Bob McClory, a writer, and Rev. Patrick Brennan, a pastor, each has his point of view.  Bob

wants the pope to say he doesn’t know what’s wrong with the church and so to call a bunch of meetings to find out.

What might he have in mind, and can I go to one of these meetings?

Father Brennan wants four more years in Inverness, but the rules work against that.  Is there a happy solution here?  Rev. Michael Pfleger remains at St. Sabina, as we know, having served not two and a half but four terms and counting.  No fair.

On the other hand, there are good reasons, as opposed to merely expedient ones, to let Pfleger stay – while peppering him with a thousand ecclesiastical cuts. Same with Brennan and others who have carved themselves a place in the hearts of their parishioners.

The quotes are from my Chi Daily Observer piece, “Current Religious Movements vs the 1970’s: McClory and Brennan,” which you are invited to read.

Time-Warner/HBO performer Bill Maher has apologized:

“My statements on the April 11th edition of Real Time with Bill Maher were intended solely as an indictment of the Catholic Church’s cavalier mishandling of the child abuse scandals over the years,” said Maher. “My comments did not in any way refer to the LGBT community, and I am sorry if they were misinterpreted that way.”

LGBT?  Wasn’t the issue his calling Benedict XVI a one-time Nazi and the church a “child-abusing religious cult”?  Why the apology to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals?  Here’s why:

In discussing the Pope and the church, he

misappropriated the historic slogan “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it,” leading some viewers to believe Maher was making a connection between gays and pedophilia.

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), surprised to hear this from Maher, “a staunch supporter of LGBT equality,”

reached out to Maher to discuss the implications of his improper use of the slogan, and the host issued [the above-quoted] clarification and apology.

All right, that’s settled.  As for the pope as former Nazi and the church as cult, he

acknowledged that the Catholic League [for Religious and Civil Rights] was right when we said that Joseph Ratzinger was forced to join a German youth organization (from which he fled at the first instance),

Says the League in a release, adding, “Maher then said that if a CEO were in charge of an institution that housed molesters, he would be fired.”

Or as Blithe Spirit correspondent Bonnie recounted:

Bill sort of apologized.  he said his “opponents” were technically right, and that he will never make a “pope is a nazi” joke ever again… but he did say that if the pope was a CEO of a big company that runs day care centers and they found all the same sex abuse they’ve found, and covered it up, that the pope would be in jail.

He further defended himself as an equal-opportunity satirist, saying it’s unfair to say he only goes after catholics and describing a skit he did belittling muslims.

(A fuller treatment of all this is at Newsbusters, with a link there to MsUnderstimated.)

The church’s defensive coordinator in these matters, Catholic League director Bill Donohue, expatiated:

[T]o suggest that Pope Benedict XVI was in charge of policing molesters, and failed in doing so, is patently absurd.

As Pope John Paul II’s right-hand man, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s principal job was to make sure that theologians were faithfully presenting the teachings of the Catholic Church. He was, to some extent, the Church’s Academic Dean, someone who was charged with enforcing academic standards. He was not the Church’s Dean of Students, i.e., he was not discharged [sic] with enforcing codes of conduct.

Moreover:

Maher has to understand that no one person, including the pope, could possibly be held accountable for the behavior of its employees in a global institution. There are priests from Boston to Bosnia, and it is simply preposterous for any one person to know exactly what is going on everywhere at any given time. Maher would have been better advised to focus on those bishops who proved to be enablers—it is the bishop’s job to know what is going on in his diocese, not the pope’s.

That’s interesting: go after the bishops.  In any case, Donohue would like it if “Maher gave up his Catholic-bashing obsession once and for all.”

I would too.  There’s humor and there’s overkill, pricking balloons and blowing up buildings.  Ideally, the satirist comes up with something almost everybody can laugh at. 

The late Joel Wells, editor of The Critic magazine (Chicago-based, also late), had an almost Wodehousian touch, as in the 1960s cartoon with the priest announcing his resignation because of the church’s anti-human rights position in this or that in one pane and introducing his new wife in another.

My first book, What a Modern Catholic Believes About Prayer was a Thomas More Press publication.  Wells was its editor.  I signed a contract in his and Dan Herr’s offices on State Street, above their book store — Herr was the publisher — and Wells put out his hand and said, “Now hand over the keys to your car.”

Dry, perfect.

They are going after Bill Maher:

Only hours since Bill Maher slandered the Pope by calling
him a “Nazi” and likened the Catholic Church to a “child-
abusing religious cult,” MRC Action Team members flooded
Time-Warner/HBO with more than 10,000 emails demanding
an apology.

Nothing yet by way of response, says MRC (Media Research Center), which is going for 25,000, reminding readers that

in 2005, Maher made similar remarks that were brushed off by Time-Warner executives as being “silly” and a matter of “creative freedom.”

If you want to pitch in and haven’t, go here, where they offer “talking points,” including that “Maher is by extension attacking every person of deep religious beliefs” and that T-W should not give him a platform for such stuff.

At the very least, if Maher has freedom to talk this way, others have it to object.

Later: Reader Phil on first mention of this:

This incident is really telling when one remembers that George S. Kauffman was permanently thrown off What’s My Line for saying something like “I hope this will be the one show where White Christmas isn’t played.”

The times they have changed.

Wheels are turning to go after Time-Warner, who ran the Bill Maher rant vs. the pope cited below:

E-mail Time-Warner And Demand An Apology For
Bill Maher Anti-Catholic, Anti-Faith Tirade!
HBO’s Bill Maher went too far with his recent diatribe against Pope Benedict, calling the Pope a “Nazi”,” calling the Catholic church a “cult.

MRC’s Culture and Media Institute is calling on every MRC Action team member to email HBO’s parent company, Time-Warner, and demand an immediate apology and retraction of Maher’s hateful, anti-faith comments.

Lest there be worry about impeding Maher’s freedom to rant, we can classify such a protest as consumer rebellion.  I do anyhow.

Someone out there supports Bill Maher in his abusive habits, paying good money for stuff like this:

“I’d like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult,” Maher told his audience. “Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That’s right, the Pope is coming to America this week and, ladies, he’s single.”

He’s one mad guy in his own mad, mad world.  It’s enough to get a reasonable fellow somewhat irritated.