more fire & ice

By Diogenes ( articles ) | May 18, 2005

The NCR is continuing her heroine-lashed-to-the-traintracks aria this week, wailing about the episcopal villains that sacrificed America's Tom Reese to the CDF locomotive, in the hope that someone might find her worth tieing-up herself. There are a couple interesting anonymous sources quoted in the accompanying news story, however, giving fuller background to Reese's resignation.

There's also a story about a lay employee sacked by the Jesuit Conference (the U.S. Jesuits' national bureau) for a pro-homosexual article he wrote for the National Jesuit News. The article was taken down from the newsletter's online version but made available by the NCR. The author, Erik Meder, told the NCR that his article was said to cause "irreparable harm to the Society of Jesus in the United States" -- an odd judgment, inasmuch as the article, though conventionally contra doctrinam, scarcely differs in this respect from several pieces published in America by its Jesuit associate editor Fr. James Martin. It's interesting that Meder's article scrupulously avoids the term "gay" in reference to homosexuals.

Meder holds (or held) the wonderfully mysterious position of "outreach coordinator" for the Jesuit Conference's Office of Social and International Ministries. Currently a layman, he was once apparently a Jesuit seminarian, and it's hard to imagine that his employers were unaware of his enthusiasms. Perhaps, in view of the broader context of social ministry, the outreach in question was coordinated a little too well, or too often. I'm confident that the same commitment to transparency that deplores the operations of the CDF will labor ceaselessly to bring to light the real reasons behind Meder's multiple career changes.