Healed

The years between the ages of 8 and about 13 or 14 are a magical time for a boy. Those are the years that are sandwiched between giving up your toys but before you have discovered girls and beer. For most of us, professional sports filled the gap. We followed our local teams in the standings, memorized statistics, read books about legends and lore, and debated who should be MVP. Almost all of our waking hours outside school and outside actually playing sports revolved around our local teams.

In Chicago during the late 60’s and early 70’s, the Blackhawks were the top ticket in town. The Bears were terrible. The Bulls had not yet gotten off the ground. The White Sox were generally mediocre. And the Cubs broke our hearts with their spectacular and legendary collapse in 1969. But in 1969, the Blackhawks had acquired a future hall of fame goaltender, Tony Esposito, and a fiery redheaded defenseman, Keith Magnuson, along with his college teammate Cliff Koroll, to complement the power of Bobby Hull and finesse of Stan Mikita. Although they were swept by Bobby Orr and the Bruins in the 1970 playoffs, by the 1970-71 season, the Hawks had arrived, winning 49 games and swept the first round of the playoffs. In the second round, it took them a full 7 games to defeat the New York Rangers, and they faced the Montreal Canadiens in the finals, who finished in 3rd place and did not make the playoffs the previous season. The Habs were also starting an untested rookie goalie, Ken Dryden. The Hawks looked poised to win their first Stanley Cup since 1961.

The Hawks had home ice advantage and took a 2-0 lead in the series, only to squander it in Montreal to bring it back to Chicago tied 2-2. Chicago went up again with a 2-0 victory in Chicago, and had the opportunity to win the cup in Montreal, but they faltered, losing narrowly 4-3. This set the stage for game 7 in Chicago. The city was all abuzz with the possibility of a Stanley Cup win at the Stadium. The Wirtz family steadfastly refused to televise home games, believing that if the game was on TV, people would not buy tickets. Nonetheless, rumors swirled that the Wirtz’s would relent and let us watch our beloved Blackhawks on TV in the crucial game 7. He did not, and we were consigned to listening to the game on a.m. radio. But the voice and timbre of play-by-play announcer Lloyd Pettit made the game come alive.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. We were pretty confident that the Blackhawks would prevail in the end. They had a tough defense buttressed by Tony Esposito, who had set the record for shutouts the year before, Tony Esposito and a dominating offensive player in Bobby Hull. My best buddy and I had already plotted to defy the nuns at our school, play hooky and attend the planned parade and rally downtown. It was a very warm night and I remember running back to my room after getting a soft serve ice cream from the ice cream truck to listen to Lloyd Pettit on my old wooden cased radio.

The Hawks went up 1-0 on a goal by Danny O’Shea, followed a bit later with a goal by Dennis Hull. While the Canadiens had successfully contained Bobby Hull, we were ecstatic as it would be difficult to crawl out from under a 2-0 hole. The Hawks had a chance to seal it when Bobby Hull had an open shot with Dryden going down. A 3-0 lead would have been almost impossible to overcome but Hull’s powerful shot clinked off the crossbar. A few inches lower, and the result would have been a fait accompli.

Then a freakish thing happened. Jacques Lemaire took a shot from center ice. The usually reliable Esposito seemed to lose the puck and it went in, giving the Canadiens life. Later the Canadiens tied it 2-2 and the persistent Rejean Houle, whose sole job was to shadow Hull, was able to frustrate him.

Eventually, the Canadiens’ speed prevailed. The image Henri Richard speeding past a sprawling Keith Magnuson is forever burned in my memory and he tucked it behind Esposito taking the lead 3-2. The Hawks had several opportunities to tie it, but Dryden came up with save after save. As the clock ran out, I was in utter disbelief, and I remember lying face down on my bed for a long time, sobbing. It’s probably hard to understand the depth of the disappointment but the closest thing would probably have been a Christmas where Santa just didn’t show up. My opportunity to play hooky would take decades to come again. I would have to find another way to defy Sister Lawrence.

The Hawks had one more chance at the finals in 1973 but the Canadiens again snuffed them out in six games. Another trip to the finals in the early 1990’s was dispatched quickly in 4 games. The franchise continued to sputter and a few years ago was voted the worst sports franchise by ESPN. I remember feeling very sad when I attended the game after Keith Magnuson was killed and the Blackhawks had a pregame tribute to him. His wife and children were there and it was shameful to see an attempt to honor a player that exemplified the franchise with pride, spirit and hustle with a United Center that was only about 1/3 full.

