De Nile Runs Through Boston As Well As Cairo
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Helmet tip to New Catholic over at Rorate Caeli

This will be the one and only time I'll ever refer to him as "Cardinal Sean". He's Cardinal O'Malley as far as I'm concerned. I personally don't care how hard he tries to come off as just one of the guys.

Anyhow, the good Cardinal tells the world on his blog that "This issue of the Latin Mass is not urgent for our country". What planet has he been on?

The good Cardinal seems to fixate on the SSPX. His spin on the upcoming Motu Proprio falls squarely on the so-called reconciliation between Rome and the Society. As Cardinal O'Malley stated on his blog;

The Holy Father is obviously most concerned about trying to bring about reconciliation in the Church. There are about 600,000 Catholics who are participating in the liturgies of the Society of St. Pius X, along with about 400 priest.

But by making the Latin Mass more available, the Holy Father is hoping to convince those disaffected Catholics that it is time for them to return to full union with the Catholic Church... The Motu Proprio is his latest attempt at reconciliation.

In my comments at the meeting I told my brother bishops that in the United States the number of people who participate in the Latin Mass even with permission is very low. Additionally, according to the research that I did, there are only 18 priories of the Society of St. Pius X in the entire country. Therefore this document will not result in a great deal of change for the Catholics in the U.S. Indeed, interest in the Latin Mass is particularly low here in New England.

I couldn't help but notice that His Eminence failed to bring up the multiple closings of Catholic churches in his Archdiocese. His Eminence failed to mention that the fastest growing denomination in New England is Mormonism.

His Eminence failed to even discuss that within his Archdiocese, there are "Catholic" politicians who consistently tell both the Cardinal and The Church to go to hell. His Eminence failed to bring up that it's his own "faithful" Catholics that keep putting the likes of abortion-loving, homosexual-pandering "Catholics" such as Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Thomas Menino into office. Conspicuously absent was any mention of his predecessor who escaped just one step ahead of the DA's Office for protecting homosexual rapist "priests".

You know, it really is sad that the good Cardinal can't bring himself to be honest with us all and admit that The Church is in the self-destruct mode, especially here in America. Am I the only one who finds it odd that the good Cardinal didn't bring up the following;

Beyond a vague understanding of a need for "more vocations," most Catholics are perhaps unaware of the disaster facing the American priesthood. After skyrocketing from about 27,000 in 1930 to 58,000 in 1965, the number of priests in the United States dropped to 45,000 in 2002. By 2020, there will be about 31,000 priests--and only 15,000 will be under the age of 70, according to a study conducted by Dr. James R. Lothian of Fordham University.

The shortage of priests has created a problem previously unknown to modern Catholics: the priestless parish. Only 3 percent of the parishes in the US--a total of 549--were without a priest in 1965. In 2002 there were 2,928 priestless parishes, about 15 percent of all US parishes. By 2020, a quarter of all parishes, 4,656, will have no priest.

As one would expect, the priest dearth has been fueled by a collapse in the seminarian population. There were 16,300 seminarians in 1930 and 49,000 in 1965. By 2002 the number had plunged to 4,700: a 90 percent decrease. Without any students, countless seminaries across the country have been sold or shuttered. There were 596 seminaries in 1965, and only 200 in 2002.

Nor did His Eminence discuss this;

A 1958 Gallup Poll reported that three in four Catholics attended church on Sundays. A recent study by the University of Notre Dame found that only one in four now attend.

Only 10 percent of lay religious teachers now accept church teaching on contraception. Fifty-three percent believe a Catholic can have an abortion and remain a good Catholic. Sixty-five percent believe that Catholics may divorce and remarry. Seventy-seven percent believe one can be a good Catholic without going to mass on Sundays. By one New York Times poll, 70 percent of all Catholics in the age group 18 to 44 believe the Eucharist is merely a "symbolic reminder" of Jesus.

Should I be shocked that Cardinal O'Malley neglected to bring up how shabbily he treated the rightful aspirations of tradition-minded Catholics in his own Archdiocese? Just a few days ago, I asked "Is it any wonder that the majority of Catholics who were raised in the Mass of Paul VI look upon the Traditional Latin Mass as something freakish and to be avoided at all costs?"

But the Motu Proprio is all about the SSPX. Right, Your Eminence? As we use to say in the Marine Corps, you're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution. A blind man can see where Cardinal O'Malley falls.

To paraphrase the late, great Anna Haycraft; Cardinal O'Malley is taking something pure and strong, mixing it up with something weak and polluted, slashing it about, watching The Church fall apart around him and then congratulating himself on his progress.