, then today the world seems to be going through the stages of a Morris West novel.
Not The Shoes of the Fisherman, but one of its sequels, The Clowns of God, which begins with the abdication of a pope.
Benedict XVI abdicated this morning, demonstrating once again the astonishing power of the Vatican to grab the attention of the world and hold it rapt as long as the Vatican wants it, even if the headline originally read like something satirical out of The Onion. A 100 division armored thrust at the heart of NATO could not have caused more shock and surprise in the capitals of the world.
In an institution which claims to have a precedent for just about everything, the first abdication of a reigning Roman Pontiff in six centuries is about as unprecedented as anything else in the tradition bound world of the Vatican.
Even so, as West phrased it in Shoes of the Fisherman, the life of the church is in syncope. The Vatican today no doubt finds itself as busy and as confused as an anthill prodded with a stick. Cardinals must be gathered and a conclave organized. Only this time, the conclave will be dominated by the presence of the outgoing pontiff (try to say that phrase; cognitive dissonance inevitably sets in). Yet, the life of the church nonetheless remains in syncope. For even if for a little more than two weeks, the Roman church will have that oddest of all phenomena in her midst, a lame-duck pope.
Of course, the Vatican will fall back on the closest analogous precedent, which is that of a papal passing. Already, Cardinals are making phone calls to power brokers within the church, posting to Facebook, tweeting, and otherwise putting out feelers to the colleagues whom they hope can place the tiara on their hopeful heads. Oddsmakers are no doubt lining up their lists, long or short, of papabile, or viable candidates for the top job.
Yet, for all the relief that may be felt in the Vatican that the institution is at least free, for once, from the “other shoe dropping” surprise of a papal death (coming as they so often do at “an hour we do not expect” [Matt. 24:44, 25:13; Luke 12:40]), Benedict’s volitional departure may well leave many of the Roman faithful curiously unsatisfied.
After all, Roman pontiffs don’t just step down, like other bishops in the Roman and other rites do. They don’t just accept emeritus status, like senior faculty members at a university. The accepted mode by which the tenure of the pope ends is death.
That’s right, pontiffs die in office.
Indeed, the slow, agonizingly visible dying process of Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II, played itself out before a grieving world. If the mode of Karol Józef Wojtyła’s life was so different from ours as to be incomparable or incommensurate therewith, the process of his death touched upon basic human universals. By dying in front of us by inches, John Paul II left us a vade mecum for facing what Benjamin Franklin defined as one of the only two certainties of life (the other being taxes).
By dying in front of us by inches, John Paul II challenged the compassion not only of the human community of which he was the Petrine head, but also of the larger human community of which the Roman Catholic Church is ineluctably a part. John Paul II’s very public Via Dolorosa toward the final Calvary of his own passing brought home to us all the universality of death and dying. Anyone who has lost a loved one ---as I did on the feast of Saint Andrew the First-Called--- last year understands such a reality at a visceral level. In a real sense, John Paul II’s last gift to the church he led was to teach its members how to face the reality of death, which is --- in the words of the late constitutional scholar and novelist Walter F. Murphy --- a free gift of God; we have no claim upon its mercy.
Still, by leaving to his church an example of fortitude even to the end, John Paul II set an example for living and dying that a shocked world wonders why his immediate successor could not or would not emulate. What Karol Wojtyła offered to his church and to the world, Josef Ratzinger has chosen to withhold. Already, questions have been raised about the extent to which Benedict’s astonishing decision to cast off the papacy reflects a want of confidence in the providence of God, to say nothing of reflecting a lack of confidence in his own ability to imitate the Christ Whose vicar he was elected to be. Now a stunned world, even that majority of it which is not of the Roman observence, is left to speculate on the whys and wherefores of Benedict's astonishing decision; we will never know how Benedict the bishop would have faced the inevitability of death and dying, which are perhaps the only universals of the human condition.