So it was more than just another Chicago championship when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup this week. Following the resurgence of the franchise over the past couple of years with these young stars has been a great deal of fun, and Rocky Wirtz has done a masterful job of reconnecting his fan base. Still, watching Philly tie the game Wednesday night to send it into overtime sent chills down my spine and nearly provoked flashbacks rivaling PTSD. But eventually, star Patrick Kane sealed it with his overtime goal (although it took us a few moments to figure out whether it was a good goal or not). For me, the victory was a reprise of real emotional significance, like the healing of a childhood trauma.

Despite a deskful of work and projects and deadlines, I decided to take the morning off and join my wife and my daughter at the parade. The weather was hot and sticky the Hawks were 30 minutes late. I almost gave up waiting. Finally, the buses rolled past and fittingly, atop one of the first buses were my old heroes that never got a chance to lift the Cup—Stan Mikita, Bobby Hull and Tony Esposito, and behind them the new generation of true champions. 39 years after that missed parade in 1971, I finally got to play a little hooky, and to see the Stanley Cup glinting in the sunlight in person. It was worth the wait.

Who's the Luddite?

Earlier this month at a commencement address at Hampton University earlier this month, President Obama astonished me by slamming new technology, “You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that high on the truth meter," he told the students. "And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it's putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy."

This is quite a statement from our post-racial, post-political, new age, tech savvy president. When he first came to office, there were stories about how difficult it might be to maintain cyber-security since Obama was hooked on his Blackberry. Another myth died before my very eyes.

President Obama’s quote is troubling for several reasons. First, Barack Obama sold us on a president that was more in tune with science, technology and progress than his predecessor was. People of science, rather than the proponents of creationism of the prior administration would hold sway in this administration. Between the killing of manned space flight at NASA and this whack at technology, I’m beginning to have some doubts about his commitment to American leadership in science and technology. These devices and advances are the result of cutting edge American creativity and technological progress. The hardware and software are largely products of American ingenuity (although Japan and India also have been major contributors). In addition, these are GREEN COMPANIES. They are not big smokestack entities belching out CO2 and dumping waste into our waterways. These products are the result of very smart, very nerdy people in clean little cubicles. These products represent the best of America’s transition from brawn to brains.

Most disturbing is Obama’s assertion that we need to be wary of unfiltered information, as if the 3 big networks and the New York Times should be our only fact-checked reliable source of news. Right. One only has to think back of the events of last summer in Iran to know that the uncontrolled Twitter was the only reliable source of information coming out of that country during the protests. The new technology IS a means of emancipation… from established media. Mr. President, we are perfectly capable of sorting out and distilling information. You are only partially correct that they are putting new pressures on our democracy. They are putting more pressure on our leaders to be more responsive. Even guys like me can have a blog with his own modest readership. We are no longer condemned to receiving information and viewpoints from a small cluster of media elite.

It is surprising that a conservative like me would actually embrace new communication and technology ahead of our new age president, but I have done so with some gusto. I wouldn’t exactly call myself an early adopter, but I have at least been in the second wave. I have not yet purchased an iPad, but I have had an iPod for several years and I bought a Kindle last year.

Here are my recommendations for information that is sometimes a distraction, but informative and entertaining nonetheless.

Best $100 I’ve spent this year.
Hands down it is my subscription to the Bloomberg podcasts. Tom Keene has wonderful guests. He has had Nuriel Roubini, Paul Volker, Gary Becker, Gary Schiller, and other top economists and analysts. Keene is extraordinarily well-prepared (I don’t know when he sleeps), analytical, and always very good humored. He is particularly skilled at getting technical analysts to frame up propositions so that less technical listeners can understand. Clearly, Keene makes his living discussing global markets but he stays far away from partisan politics. We can all agree that we are in a major era of economic disruption, and I feel I have a much keener (no pun intended) view of the economy as a result of regular listening.

Favorite Lefty.
Terry Gross. I can’t help myself. I’ve been listening to Fresh Air for 25 years and I still like the guests she is able to attract, and she attracts a pretty wide swath of people. A high percentage of them are in the arts and music and many are on the leg of a book tour, but she is respectful and is able to get guests to open up to her on a very human level. Her interview with Tony Judt (a NYU professor and writer stricken with ALS) was so compelling that I wrote an email to Mr. Judt (from which I received a warm reply. Ms. Gross restrained herself magnificently when she interviewed Carl Rove, although I got the sense that she was squirming in her seat.

