Bp Barron Promoted

In my e-mail yesterday was an announcement from the Word on Fire Institute that linked to this statement from Bp Barron:

Friends, I am overjoyed and humbled to learn that Pope Francis has appointed me the ninth bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester (Minnesota).

The bishop of a diocese is, first and foremost, a spiritual father to the priests and people who have been entrusted to his care. My prayer this morning is that the Lord will give me the grace always to be a good father. The bishop is also, as Pope Francis often teaches, a shepherd with the smell of the sheep—out in front of the flock in one sense, leading the way, but also with the flock, giving encouragement, and in back of the flock in order to gather in those who have fallen behind. I pray also for the grace to be just that kind of shepherd to the Catholics of southern Minnesota.

It has been an extraordinary privilege these past seven years to serve as auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where the priests and people received me, from the beginning, with warmth and enthusiasm, and where I had the good fortune to observe close up the ministry of Archbishop Jose Gomez, one of the great churchmen on the scene today. Watching him govern the largest Archdiocese in the country was a master-class in ecclesial leadership.

Visitors here know I've been an unabashed Bp Barron fan, especially since my wife and I sat not far from him at a concert, and I watched him pretty carefully. What struck me then was that he wasn't surrounded with an entourage, and as an instantly recognizable figure, many people approached him to greet him. He appeared to be genuinely friendly and gracious with everyone. Not long afterward, our parish distributed copies of his Letter to a Suffering Church about the clergy abuse crisis. I appreciate both his erudition and his clarity.

My wife suggests his new duties could cause conflicts with the work of his Word on Fire Institute. My impression is that he is a figurehead and an outside man there, although he does contribute essays and scholarly theological commentary to some of the institute's editions of scripture and liturgy. However, he does not manage the institute from day to day. Thus personnel issues can and do arise:

Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, founded by Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert E. Barron, issued a brief statement May 2 saying it had fired an employee possibly over an incident involving some unwelcome advances.

“The accusations against this employee surrounded events in the employee’s personal life, not the Word on Fire workplace, and did not involve any other Word on Fire employees,” said the statement on the organization’s website.

The statement was issued after accusations of unwelcome sexual advances involving the employee surfaced in a substack — an email newsletter platform — and were widely discussed on Twitter.

. . .The newsletter detailing the accusation called to task the ministry because of Bishop Barron’s efforts, via the book “Letter to a Suffering Church,” to combat abuse in the church.

“Ultimately, Word on Fire and Bishop Barron have been leading voices for accountability in the Church. The organization has zero tolerance for abuse or harassment of any kind,” the organization’s statement said.

My own view is that where Bp Barron is directly involved with Word on Fire publications, they are extremely well produced, inspiring, informative, and indeed highly attractive. However, Word on Fire is a brand that covers many other writers who simply aren't at that level, and indeed, as an organization run by humans, it carries many human characteristics, including the squabbles over the personnel issues above. The National Catholic Reporter, not a Bp Barron fan, had this story:

Frustrated by poor communication and a workplace culture they say has been warped by secrecy and hypermasculinity, at least a half-dozen Word on Fire employees in recent months have resigned from the Catholic outlet founded by Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron.

Those who remain at the Illinois-based multimedia nonprofit are working in an environment that a few recently departed workers described to NCR as beset by low morale, damaged trust and a "boys' club" culture that made some female employees uncomfortable and others unwilling to raise concerns to leadership.

"To put it bluntly, I do not feel that if I had been one of the victims, I would have been protected in any way," said a former staff member, who left Word on Fire after working there for about a year.

But if the unwelcome advances occurred outside the workplace, I'm not sure precisely what the institute could or should have done to protect its staff members -- it sounds like the one quoted above was constructing a purely hypothetical situation "if" she had been a victim, though neither she nor any of her colleagues was affected. In any case, even unsympathetic accounts are making it clear that the institute was "founded by" Bp Barron but is not managed by him.