If, to a certain extent, our mortal lives all recapitulate in some way the Stations of the Cross, we may justifiably ask why Benedict the pontiff bailed before reaching the 10th Station, where Jesus is stripped of His garments. As Josef Ratzinger himself noted in his own recent meditation on the 10th Station, by being stripped of His garments, our Lord was deprived of all of the outward and visible symbols of his place in society. We may justifiably ask whether by opting to avoid the public agony of his beatified predecessor, this pontiff has also tried to avoid the indignities that go with death, whether death on the Cross, or death in a hospital bed accompanied by the ravages of advanced Parkinson’s disease.
Comparisons -- as La Rochefoucauld once reminded us -- are odious, and we should be reluctant to compare the mode of Benedict XVI’s departure with John Paul’s “courageous oblation of his suffering.” Nonetheless, there remains something curiously unsatisfying about Benedict’s volitional decision to lay down a ministry which, in the teaching of the Roman church, represents a positive and lifelong gift of the Holy Spirit, from which there is no release except death. Under that teaching, Roman pontiffs aren’t just elected by their cardinalatial colleagues; the election itself is ostensibly guided by the Holy Spirit. Does Benedict’s pre-mortem departure from the Chair of Peter betoken a crisis of faith?
At all events, the abdication --- in its truest sense --- of a Roman Pontiff for the first time in six centuries leaves us with more questions than answers, questions that won’t be answered while the Roman church finds herself in syncope, grappling with the sudden challenge of finding a new pope was predecessor yet lives, hoping that God’s good providence may enable them to elect a pontiff who will be more moved by the example of Blessed John Paul II than by the somewhat sketchy and hurried departure of the incumbent pope.
As the Russians sometimes say in shocking situations, the most we can do is make the Sign of the Cross and hope for the best.
-XXX-
Paul S. Marchand is an Episcopalian attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City. He metaphorically swam the Thames into the Anglican faith more than a generation ago, arriving at Lambeth Palace dripping wet in the water of new baptism. While this post may not be “strictly relevant” to events in and around Cathedral City (ultramontanists, flame warriors and reflexive umbrage-takers take note), so significant an event as what happened in Rome yesterday will necessarily ramify throughout the world, even to Cathedral City. The views expressed herein are not intended to constitute, and should not be taken as, legal advice.
If life imitates art, then today the world seems to be going through the stages of a Morris West novel.
Not The Shoes of the Fisherman, but one of its sequels, The Clowns of God, which begins with the abdication of a pope.
Benedict XVI abdicated this morning, demonstrating once again the astonishing power of the Vatican to grab the attention of the world and hold it rapt as long as the Vatican wants it, even if the headline originally read like something satirical out of The Onion. A 100 division armored thrust at the heart of NATO could not have caused more shock and surprise in the capitals of the world.
In an institution which claims to have a precedent for just about everything, the first abdication of a reigning Roman Pontiff in six centuries is about as unprecedented as anything else in the tradition bound world of the Vatican.
Even so, as West phrased it in Shoes of the Fisherman, the life of the church is in syncope. The Vatican today no doubt finds itself as busy and as confused as an anthill prodded with a stick. Cardinals must be gathered and a conclave organized. Only this time, the conclave will be dominated by the presence of the outgoing pontiff (try to say that phrase; cognitive dissonance inevitably sets in). Yet, the life of the church nonetheless remains in syncope. For even if for a little more than two weeks, the Roman church will have that oddest of all phenomena in her midst, a lame-duck pope.
Of course, the Vatican will fall back on the closest analogous precedent, which is that of a papal passing. Already, Cardinals are making phone calls to power brokers within the church, posting to Facebook, tweeting, and otherwise putting out feelers to the colleagues whom they hope can place the tiara on their hopeful heads. Oddsmakers are no doubt lining up their lists, long or short, of papabile, or viable candidates for the top job.
Yet, for all the relief that may be felt in the Vatican that the institution is at least free, for once, from the “other shoe dropping” surprise of a papal death (coming as they so often do at “an hour we do not expect” [Matt. 24:44, 25:13; Luke 12:40]), Benedict’s volitional departure may well leave many of the Roman faithful curiously unsatisfied.
After all, Roman pontiffs don’t just step down, like other bishops in the Roman and other rites do. They don’t just accept emeritus status, like senior faculty members at a university. The accepted mode by which the tenure of the pope ends is death.
