Catch-22, Vatican-style

Following in the grand tradition of Yossarian’s medal in Catch-22, and the Bush administration, where lying to the public and promoting flagrant human rights abuses lead to promotion — see: Queen Lotsateetha Rice and Albert "VO5" Gonzalez — Phillipe & Jorge were pleased to see how Cardinal "Bad Bernie" Law was the only American cardinal to lead an official mass for the late Mr. Pope at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

Just like Dubya the Dumb, Mr. Pope yanked Bad Bernie from the hot seat of the worst sex abuse scandal involving Catholic priests in history. Despite how Law was forced to resign the prized Boston diocese, John Paul II made him archpriest (arch-villain, P&J would say) of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, one of the leading Vatican churches, rather than sending this obfuscating protector of sexual predators to a leper colony in the South Pacific, a la Father Damien. Can you say, absolutely deaf to the public’s concerns, boys and girls? Gosh, that would be a first for the Catholic Church.

Voice of the Faithful, the 30,000-member Catholic lay group, which admirably rose to support the church and their religion while Bad Bernie and his fellow American bishops were turning a blind eye — hardly rushing to come foreword with what they knew and when they knew it — was not amused. It cited Cardinal Law as the embodiment of the church’s failure to take on a hideous practice of ignorance of abuse. Some American Catholics even attempted to protest at the Mass in Rome, to point out how having Law in such a prominent role was rubbing the victims’ nose in it, further minimizing their predicament in the church’s hierarchy of concerns.

This wasn’t just an insult to the victims — it was an insult to Catholics worldwide. It was also an affront to decency and the entire human race, which, we heard so often, was touched by Pope John Paul II, whatever the beliefs of particular individuals.

Sleep tight, Galileo.

THE BAD TASTE BELL

The Bad Taste Bell was pealing loud and long at Casa Diablo on April 12.

Your superior correspondents were sitting in the breakfast nook, finishing our eggs Benedict, washed down with mimosas, and browsing — as is our morning wont — the Urinal’s obituaries, a.k.a. the Irish sports pages. As you may know, the obit section of the BeloJo has been a hotbed of controversy in recent months. The greed merchants from the Dallas-based Belo Corporation decided to start charging for the notices, and then dropped the town-by-town listings in favor of an alpha sorting. The outcry from readers was immediate — reminiscent of how the execs at Coca-Cola with too much time on their hands decided to market "new Coke," which blew up in their faces like an IED in Baghdad — and the paper quickly went back to the town by town listing format.

But the paper now offers a new "Elsewhere" slot in the obits, which is where we saw the official notice for a bloke named "Pope John Paul, Karol Jozef Wojtyla." P&J thought it was guy Jorge grew up with from down the street in Pawtucket, before we realized, in fact, it was Mr. Pope of Vatican City, a bit removed from Darlington. At the end of nearly 15 inches of copy describing Mr. Pope’s life, readers and mourners were urged to stop by the Smith-Mason Funeral Home in Riverside (we are fairly sure that isn’t where Mr. Pope was laid out for viewing, but you never know), for "paying their condolences and signing a register book that will be forwarded to the Vatican." We didn’t see any notice about signing up to name a star that will also be included in a book at the Star Registry, or taking a brief tour of the casket showroom, but why waste a trip?

Death with dignity, indeed.

CRUNCH TIME

Speaking of the Urinal’s marketing and advertising predilections, your superior correspondents were pleased to receive a little box of Kellogg’s Smart Start cereal with delivery of our Sunday paper.

As indicated above, cereal is almost never on the breakfast menu at Casa D. when so many other tasty offerings are served on demand by our chef, Giuseppe. (He just loves it when we call him "Julia," always offering his impression of the late famed cook, Mrs. Child, for us when we do so.)

Smart Start is supposed to be a real health food that contains "antioxidants." This makes P&J think of not good eating habits, but having the carburetor cleaned and the air filter replaced in our Daimler. We have always been intrigued, though, by these promotions, which usually include idiotic sales pitches that make absolutely no sense upon closer examination, like, "Comes in two flavors: banana and red," or "Tastes crunchy!"

While we, of course, would never suggest that Kellogg’s or the BeloJo would inflict anything harmful on their customers, we did take the precaution of calling the Office of Homeland Security. in case this was yet another devious terrorist plot to reach inside America’s homes.

