Cardinal Dolan

Dolan, The Met & The Politics of Carnival

The question begs to be asked: What is the point of Cardinal Dolan? Whatever vocation he might once have espoused has dissolved in the acid of celebrity. He is an embarrassment to his office, and a disincentive to every serious-minded, diligent working priest in his archdiocese. Let him retire to the Hamptons, or South Beach, some glittering water hole where he can do what he is best at—glad-handing. He is an episcopal show-boater, the grinning face of a hierarchy desperate for the moment’s approval. Continue Reading
Cardinal Dolan & The Uses of Fatuity

Over Fourth of July weekend, parish bulletins throughout New York Archdiocese carried “Only in America,” an essay by Cardinal Timothy Dolan. It was a hail-fellow celebration of tolerance and religious liberty. But the meringue had been whisked up by the dialogue fairy, a bewitching crony of resurgent Islam. It began with the cardinal flashing his interfaith credentials. He had just received an award from the New York Board of Rabbis. This prompted one of those strenuously heartwarming reminiscences that are communion breakfast staples. Continue Reading
Our Vichy Church / Al Smith Dinner

It was impossible not to wince at Cardinal Dolan’s cozy gladhanding with that monstrous woman at the Al Smith Dinner. Leah Barkoukis, reporting for Town Hall, quoted our shepherd:
I was very moved by the obvious attempt on behalf of both Sec. Clinton and Mr. Trump … to be courteous, get along, to say nice things privately to one another. I was very moved by that, that was pleasant.
Pleasant! The word is a scandal in light of all that is at risk in this election. Continue Reading

A man’s being a poisoner is nothing against his prose. Oscar Wilde
Every embarrassment is not a scandal. Egg on the face washes off. Scandal, by contrast, does not. It cuts to the core. A Church scandal poisons trust in those we look to for guidance through the thicket of our own caprices. And it negates those teachings and practices that exist to purify our own desires. That in mind, I turn to this flurry of recent emails clamoring about the impending gay rites between the organist at St. Continue Reading

Consider how beautiful the devil must be. A fallen angel is an angel still. Seeing him fall, Jesus likened the plunge to “lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:18). Lucifer appears a pulsing field of light, a flash of pure spirit. All luminous intelligence, he is bright as the morning star, radiant as dawn. Were he not, temptation would be beggared. It would be too dull, too unsightly, to gain purchase on the human heart. Folded within the history of art is the history of the struggle to depict moral deformity. Continue Reading