Church's Balance of Power Shifting, by Margery Eagan

Sorry about those opening the page to the big mug of Jack Connors.

I thought the size was an appropriate visual to go along with  Margery Egan's column  about the "shifting power" of the Catholic Church in America.

And, guess who Margery says is in charge?

A Mick on the Make. 

My grandparents, aunts and uncles who were immigrants from Ireland had a saying for everything.  A "Mick" is a slang word for Irish man and  "on the make" is slang for a con man.

It appears Jack Connors has rewarded the Cardinal with two million more dollars. In his "chagrin" about power broking the school to send out the threat to shut down Catholic education if they do not comply with the silencing of the teachings of the Church and/or indoctrinating children of gays and lesbians into the teachings of the Church on human sexuality when they have made clear they want those teachings excluded from their children's development.

While the Cardinal is busy taking more pictures of himself running around as "prince of the church" than a prom queen on Facebook, Margery at least has the decency to be honest about who is in control of the Cathedra.  She's placed a nice picture of the man right beside her story.

First the Catholic Schools Foundation, Boston’s biggest scholarship provider, put the rest of area Catholic schools on notice: Do what Hingham did and you get no scholarship money, period.
Then power broker Jack Connors, who’d just secured $2 million more (from EMC and Liberty Mutual) for his $60 million Campaign for Catholic Schools, made known his chagrin. Yesterday he called the Hingham school’s move “embarrassing.”

Connors made known his chagrin.

The Catholic Church sent out a threatening email to cut off funding under orders from Jack Connors, Cardinal O'Malley did it - - and Connors is making known his chagrin.

Gosh, if it's one thing that drives me absolutely nuts, it's people who will whore the Catholic Church in exchange for cash.

Obama's political cronies are up to their usual tricks:

Then Catholic Democrats issued condemnations and Catholics United, another national group focused on social justice issues, began a petition drive asking Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley to forbid discrimination in all schools in his diocese, which includes Hingham.
By yesterday they were heading toward 5,000 signatures and organizer James Silts said they’ll keep e-mailing names to O’Malley until he reverses the Hingham decision.
On the National Catholic Reporter Web site, subscribers sent hosannas to Boston protesters. “Praise Boston,” said one. “Have they gone after the divorced and remarried, too?” asked another.

Yes, some sissified men in the Catholic Church are in hiding. They were sissies when the children were being raped.  They were sissies when the Cardinal set up his abortions business to kill the children of the poor and they will be sissies in the final affront to  having our children educated in the tenets of our Catholic religion.

But there are plenty of  men working on this who are not sissified.  

The archdiocese is still discriminating. It has not demanded, as it should, that St. Paul’s Rev. James Rafferty reverse himself.

All this may have less to do with a weakened hierarchy than with the church finally realizing: Sodom and Gomorrah is history. Plus, it’s easy to criticize one priest. It’s something else for the church to purge itself of its criminal-coddling bishops, and now, its pope.

Yes, it's easy to go after one priest.  This is the game plan.   Jack Connors has lined up the media to pay homage to this victory over the Catholic Church.  They're going to go after "one priest" and the sissified will all hide and take cover to protect the money being dumped into their "apostolates". 

As usual, they are not being honest about what transpired at St. Paul's. 

Fr. Rafferty was set up.

The two lesbian women apparently applied to the school without using their first names.  They used initials for their first names.

They paid their deposit and got uniform order forms, and last week the woman visited Rafferty to discuss their son's religious education. At that meeting, Rafferty started asking questions about her relationship with her partner, the woman said. 

The anonymous lesbian mother initiated a meeting with Fr. Rafferty to discuss what teachings she wanted excluded from the curriculum at St. Paul's.

The demands for excluding certain teachings of human sexuality were refused by Fr. Rafferty.  At this point, the woman has explained to the press that Fr. Rafferty told her that her soul was in danger.  This is the role of a priest.

It happens all the time.

Priests who care about the state of a soul will talk about any situation they feel you are in which is a danger to your salvation.

I remember a conversation I once had with Fr. Mattachio when I went to have my oldest baptized.

I walked in and asked to set up the Sacrament.  Fr. Mattarchio welcomed me, asked if I was new in town. When I said "no" he asked where I worshiped.  I said "nowhere".   He discussed with me the state of my soul.

I was unhappy with this conversation.

But this conversation was the beginning of my own conversion.

This conversation saved me from myself.    He took me off of my crooked path and invited me to come closer to Christ with my newborn child.

I didn't go to the newspaper.

I went to confession.

Let us stop letting Jack Connors control the press about what happened and what "is" happening to Fr. Rafferty. 

Fr. Rafferty is being set up - for it is easy to go after one priest in a situation where conservative men are vigliacco.  Jack Connors is on it.

These Hingham mothers have openly said in the newspaper that they will hold this same inquisition they initiated with Fr. Rafferty at other Catholic schools and  make the same demands they made of Fr. Rafferty that certain teachings be withheld from the curriculum due to her son's presence at the school.

But the woman said she was uncertain she would enroll her son in another Catholic school because she needed to learn more about their educational programs.
She added: "I will be a little bit more guarded in my questioning so I'll be able to have a real clear picture where they stand.

Mr. Michael B. Reardon and Mary Grassa O'Neil are arranging that silence.  It cost Jack Connors two million more dollars but today, he is chagrined because Cardinal O'Malley has accepted this bribe.


Catholic education is about teaching generations of Catholics the precepts of their faith. 

There are children of gays and lesbians in Catholic schools, as there are Muslims, parents of divorced and remarried.   As commenters have pointed out here and here, they are not openly assaulting the teachings of the Church as "discrimination".  (Don't we learn so much on how to defend the faith from people in comments sections of blogs?!)

In short, other sinners and adulterers are not making demands that the Church be silent on whatever adulterous sins they are committing. There is no movement about to make divorced and remarried Catholics who are violating their contractual agreements with the Church in their Sacrament of Marriage without annulment "discrimination".   If and when they do, they are invited to leave as the anonymous lesbian couple was invited to leave.


Here's the one thing we can all agree with:

Here’s hoping what happened in Hingham helps more moderate and even conservative Catholics - finally - get it, get mad and maybe even do something. For the Catholic hierarchy, again, has made it abundantly clear: They won’t stand up for children anywhere until somebody makes them.

 Stand up and fight.

For the love of Christ and the next generation of Catholics who have every right to be taught the teachings of the Church.


Fr. Rafferty is being persecuted for a two million dollar cash contribution to Cardinal O'Malley, who is letting Jack Connors lie about what happened behind closed doors at St. Paul's - and what this all means for Catholic education.

Gentlemen, grab your testosterone by the bootstraps and join C. J. Doyle.

We have a corrupt regime in power at the Archdiocese.

Even Margery Egan is onto it.  It is public now.