LINC’S DILEMMA

US Senator Linc Chafee is in a particularly tight spot right now regarding the Senate vote on John Bolton, President Bush’s nominee for ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton has a long record of disdain for the UN and international bodies in general (he’s a staunch leader of the "USA uber alles, everyone kiss our ass" school of thinking).

Bolton is a jerk. His response to a question by Barbara Boxer during Monday’s Senate confirmation hearings, about an infamous speech from a decade ago — in which he remarked, "If 10 floors of the UN were eliminated, it wouldn’t make any difference" — was that he was just trying to "get the attention" of the audience. This is particularly lame.

That the Bolton nomination will split along party lines in committee is a given. That is, except for Linc Chafee, who’s always independent vote will make the difference on Bolton. A progressive friend e-mailed your superior correspondents with this quote: "It’s an important vote," Mr. Chafee said Monday. "But I’ll be honest. Back in Rhode Island, I think the interest groups care strongly about it, but I think the average citizen doesn’t know who John Bolton is."

Obviously, our progressive friend thinks that this exposes a callous Chafee. The problem is, we have no doubt that Linc is absolutely correct on this point. This does not mean that we believe an anti-internationalist right-wing extremist is a good fit for UN ambassador, just that we agree with Chafee about how most citizens don’t even vote most of the time. If you polled people in any given state on who the current US attorney general is, we’d bet the farm (a.k.a Casa Diablo) that at least 75 percent wouldn’t know. If we Americans are so on top of things, how did Bush get reelected?

In the past, Chafee has indicated that he believes people in the White House should be given the teams they want in order to do their jobs. He is loath to vote against an administration appointee because of this principle.

At deadline, the Senate hearings on Bolton are continuing, but we suspect Linc will go along with the Republicans on this, and we think he’s wrong. More importantly (and we know that some of our progressive friends will gag at this), Linc has voted correctly (and courageously) on a lot of other matters. Your choice for the US senate should be based on the entire voting record. This is not to be construed as an endorsement for Linc. We have another announced candidate, one Mr. Whitehouse, who has a long record that is also very strong in the "doing the right thing" category. As we said last week, this one is really tough.

JIMBO’S BACK

In P&J’s minds, local TV’s only "real" reporters number about a half-dozen (Jack White, Sean Daly, and the rest of you can guess), so the return of Jim Taricani to Channel 10 is cause for celebration. As you know, Jim has been on court-ordered home confinement since just before Christmas. This came after he was found guilty of contempt in US District Court for refusing to name the source that gave him the infamous Frank Corrente-collecting-cash tape.

According to Jim’s wife, Laurie White, the reporter, who has not been able even to go to the mailbox to pick up his mail, nor use the Internet while on confinement, has been "watching a lot of cooking shows." So while the world may lose another potential Iron Chef, the Biggest Little has regained a reporter.

It was also nice to see Jim featured over the weekend on the NBC Nightly News, during one of its "In Depth" features. In the network interview, Jim defiantly held his ground, criticizing the government’s ability to intimidate and incarcerate reporters.

The best result that can come of this would be a federal shield law for reporters, not unlike the state laws in many places (including Rhode Island). Of course, with the police state mentality currently emanating from the Republican-dominated federal government, we wouldn’t expect such an initiative to come about any time too soon.

DELAY SWEEPSTAKES

Because House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — now reeking more than any dead rodent he ever removed from a house in his exterminator heyday — is such an odious fellow, we believe we will miraculously hang onto his leadership position for about another month. As the stench grows from his escalating number of ethical "lapses," even people with notoriously faulty olfactory systems, like Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania), are calling for DeLay to slither away.

So the Casa Diablo odds makers are saying 30 days. Anyone else out there like to put in their two cents on when they finally run this hyena out of town? (Veteran political scribe R.W. Apple of the New York Times, during an appearance this week at the Federal Reserve, put DeLay’s chances of political survival at about 20 percent.) DeLay’s departure might take a little longer because, like his ethical soulmate, Richard Nixon, DeLay won’t go until he’s all but dead meat.

KUDOS AND CONGRATS . . .

. . . to Urinal toy department scribe Bill Reynolds, whose newest book, Cousy: His Life, Career and the Birth of Big-Time Basketball (Simon & Schuster) garnered a rave review in Sports Illustrated. n

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