By CHRISTOPHER MANION
“A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic” — attributed to Josef Stalin.
+ + +
The facts are hiding out of sight. Many Americans are so quarantined that we haven’t fully experienced the massive damage wrought on the economy by governments reacting to the Wuhan Virus. Socialist Democrat governors like Virginia’s Ralph Northam ignore the wreckage, choosing instead to extend what was once a two-week lockdown designed to “flatten the curve” to four months and counting, all “to keep us safe.”
A few brave Catholic bishops defy governors and invite the faithful back to the sacraments, but many more fear such a confrontation.
Almost half of America’s private sector employees work for small businesses. Over 100,000 of those have closed for good. One was Nana’s Irish Pub in Middletown, Va., a popular Irish restaurant that featured Irish owners, food, and music. Nana’s was a popular stop for folks traveling on two nearby interstates. And hard work led to success: Last time I was there, Nana’s had been named among the Top Ten of America’s Irish pubs.
Not anymore. Nana’s closed for good last week, putting dozens of employees out of work. Multiply that by 100,000 and the picture slowly comes into focus. It is a tragedy, not a statistic.
However, looking on the bright side (or the dark side, depending on your inclination), this trail of tragedy has not yet infected the federal government. While some local governments have been forced to lay off some employees here and there, The Wanderer’s U.S. Government employee expert is “unaware of any pandemic-driven Federal RIFs (Reductions in Force). Nearly all employees have been instructed to stay home; whether they work or not, all employees were instructed to stay home ‘for the convenience of the Government’.”
We are puzzled. We ask, “Wait, there are federal employees who are staying at home, but have no work to do?”
“Correct.”
So, unlike struggling private employers, the federal government plans to spend more money to keep those [non-working] employees on the payroll, with full pay and benefits. Moreover, the federal government plans to hire even more new employees to handle the expanded workloads that are expected once the government resumes approximately normal operations.
But wait, there’s more: While it might seem a bit contradictory, with all those federal public servants sitting at home doing nothing but cashing their paychecks, The Washington Post reports that, last week, “the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released a policy clearing the way for increased recruitment, retention and relocation incentives…for employees in high-demand positions. With OPM’s permission they can pay up to 50 percent more.”
Enough. It’s time for a government shutdown.
That’s where the federal government, “out of money” at the end of the budget year and no new agreement in sight, shuts down. Meanwhile, life goes as usual for the rest of us. Federal bureaucrats don’t get paid, and we do. Sort of a reversal of the current unpleasantness.
Do that, and all those bureaucrat “experts” and their tyrannical governor cooperators would solve the crisis in three days.
The SSPX: New Players,
Same Script
Some 30 years ago, when The Wanderer’s Paul Likoudis began reporting on the homosexual abuse that was ravaging the American Church, he was not showered with plaudits and awards from bishops grateful for his bringing these crimes to their attention. Quite the contrary. Over half of America’s sitting bishops were not only aware of the crisis, they did little to solve it. Dozens actively abetted the rapists. Many harangued Likoudis and The Wanderer for exposing their crimes.
In perpetuating the scandals, the guilty prelates had a lot going for them. The faithful had good, holy habits. We revered our bishops. At the mention of the profoundly distasteful notions of sodomy and rape by clerics, most good people quickly averted their attention. The very fact that these reports described behavior so vile actually worked to stifle any response from the faithful.
Ask any victim or his family how crass and crude was their prelate as they were silenced with the threat of breaching “Papal Secrecy” — or any other excuse the chancery lawyers could make up — to brush them off. Only when the secular Boston Globe broke the story into the major media in 2002 did bishops respond: They circled the wagons. To lead them in their cover-up campaign, they turned to then-cardinal Theodore McCarrick — an obvious choice, really, since he had been raping postpubescent boys for decades.
By the way, that reminds me — have you asked you bishop lately? “Where is the McCarrick Report?”
In recent weeks, Christine Niles, a Notre Dame Law grad and crack reporter for Church Militant.com, has unearthed a disconcerting pattern of similar clerical crimes, this time in the ranks of the Society of St. Pius X, known as the SSPX. Founded in 1970 by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the group gained many adherents, along with countless admirers, among Catholics sorely chagrined by the ravages that plagued the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council.
The particulars of Niles’ investigation involve familiar themes: abusing clerics being quietly reassigned, superiors looking the other way, stiff-arming inquiries veiled in partial acknowledgment — along with gut-wrenching interviews with victims and witnesses.
The complete findings of the ongoing investigation can be found on ChurchMilitant.com. What is curiously familiar is the anger aimed not at the perpetrators but at Church Militant. I asked Christine Niles about that reaction.
“We’ve covered a great deal of corruption and abuse in the Church over the years, but the response from SSPX defenders has been hands-down the most vicious and profanity-laden we’ve ever received. It takes great courage for victims and eyewitnesses to come forward, only to face being re-victimized by vehement SSPX advocates who try to discredit their testimony. It’s the same thing these victims and witnesses experienced when they first reported abuse: being shunned, shamed, and cast out of the SSPX community.”
Amazing. The scenario comes right out of the McCarrick Playbook: To this day USCCB apologists blame “greedy plaintiff lawyers” for “fomenting outrage” at the prelates who oversaw this disaster, while stiff-arming the truth tellers.
So where do things stand now with the investigation?
“As far as the SSPX’s official response, it’s been hard to keep track. They’ve posted multiple statements and then taken them down. The latest one offers no substantive response to the well-documented cases of abuse we’ve reported on. Instead, it portrays the scandal as little more than a ‘media campaign’ waged by Church Militant.”
Has the SSPX made any specific rebuttals to your reports?
“A month ago the SSPX promised us a detailed, case-by-case refutation of our reports. That promise has never been kept.
“SSPX parishioners should in no way accept this as adequate,” Niles continued. “If they truly care about the Society, they should be strongly condemning the abuse and cover-up and demanding serious accountability from their leadership.”
Has anything come of this for the long run?
“Well, the SSPX — for the first time in its history — has established a review board for sex abuse allegations. That’s fine — but in order to ensure true independence, the SSPX must reveal all the members of this review board and detail the process of how they review and assess sex abuse allegations, how they determine the credibility of an allegation, and especially whether and when they report allegations to police. If the SSPX refuses to disclose at a minimum this information, then the public is right to conclude the SSPX’s ‘commitment to transparency’ is empty.”
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress