Papal reinforcement

The day after the May 15 ruling by the California Supreme Court that struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage, the Pope weighed in to condemn the ruling. He firmly restated the Roman Catholic Church's position that only unions between a man and a woman are moral ("Pope restates gay marriage ban after California vote," Reuters, May 16, 2008).

To his credit, San Francisco Arshbishop Niederauer, too, condemned the ruling. Yet his carefully measured words carried all the impact of a wet noodle: "This action challenges those in society who believe in the importance of the traditional understanding of marriage to deepen their witness to the unique and essential role that marriage between a man and a woman has in the life of society," Archbishop Niederauer said (CNS, May 16, 2008). "... challenges ... those who believe ..."? Come on. Would you have caught the Prophet Elijah on Mt. Carmel hedging his denunciations of the Prophets of Baal with such veiled appeals to pluralism?

We need to pray for Archbishop Niederauer and many others clerics like him. Niederauer, you may recall, declared that he found the gay propaganda film Brokeback Mountain "very powerful." He was infamously caught on video giving Communion to gay men dressed as nuns. You may remember how he implausibly declared that he didn't know Nancy Pelosi's stand on abortion. You may also recall how his appointment as the archbishop of San Francisco was cheered by homosexual activists. See also Dale Vree's resume of the Archbishop's administration in San Francisco.

The inordinate desire to be liked, the desire to avoid being tarred as "politically incorrect," the desire to avoid alienating dissidents lies close to the root of the weakness in the Catholic hierarchy. It is this very disposition, unfortunately, which wittingly or unwittingly aids and abets the flaming homosexualist dissent of clerics like Fr. Joseph O'Leary.