Half of the lies they tell about me aren't true...

By Diogenes ( articles ) | May 15, 2003

You can trust Dallas Bishop Charles V. Grahmann in at least one respect: The man is reliably untrustworthy.

So begins this morning's editorial in the Dallas Morning News. That's the good part. The editorial goes on -- with painfully well-aimed documentation -- to condemn the Diocese's "lies and evasions" regarding the most recent in its long series of wayward priests.

Ten years ago it was said, with justice, that the media elites hated the Catholic Church not for her vices but for her virtues, and media criticism of the Church could be taken as an excellent sign that she was doing her job. Happy days.

The Church will prevail, of course. Reform is inevitable. Weak, vain, and deceitful clerics will be replaced by sturdier and more honest men. It isn't anti-Catholic, however, to hope that the reform happens sooner rather than latter. It isn't disloyal to hope that the changes come about through decisive intervention rather than the operation of blind Darwinian forces of sterility and spiritual disease. It isn't captious to hope that, when the crisis bottoms out, the faithful remaining might be ninety percent, instead of fifteen percent, of their present number.