Although now I know what he said about Cardinal Wuerl. Please use the sharing buttons! Thanks!
Seriously, I don't know who a lot of online personalities are. I come across their names in comboxes of my favorite blogs on occasion, but that doesn't mean I read what they have to say. Neumayr stepped into the Guarnizo fray and went after Cardinal Wuerl, and I think may have clobbered a canonist and a priest or two in the process - I may be wrong on that however. My problem is that I don't read really long blog posts or comments - and very few newspapers at that - something I'm told is considered a virtue in Alaskan gubernatorial candidates. But I digress.
Back to Neumayr, and his lambaste against Cardinal Wuerl. The other reason I did not read it in its entirety is because I also found it offensive. Like him or not - you can't tear to pieces a Cardinal. Bloggers and others do it - but it is wrong. That said, I have to agree - to an extent - with this from a man named Winters who appears to write for the NCReporter: (My comments in Periwinkle blue.)
Neumayr's venom is profoundly disturbing. (See, I thought so too.) Certainly, his portrait of Cardinal Wuerl bears no resemblance to the man many of us have witnessed here in Washington the past few years. (I've never been in Washington, so I can't verify that one.) I doubt one makes it to the rank of cardinal if one is especially thin-skinned. (Even thick skinned people are offended by venomous attacks.) I do not think Cardinal Wuerl winks at sacrilege let alone causes it. His reputation as a gentle pastor is well-earned and not the kind of thing to be lightly dismissed just because some yahoo wants the cardinal to join him in a culture war. (I don't think I'm a yahoo - maybe a crackpot blogger - but I don't think it is too much to hope that a cardinal would be at the forefront of a culture war - even if he is busy on another front.) The priests I know, without exception, like him a lot and feel supported in their own ministry, and so the fact that he did not support Guarnizo likely tells us more about Guarnizo then it does about Cardinal Wuerl. (That may be true, but I hope Guarnizo is supported and ultimately vindicated - as well as defended against rogue canonists.) But, in the right-wing blogosphere, if you do not toe the line to their version of orthodoxy, you are a heretic, even if you are the man chosen by Pope Benedict XVI to lead the next synod of bishops. (That's also true.) - Michael Sean Winters, NCReporter
Priest are subject to their bishops - that is just a fact of life in the Roman Catholic Church - even when they don't want a particular Father in their diocese. If we don't like the bishop, and or disagree with his policies - we at least owe him the respect and decorum due his office. Big boy underwear or not.
