It kills RC libs that one of their own, of the Joe Bernardin camp, got voted out of his heir apparency the other day by U.S. bishops, and no one says it better than NC Reporter’s Thomas C. Fox, who lays it on thickly.
I find myself thinking about Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., and how he must feel at this time. Whats going on inside him, really going on despite the good face he has put on to the world in the wake of the surprise, historic, and unprecedented rejection by his fellow U.S. bishops.
They “broke with four decades of precedent and essentially threw [him] out,” leaving Fox in a funk:
I cannot help but feel that the bishops hurt a good man along the way, and in the process revealed some things about themselves – at least the majority in their ranks did – that is less than admirable.
The rats! They “walked over a fellow bishop, by most accounts a decent man. . . . their vote . . . lacked a sense of civility and even perhaps charity.”
“Some on the right” are to blame, but so is the new man, Timothy Dolan of NYC, whom Fox skewers with deft thrusts:
Ive been reading that Dolan has a good wit and keen ability and will probably make a good president. But he arrives with a tarnished garment. I wish he [had] told his fellow bishops . . . that he was not available, that he was willing to wait his turn, that he could learn in the next three years, just like all his predecessors. He would have been a fine vice-president.
Well Fox did not see his wish fulfilled. C’est la vie. In any case, if Dolan had done as Fox wishes he did, he
would have taught us all a lesson in thoughtfulness and civility. It was a teachable moment. Instead we learned our bishops act [like] most other ends-oriented men in other political organizations.
If Fox learned that much, the teachable moment was not entirely lost.
Meanwhile, Kicanas demonstrated a “strong upper lip” in his concession statement:
[Dolan] has been a long time friend . . . [possesses] great wit, jovial spirit, keen ability to relate to people in a deeply personal way . . . exceptional leadership qualities. . . .
Good. I look forward to his leadership. But it doesn’t mean there is joy in Catholic leftism, which has lost a friend in a high place, it thinks. Sob.
Blithe Spirit 