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What I am going to do now is invoke the special powers act of the first new Catholic parish in my diocese of Brooklyn since 1972, one in which I am in charge with the rank of bishop. Bishop Breslin.
I say bishop and not cardinal because I like the sound of Bishop Breslin. Just say it once and you know who's in charge. The big guy, Bishop Breslin. Kneel with your back straight and I'll give you my blessing. I cannot abide people slumped onto the pews like they're riding the subway.
I qualify for the rank of bishop because I'm not a pedophile.
In this match between Bishop Breslin and his religion and the old, established church, let me tell you something: The Other Guys Are the Joke.
And as bishop, I called my friend Danny Collins up one day and told him that he was the auxiliary bishop. He was extraordinarily qualified. Certainly, he is no pedophile or pimp. Let's get that out of the way. He does know Latin and Greek.
"Do we have vestments? I have no money for wardrobes," he said.
"No, Christ never had them."
"Good. You're not going to have us swinging a can of incense around?"
"Never."
"Because we get some free swingers and they'll wind up having pot smoking in the urn."
The idea of my being a bishop was outrageous and irresponsible and I loved telling everybody about it.
And then the pope called the American cardinals to Rome over their failure to protect children from priests, and that is quite a failure when you think about it. He called the cardinals to Rome because on his best days I don't think he knew where America is.
Afterward, the cardinals and bishops held two more meetings in America -- or was it three? -- in which they called for more thin air in which to cast their solutions to all problems. They formed a large national commission to investigate every complaint, pluck out all offending priests, and end the dark night. After some months, the bishops announced that they had determined that over four thousand priests had been accused of molesting ten thousand, mainly young boys, from 1950 until 2002. The head of the bishops conference, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, proclaimed the scandal "history."
He no more can prove these figures than I can of my considered estimate of twenty-five thousand priests and one hundred thousand victims in those fifty-two years.
I know one thing. Gregory's church history cannot stand the light of a heavy candle. I issue mine after doing what he and his bishops don't know how to do: walk the streets of the parishes and listen to Catholics who, slowly, reluctantly, but so surely, tell of atrocities by priests on the young.
I was talking to my auxiliary bishop about it. "They are going to lose the church this way."
"They could," he said.
"Let people listen to them and then listen to me. I know what the religion has to do," I said. "You have to have women priests. And women from the outside, not restricted to nuns. Too many nuns need to have the past shaken out of them. All they do is bow to priests. The second thing you do is have married priests. A parish is a great job for a man and wife. Great housing. Sermons on Sunday. Major sermons. I'll write them with such spirit that they'll ring through the ages to come of Catholicism in America. The constituent work all week is the work of the Lord. You serve the poor, not the country clubs. Turn your parish into a church following the life of Christ."
I finished with my favorite expletive: "Beautiful. You mean to tell me that I don't have a better idea than the people in Rome do?"
"That's why I'm not going to do it," Collins said.
"Why?"
"Because it's too feasible and I don't want to get caught in it."
Copyright © 2004 by Jimmy Breslin
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