George Weigel on Cardinal McCarrick

(Hat tip: Catholic World News)

George Weigel writes in The Tidings about Cardinal McCarrick's view of "moderation":

In a series of talks and interviews surrounding the announcement of his retirement as archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick frequently told his favorite John Paul II story: the story of the Pope walking up the center aisle of the Newark cathedral in October 1995, touching people on both sides.

This, Cardinal McCarrick suggested, was how priests and bishops ought to act --- sticking to the "middle," in order to be in touch with everyone. Or, as he told National Public Radio, "The job of a priest always forces you to the middle.… We've got to be in the middle so that we don't let those on the left or the right get lost."

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Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God or he isn't; Mohammed is the final Prophet or he isn't; you can't split the difference at the fifty-yard line. Is the "ancient dogmatic formula" which attests to "Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord" true? Or is it false?

To stand in the center of the aisle and claim to be in communion of mind and heart with people who both affirm and deny that formula is to confess to severe intellectual confusion. Is a validly ordained priest necessary for the valid consecration of the Eucharist, or isn't he? It's hard to believe that Cardinal McCarrick would have wanted his archdiocesan vocation director to stand in the center of the aisle on that one.

That priests and bishops must be able to minister to people across the spectrum of reasonable theological and political opinion goes, or should go, without saying. That priests and bishops can be true ministers of the Gospel by thinking and acting as if every question were a football field on which truth lies at the fifty-yard line is another matter entirely; see Revelation 3.16.

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My Comments:
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... Just starting the countdown for how long it will take someone to come on here and take that "neo-con" George Weigel to task for daring to question a Cardinal of the Church ... 7 ... 6 ...