Where have all the hard ledes gone?  Where have they gone?

Chi Trib p-1 today, here are first sentences (ledes).  Not exactly wuxtry-wuxtry stuff, but what are you gonna do in an age of Internet news?  Fire one:

Against the majestic backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, in the far eastern corner of Colorado where the land begins to flatten into a vast golden prairie, two teenagers trudge along the weed-bitten edge of an isolated highway.

Fire two:

The gray-faced young man lying in bed number 15 of the run-down local hospital wasn’t much of a talker.

Three:

WASHINGTON — Several weeks ago, nylon shoulder bags ordered for a student financial-aid conference arrived with the Wachovia Bank name splashed on the outside.

Four:

Like a sweaty stranger who sidles up too close in an airless waiting room, a heat wave settled in over the weekend in the Chicago area, forcing people to escape or confront it.

Five:

LAKELAND, Fla. — In the hallway of a science building at Florida Southern College here, silvery ventilation ducts sprout from the floor, rise some 7 feet, take an abrupt 90-degree turn and disappear into the walls of classrooms.

Don’t mind me, folks.  Can’t help but notice that this paper is trying to compete with Nelson Algren.  The morning reader is expected to settle back and give his full attention.  Will he?  Will she?

Sun-Times head on AP story:

Latin mass a ‘body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations,’ group says

But its suppression in ‘70 was a body blow to a sense of the sacred in Catholic worship, which has become the “Father John Show,” or Father Tom, Dick, and Harry.  Father Johnny maybe, as in the king of the nights long ago, Johnny Carson.

This we may say apart from the rabbis’ complaint, which deserves separate treatment later.

 

* When in doubt, ask a JESUIT about liturgy?  Since when?

It’s Tom Reese this time (as when not in these days of word bites?), saying we need vernacular to get down to the mystery of things: 

“The mystery of the Eucharist is not that it’s in Latin,” Reese said. “The mystery is the death and resurrection of Jesus that’s being celebrated here. To have the mysteriousness of Latin blocking you from seeing the true mystery is one of the reasons we went to English.”

He means for us to plumb depths, thinking it over until we get it or give up because we can’t get it.  Head-trip Tom they call him.

In same story, writers say Rome “strictly limited” the old mass in 1970 so as to “prod reluctant parishes” to adopt the new.  I’d say “force.”  Why the euphemism?  Have they been spending too much time on the phone with Tom Reese?

* Also, Chi Trib is pulling an old chestnut out of the fire, just to show old dogs know old tricks, namely the Pamplona bullshi—–  I mean bulls.

 

 

 

Invading a kid’s privates is not as bad as raping him, says Colleen Dolan for Cardinal George and the rest of the chancery gang.  It’s a conclusion she reached after giving it a lot of thought?

It’s here in the Sun-Times today in story starting:

As a priest, the Rev. Daniel McCormack heard people confess their sins. On Monday, he stood before a Cook County judge and admitted his own — while the Archdiocese of Chicago said those sins could have been much worse.

Read all about it.  As the widely travelled Mayordaley II says about kids being murdered on his watch as chief enforcement officer, where’s the outrage?  C. George got feisty and excited about reporters with pencils, but stays very controlled here.

Very big issue here in this HOGAN/ALBACH story in Sun-Times:

Top leaders in the Archdiocese of Chicago responsible for complaints about predatory priests kept their positions or rose in the church in the aftermath of the Rev. Daniel McCormack’s 2006 arrest, according to archdiocesan reports and interviews.

Vicar General George Rassas was elevated to auxiliary bishop. Chancellor Jimmy Lago was named the primary point person on child abuse cases. Leaders from the offices of Vicar for Priests to Protection of Children and Youth stayed in key posts.

And Cardinal Francis George — whose handling of the McCormack matter led to calls for his resignation — appears poised to be elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

What’s with the Latin?  It’s a Roman issue, isn’t it?  Who indeed will keep track of these guys who are supposed to keep track?

It’s the Fr. McCormack story, of course.  He’s apparently about to cop a plea.  Will he be kept on the rolls of God’s chosen ambassadors?

 

Oops, Fr. M. Pfleger joins Rev. Jesse J. et al. in another foray to Chuck’s Gun Shop Saturday, his people tell Friends of Saint Sabina in an email message. 

Normally any friend of St. Sabina is a friend of mine, but is another call to snuff the gun salesman on tap? 

Maybe just a joke or two making fun of right-wingers, with maybe a mild shot (pardon the expression) at Cardinal George The Ineffectual?  Only the Shadow knows.

Tom Roeser does Rev J. Jackson Sr. up brown in this rundown (second item) on his squeezing corporate money and jobs to feather his own nest, noting along the way how Sun-Times has retreated from its onetime muckracking of The Pout, as R. calls him, to the point of giving him a column for going after Republicans.

Which, says R.,

leads [to] a news consumer question: when will the newspaper stop paying a tithe in the form of a newspaper column which is nothing more than DNC boilerplate for which Jackson gets the sum of $150 weekly . . .

It’s a good business decision by S-T editors, because it gets Rev. JJ off their back and fits in with their Dem Party attachment, says R., but does it serve the consumer?

In Investors Business Daily:

Middle East: Violence between rival Palestinian factions has erupted across the Gaza Strip. The death toll since the fighting escalated Saturday has hit 70. But in the West, none dare call it a civil war.

Oh my.  Can’t say if other outlets have been reporting this, but Fox News has been doing so for several nights now.  It’s a terrible sign of how incapable of governing themselves are the Palestinians and how needful they are of Israeli occupation to create a semblance of order and prosperity.

The intelligentsia of the developed world have too much invested in portraying the plight of the Palestinians as a problem created by hard hearts in Israel. Civil war? That better describes the quagmire President Bush faces is in Iraq. No such thing in the Palestinian territories. The people there and their beleaguered leaders are just spending too much of their energy trying to survive Jewish cruelty to fight among themselves.

And there’s more, more, more for our anti-Israel friends to consider . . .