When I Need a Good Rant.
Mark Levin (www.marklevinshow.com). I have to be in the mood to listen to Levin. But when I’ve really had it with the Obama/Reid/Pelosi troika, a half an hour with Levin is cathartic. He keeps you focused on the frontal assault on individual liberty that Team Obama is attempting to implement. While I don’t much care for the call-in “man in the street” interchanges, his blunt commentary on individual liberty and American exceptionalism is refreshing.

Kindle.
I like my Kindle but don’t love it. Reading with a Kindle does not replicate reading a book. Reading a book is a sensual experience as well as an intellectual one. I love the feel and smell of a new book, and I like to flip back between pages of a text. I find the percentage of completion indicator (rather than page numbering) annoying. And the little square peg that you use to navigate is clunky.

Still, there are features of the Kindle that I like. It is easy to cart around, especially while travelling. It is perfect for purchasing books which are more contemporary and will likely not be read again. In that respect, it is much more economical than purchasing hard cover books. I like the fact that I can order and receive a book instantaneously. The economy has figured out how to extract money from me in smaller increments.


Social Media.
I don’t Twitter….yet. But I do have a rudimentary Facebook and LinkedIn profiles (which I need to upgrade). I’m still groping around for the proper amount of information to put out there in what is a public forum. Both are useful to connect with people, especially interesting long lost classmates that you were curious about. In some ways, it has made class reunions somewhat obsolete. You get to find out what happened to people and only need to correspond with those that you would like to correspond with. I’m still not sure of the value of LinkedIn. A large percentage of people that want to connect to my network are not people I particularly want to be connected to.

So there you have it. President Obama, you are dead wrong. These new devices and the new technology is tremendously empowering and liberating. See? I just posted it. Anyone around the world with access to the internet can read it. So there.

Suffer the Children

Our ultimate responsibility as a nation is to preserve the Constitution and the freedoms guaranteed by it to future generations. An important corollary is the responsibility to preserve the American Way of Life and economic opportunity for the generations that follow. Our children and their children are our most important priority.

Unfortunately, the Left doesn’t quite see it that way.

In February, President Obama dumped a $3.8 trillion budget on Congress with huge deficits that go on ad infinitum. Congress, in turn, won’t even pass a budget. It intends to tax, spend, and borrow without one. Under the cover of “stimulus,” these people are stealing from our children and grandchildren. My liberal friends blithely say, “Well, we’ll just have to raise taxes at some point.” On who? My children and grandchildren, stealing opportunity from them—money they could be using to save and invest, to feed the Left’s constituents today. No wonder the Tea Party is becoming a recognizable political force. We are clearly back to taxation without representation. But this is the most insidious kind. They are pillaging a generation that hasn’t been born yet and and therefore cannot resist or rebel.

Now it seems that the Left has stooped to a new low. A couple of educational bureaucrats in Highland Park are cynically using the Highland Park girls’ basketball team to advance their own wrongheaded political agenda. They have announced that the team will be cancelling their planned trip to Arizona citing “safety concerns” but really in protest of Arizona’s recently passed immigration law.

Now you’ve hit home, guys. Playing high school and college sports is one of the most gratifying, fun and important growing experiences a kid can have. Sportsteaches discipline, hard work, the importance of working together and getting along (even when there are teammates you don’t particularly like). It is important in building self-confidence and self-esteem. In a world of immediate gratification, sports teaches the importance to deferred reward. Further, it is only in the last 10-15 years that girls’ sports has really taken off. I have been impressed with the level of play and the skill level that girls programs have achieved. The memories of those experiences and the bonds that are created last a lifetime. I know. I’ve been there.

And these despicable creatures in Highland Park want to ruin this experience for these girls to make a political statement. It’s fine if you want to protest. Write a letter. Call you Congressman. Boycott watching “los Suns” games on TV. But don’t ruin the trip of a lifetime for these kids. I find it particularly revolting that these girls have achieved near equality with boys in facilities, resources, play and coaching level—all the things that Title IX was all about. And now you want to take away a fun experience to satisfy your petty little grievance with a state that is not even yours (not to mention whether or not your position has any merit). This is outrageous.

The Left, through its propaganda arm, the New York Times, has been all over Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church for the child abuse scandals. Fair enough, and I joined in that criticism. But the Left is engaging in its own form of child abuse. By stealing from them to feed their own constituents (which happens to include the teachers’ unions, I might add) and by using them as political pawns and denying these girls in Highland Park the opportunity to compete, they are engaging in their own form of child abuse.

