The Lessons of [that] Blog's Beginnings

My virtual neighbor Karen Marie Knapp's lessons from May 2002 include,

4) The Accuser of the Brethren can have no foothold among us if we refuse to play his foul game. We must not accuse others, only ourselves. We cannot defend ourselves, even justly, by accusing anybody else of anything; not if we seek to live truly submitted lives.

In the post below I alluded to the policy of recent decades of not creating monsignors in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. In light of her stated principle, her comment,

What's the big advantage of monsignorhood, besides the large cash "gifts" that reportedly must be paid to assure the proper paperwork is issued?

In my childhood parish, the only noticable difference between Father Pastor and Monsignor the weekend help-out was the purple pompom on Monsignor's biretta, while Father Pastor's pompom was black .....

seems an odd way to defend that policy.

Or at least it would seem odd unless you consider that the policy was in effect under Archbishop Weakland, who she seems to have difficulty defending without slinging accusations of corruption or superficiality. Of course, he might have been something of a mentor for that approach.

Too bad, since he often had a real defense. For example, in a comment to an earlier post of mine on a Catholic school closing, "Dad to Nine" said

About 15 years ago, it was well-known that Abp. Weakland had no use whatsoever for Catholic parochial schools.

Perhaps true as far as it goes, but a few moments on the internet disclose this February 7, 2002 Catholic Herald article, Weakland recalls his 'conversion' to supporting Catholic schools.

So, who knows, there might have been non-petty reasons for a policy against making monsignors.