That’s right, pontiffs die in office.
Indeed, the slow, agonizingly visible dying process of Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II, played itself out before a grieving world. If the mode of Karol Józef Wojtyła’s life was so different from ours as to be incomparable or incommensurate therewith, the process of his death touched upon basic human universals. By dying in front of us by inches, John Paul II left us a vade mecum for facing what Benjamin Franklin defined as one of the only two certainties of life (the other being taxes).
By dying in front of us by inches, John Paul II challenged the compassion not only of the human community of which he was the Petrine head, but also of the larger human community of which the Roman Catholic Church is ineluctably a part. John Paul II’s very public Via Dolorosa toward the final Calvary of his own passing brought home to us all the universality of death and dying. Anyone who has lost a loved one ---as I did on the feast of Saint Andrew the First-Called--- last year understands such a reality at a visceral level. In a real sense, John Paul II’s last gift to the church he led was to teach its members how to face the reality of death, which is --- in the words of the late constitutional scholar and novelist Walter F. Murphy --- a free gift of God; we have no claim upon its mercy.
Still, by leaving to his church an example of fortitude even to the end, John Paul II set an example for living and dying that a shocked world wonders why his immediate successor could not or would not emulate. What Karol Wojtyła offered to his church and to the world, Josef Ratzinger has chosen to withhold. Already, questions have been raised about the extent to which Benedict’s astonishing decision to cast off the papacy reflects a want of confidence in the providence of God, to say nothing of reflecting a lack of confidence in his own ability to imitate the Christ Whose vicar he was elected to be. Now a stunned world, even that majority of it which is not of the Roman observence, is left to speculate on the whys and wherefores of Benedict's astonishing decision; we will never know how Benedict the bishop would have faced the inevitability of death and dying, which are perhaps the only universals of the human condition.
If, to a certain extent, our mortal lives all recapitulate in some way the Stations of the Cross, we may justifiably ask why Benedict the pontiff bailed before reaching the 10th Station, where Jesus is stripped of His garments. As Josef Ratzinger himself noted in his own recent meditation on the 10th Station, by being stripped of His garments, our Lord was deprived of all of the outward and visible symbols of his place in society. We may justifiably ask whether by opting to avoid the public agony of his beatified predecessor, this pontiff has also tried to avoid the indignities that go with death, whether death on the Cross, or death in a hospital bed accompanied by the ravages of advanced Parkinson’s disease.
Comparisons -- as La Rochefoucauld once reminded us -- are odious, and we should be reluctant to compare the mode of Benedict XVI’s departure with John Paul’s “courageous oblation of his suffering.” Nonetheless, there remains something curiously unsatisfying about Benedict’s volitional decision to lay down a ministry which, in the teaching of the Roman church, represents a positive and lifelong gift of the Holy Spirit, from which there is no release except death. Under that teaching, Roman pontiffs aren’t just elected by their cardinalatial colleagues; the election itself is ostensibly guided by the Holy Spirit. Does Benedict’s pre-mortem departure from the Chair of Peter betoken a crisis of faith?
At all events, the abdication --- in its truest sense --- of a Roman Pontiff for the first time in six centuries leaves us with more questions than answers, questions that won’t be answered while the Roman church finds herself in syncope, grappling with the sudden challenge of finding a new pope was predecessor yet lives, hoping that God’s good providence may enable them to elect a pontiff who will be more moved by the example of Blessed John Paul II than by the somewhat sketchy and hurried departure of the incumbent pope.
As the Russians sometimes say in shocking situations, the most we can do is make the Sign of the Cross and hope for the best.
-XXX-
Paul S. Marchand is an Episcopalian attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City. He metaphorically swam the Thames into the Anglican faith more than a generation ago, arriving at Lambeth Palace dripping wet in the water of new baptism. While this post may not be “strictly relevant” to events in and around Cathedral City (ultramontanists, flame warriors and reflexive umbrage-takers take note), so significant an event as what happened in Rome yesterday will necessarily ramify throughout the world, even to Cathedral City. The views expressed herein are not intended to constitute, and should not be taken as, legal advice.
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