The Disconnected

The president’s approval ratings continue to drift downward. The approval ratings of Congress are scandalously low—I think Lawrence Taylor’s are actually better than Harry Reid’s and Nancy Pelosi’s. A recent Pew poll indicated that 80% of Americans distrust government. These are serious numbers. Two years after the worst financial crisis in three generations, and we still do not have a financial reform bill. Drugs and gangs are pouring into Mexico and we cannot protect our border. Oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, ruining Southern economies and the ecosystem for a generation and our administration flips us off, saying “It’s not our job. It’s BP’s.” Terrorists have attacked us from inside our military (Administration immediate response: “Let’s not jump to conclusions”), a have attempted to blow up an airliner (Administration immediate response: “The system worked”) and slaughter people in Times Square (Administration immediate response: “This is a one-off”). Almost on cue, Robert Gates yesterday announced that we need to drastically reduce our military spending. No wonder Democrats like Bart Stupak and David Obey have bailed. The administration’s slavish devotion to liberal dogma – abundant social spending and reflexive softness on matters of security- is disconnected him from the polity.

But the Obama administration is not alone. The Catholic Church is also embroiled in the most serious crisis of confidence since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door in Wittenburg. The child abuse scandals have roiled the church both in America and in Europe, and have implicated the Pontiff himself. In response, the Pope launched his own “apology tour” of sorts. But the magnitude and insidiousness of the crisis screams for fundamental reform. However, the elevation of Benedict to the papacy in 2005 signaled that the Church is headed in the other direction. Known as “God’s Rotweiller”, Ratzinger is a hard line Catholic fundamentalist; his position is and has been to dig a moat around the Vatican and not open the big issues of celibacy, birth control, and Catholic supremacy up for discussion. That the Vatican would even consider putting up Pius XII for sainthood tells me that there is something dreadfully wrong with the church hierarchy. Sainthood to me equals beyond reproach in any respect. It is the Catholic moral hall of fame. Given the time that Pius XII was at the helm of the church and Germany’s Catholic tradition, it is simply not possible for Pius XII to be considered for beatification.

As I thought about it more, Obama and Pope Benedict face parallel problems. In both cases, the governing hierarchy is utterly disconnected from the governed. They simply are not listening. Their views are rooted in their immutable fundamentalist beliefs that cannot be varied no matter what evidence is presented to them and what the people are saying.

In his recent book, “Practicing Catholic,” James Carroll (a former priest and self-described dissident Catholic) says:

“It seems harsh to say so, but cruelty underlies the shy pope’s evident goodwill. That is because the ideology he advances for Roman Catholicism cares less for actual people (men and women in the hopeless dead end of a failed marriage, say) than for esoteric abstractions (the absolute indissolubility of matrimony). It is this aspect of Pope Benedict’s mindset that qualifies him as the chief sponsor of the new Catholic fundamentalism, enforced with no regard for the real cost to human beings.”

The Catholic Church and the U.S. are each now governed by the most ideological leaders in a generation. Pope Benedict has been largely deaf to his constituents. But Obama cannot remain deaf forever. We have mid-term elections in six months.

The Head Fake

President Obama plays a lot of basketball. And that has translated into his rhetoric. His favorite move is the rhetorical head fake, and he did it again today when discussing potential Supreme Court nominees. It’s his way of sounding like he is taking a middle of the road path, get you going one way and then take you another. I first noticed this device when I read his book, “The Audacity of Hope.” I did actually read it from cover to cover to get an idea about how he thinks.

In it, Obama uses the phrase, “I’m a believer in capitalism” over and over, but that phrase is always followed by a “but” qualifier that undercuts the main proposition. In “The Audacity of Hope,” when you add up all the qualifiers to his assertion that he believes in capitalism, you doubt very much whether he believes in it at all.

He did it again today, denying that there will be a pro-choice litmus test for his Supreme Court nominee, but then followed immediately by saying, “I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women's rights.”

Catch the head fake? In liberal jargon, “women’s rights” is code for “the right to abortion on demand.” So, what Obama really said is that he doesn’t believe in a litmus test, but make no mistake, there will be a litmus test.

Listen for the head fake. It generally comes when he feels compelled to show that he has a conservative cell or two in his body. It will be a phrase that begins, “I believe in the free market, but…”, “I believe in a strong defense, but…,” “America has a long friendship with Israel, but…,” and so on. Then he will proceed to undercut his assertion.

