Hoist on their own petards

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | May 01, 2013

In two different stories covered by today’s CWNews headlines, a rebuke from a Catholic bishop prompts a truly absurd defense.

Consider first the case of Carnegie-Mellon University, whose administrators are not yet ready to concede that an undergraduate should be disciplined for parading on campus half-naked, mocking the Pope. “If our community standards or laws were violated, we will take appropriate action,” the administration said. Thus did the people running a major university reveal that they don’t know whether or not it violates their community standards when people expose their genitalia in public.

Then consider the Brazilian priest who claimed to be comfortable about his own excommunication, and honored “to belong to the long list of people who have been murdered and burned alive for thinking and searching for knowledge.” So which was it in his case: was he murdered or burned alive? For a murder victim, he’s unusually articulate.