I’d actually rather have a president that will be blunt with me. I would respect him more if he said, “I believe in the holding of Roe v. Wade and I will undoubtedly nominate someone that is not very likely to deviate from that.” I could deal with that. But don’t think I’ll fall for a simple move. You see, President Obama, like you, I have South Side roots. I played my share of street basketball. You can’t get me with a simple head fake. I know where you’re going.

It's the numbers, stupid

Have you ever been in a bad car accident? I have. About 12 years ago, my son and I were in Winona, Minnesota at a father-son hockey camp and one day as we drove from the rink, we went through an intersection with no stop lights or stop signs. I failed to see a car with two teenagers barreling toward us. The car broadsided our Jeep and spun us around. The impact was so hard, it lifted two wheels off the ground. Fortunately, we were both strapped in as were the drivers of the other car. No one was badly hurt.

But the trauma of the accident stayed with us. I was sore for a week afterword and I felt emotionally raw from the experience. My eight year old son experienced a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. It was a jarring experience even though neither of us was permanently injured.

That’s about how I feel about the passage of Obamacare. It shook me up to witness the federal government hijack one sixth of our economy, especially coming on the heels of the government’s intrusion into the banking system, the automakers, and appointing a “pay czar” to determine executive compensation. But I’ve let the intellectual violence to my psyche subside so that I can give a fair assessment of Obamacare in a coolly analytical way by looking at the numbers.

Obamacare fails both on a macro and a micro level and the micro and macro effects will interact with each other over the long haul.

On the macro level, the Democrats trotted out the CBO estimates at the last minute to try to demonstrate that the bill reduces the deficit. Upon closer scrutiny, though, the bill will ADD $562 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years according to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the CBO office in his NY Times Op-Ed piece of March 21, 2010, The Real Arithmetic of Health Care Reform. I won’t go into the detail here, but suffice it to say that the Democrats used accounting gimmickry that would make the guys at Enron blush. Every major poll shows that the American people aren’t fooled either. By large majorities, they believe that this program will add to our already unmanageable deficit. They know reflexively that you can’t add a huge entitlement program and not have budgetary ill effects. My liberal friends are quick to attempt to use a moral argument about why this bill should have been passed. But what about the morality of stealing from our nation’s children and grandchildren and saddling them with $20 trillion in debt and its consequences? How moral is it to saddle them with paying for our current consumption, condemning them to a lower standard of living, fewer opportunities and virtual enslavement to the foreigners that buy our public debt securities?

The bill is even worse on micro level. The Obama crowd appears to be willing to ignore the effects of this program on individual doctors (or, more cynically, as I believe is creating just the effects that it desires.

Dr. Nathan Schatzman in a recent interview on Bloomberg pointed out that a family practitioner at normal overhead rates that has 60% Medicare patient load will see average pay cut from $160,000 a year to $95,000 a year. To maintain current income levels, this doctor will need to work 35% more hours. So under Obamacare, the family practitioner that worked like a dog to get into medical school, pay off his or her student loans, and who works 90 hours a week will now make about the same as a UAW worker at government-run GM. And, unlike the UAW worker, a doctor always runs the risk of being sued and having his or her assets and livelihood exposed.

This is EXACTLY the results that the Obama White House has been attempting to engineer. He wants professionals and the working class to have the same lifestyle. That is the operative ideology of this administration.

What will the longer term results of this plan be? We don’t know for sure how incentives will be distorted until this is implemented. Fundamental economics tells us that there are only limited ways to allocate scarce resources: pricing, queuing, lottery--- and under the Chicago Way, the use of clout. Fundamental economics also tells us that the cost curve doesn’t bend down when demand goes up (more people have access to health care) and supply goes down (doctors leave the system). It’s the reverse.

We don’t know exactly how this will play out, but we can see a sneak preview in two places—Massachusetts and Illinois. In Massachusetts, which has a system similar to Obamacare, costs have gone up, wait times have significantly increased, and emergency room visits have increased.

Most perniciously, we can look to Illinois for a hint as to how health care will likely be administered over the long run. Both the University of Illinois and the Chicago Public School system have been plagued by scandals in the admissions process. In both places, getting a letter or a phone call from Michael Madigan, Rod Blagojevich or other Democratic political heavies puts you in a different place in the queue. The average kid has to get in line like everyone else, but if you have clout, you have a special place in line. That’s the Chicago Way. Pay attention, it’s coming to Washington to infect our health care system.

Oops They Did It Again

This is my 5th or 6th serious attempt at reconciling with the Catholic Church. I was raised Catholic and attended a strict Lithuanian Catholic grade school in one of the ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago. Back then, if you wanted to get ahead in life, there were really two people that you had to curry favor with: the parish Monsignor and the local Democratic ward committeeman. One could get you a good city job someday; the other could help save your soul. That power and authority led them to act with a fair amount of imperiousness that has colored my view to this day. My natural skepticism about imperious authority led me to drift from the Church immediately upon entering high school, and drove me out of the Democratic Party.

While I have given up on rejoining the Democratic Party, I have made a number of good faith attempts to rejoin the Church over the years. Each time, however, the Church would do something to drive me back out. Once, it was the Pope imploring people in Latin America not to use birth control (like it was fine for a Mexican family to have a 10th child it cannot feed). Another time, it was when the Vatican met with that lying little minion of Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz. Yet another was when Cardinal Law bunkered himself in the basement in the face of the sex abuse scandals in the Boston Archdiocese, only to get “promoted” to a new job in Rome. My libertarian views are generally at odds with Church doctrine. I do not believe in the primacy of the Pope (all men are fallible; all knowledge is subject to scrutiny and revision). I do not believe that only Catholics or Christians can get into heaven. Women should be equal participants in the Church and should become priests and even Pope if she were to be so qualified. Priests should be able to marry- CEO’s and heads of state are able to devote their full time energies to their jobs while sustaining marriages, and I don’t see why priests can’t. I am also at odds with many of the Church’s views on sexual and reproductive morality. I am pro-choice. The ban on birth control puzzles me, and, indeed is in direct conflict with other important social goals—eliminating poverty and maintaining public health. Finally, the Church’s position on homosexuality is inconsistent with my beliefs. I do not believe that God cares very much who one chooses to share a life with as long as it is loving and respectful.

Recently, the Catholic Church has attempted to lure fallen members like me back into the fold with its “Catholics Come Home” campaign. It was timely as I have begun to think more seriously about it and I answered the call despite my stark differences with important Church positions. I started attending Mass regularly and even decided to observe Lent this year (so far I’ve made it through with no lattes and no alcohol).

In my mind, Catholicism has five major components to it. The first is the theology and doctrinal beliefs—that God exists, that Jesus was the son of God and all that. The second is a value system of behavior, providing guidance on how we ought to behave with one another. The third is community—being around people with similar values. Fourth, there is ritual and all the little rules and regulations like fasting, not eating meat on Fridays, etc. that we are supposed to comply with. And finally, there is acceptance of the primacy of the Pope.

It is the value system and community that most interests me. The theological aspects are also things I wrestle with. And there is something about ritual that I also believe is primal in us, and there is something comforting about the rhythm of the Church calendar and the ritual of Mass. The primacy of the Pope is something I utterly reject, however, and I will likely never be able to become a full participant in the Catholic Church. I am a believer in democracy and equality and that necessarily implies a belief that all men and women are fallible. I will never give deference or accept as final authority any human being that has arrived at his position through nondemocratic means and is unchecked by other authorities. Sorry. No can do.

I also struggle with a God that would permit the Holocaust to have occurred. My batting average with prayers being answered is also rather low. I reject the New Testament’s emphasis on poverty and have a hard time reconciling my admiration for human achievement and goodness in the creation of prosperity and human progress that comes with it. Jesus appeared to have more concern with the poor and underclass than with the people of talent and leadership that can actually relieve human suffering.

Despite my struggles and misgivings, I began to wrestle with it in a more serious way and resolved to try to overcome them. As if on cue, the sex abuse scandals in Europe re-ignited and even threaten to connect to the Pontiff himself. And today, the Pope released his pastoral letter on the subject. I read the full text and was filled with anger. The Church still doesn’t get it. In a communication like this, to read the words, “mistakes were made” makes my blood boil. He does not acknowledge that this is a worldwide problem and has cropped up in the U.S., Latin America, Europe and elsewhere. He talks about concrete initiatives to address the situation, but the most dramatic is to ask the Church faithful to pray for a year. Huh? Particularly disturbing is the sentence that reads, “Through intense prayer before the real presence of the Lord, you can make reparation for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm, at the same time imploring the grace of renewed strength and a deeper sense of mission on the part of all bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful.” YOU should make reparation? Wow. He really doesn't get it.

Will I stay in the Church? I want to keep trying but I honestly don’t know. The leaders in the Catholic Church and the leaders of the Democratic Party have a great deal in common. They are utterly disconnected from ordinary people and they have very twisted and perverse notions of victimhood. Somehow William F. Buckley had an easier time reconciling his belief system with the Catholic Church than I do.