What I'm finding most interesting is that Bp Barron is being criticized by the Catholic left here, when earlier he's been a target of the far right, like Michael Voris, who calls him A clear and present danger to souls.

Los Angeles auxiliary bishop Robert Barron continues to advance a type of Catholicism that undermines the glories of the teachings while at the same time promoting a "half-gospel." He is, in fact, the poster-child cleric for this watered-down, self-serving gospel-lite.

If the far left and the far right both hate the guy, he must be doing something right. In any case, at 62, it looks like he'll be active for some years to come, and if he's advancing iin the contemporary US Church, the Church is functioning as it should.

The Undead Mask Mandate

Via Reuters:

The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to overturn a U.S. District Court judge's April order that declared the government mandate requiring masks on airplanes, buses and in transit hubs unlawful.

Hours after the federal judge in Florida declared the mandate unlawful, the Biden administration said it would no longer enforce it.

The Justice Department told the appeals court that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order issued in January 2021 was "within" the agency's legal authority.

The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday on whether it would reinstate the requirement if the ruling was overturned.

Days before U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball's April 18 order, the CDC had extended mask requirements through May 3. The CDC said earlier this month it still recommends travelers continue to wear masks in airplanes, trains and buses.

Although some localities still require masks in medical facilities, as far as I'm aware, the last public mask mandate of any kind is for airport, rail, and transit stations and conveyances in Los Angeles County. At LAX Airport, it's largely disregarded:

Heartening: at LAX they're blasting the audio message "YOU ARE REQUIRED TO WEAR A MASK THAT COVERS YOUR MOUTH AND NOSE IN THE TERMINAL" but three quarters of travelers are maskless and totally ignoring it 🇺🇸

— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) May 30, 2022

This flouting of the rule at LAX goes back to the earliest days following the Florida judge's ruling. As of April 23, a traveler reported:

I arrived on United Airlines in Terminal 8 to messages over the loudspeaker reminding people to mask up. There were also signs noting that masks were again required.

But I’d put compliance at less than 50%…which is really a striking indictment of the public officials in Los Angeles County.

And it wasn’t just passengers: I was very tempted to take a picture of three unmasked United flight attendants standing in front of the sign above. But it was just too obvious…and I would not want to get them in trouble at this point in time. I also noted several gate agents who were not wearing masks. Nor were the TSA officers I passed. Or the LAX Police officers I saw in the baggage claim area. In short, the people who arguably should be “setting the example” were instead flouting the rule.

It’s an amazing lesson that the people will only respect rules when they believe those rules are rooted in legitimacy. At this point, people are so over masking up that they will no longer respect clear and umbagious rules. And clearly there seems no appetite to enforce such rules at LAX.

I've already noted that the Metrolink rail transit system has publicly said it's "asking" riders to wear masks in reponse to the county order, but it is not enforcing it.

Meanwhile, Monkeypox was briefly a thing about two weeks ago until it was generally recognized that it wasn't. As Alex Berenson noted on his Substack,

You can almost feel the public health authorities squirming right now.

On the one hand, they’ve almost got another epidemic on the go - the perfect way to distract the shiny-haired robots in the media from the complete failure of the mRNA vaccines.

On the other, the monkeypox epidemic - stop me if you’ve heard this before - very much appears to be centered around the sexual practices of gay men.

They told me I should set up an appointment for another COVID booster. Sigh. I guess I should, if only to keep being able to go around without a mask.

Orthodox Acting Like Episcopalians

I've noted here from time to time that the Russo-Ukraine War has led to schism within the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest Orthodox denomination. Inevitably, we're beginning to see former Russian Orthodox dioceses and new ad hoc groups declaring independence from the former mother body in pretty much the same way that the "continuing Anglican" movement left The Episcopal Church after the 1970s:

⚡️⚡️⚡️ This is huge!!! The Council of the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church declared independence from Moscow. Expressing disagreement with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow on the war, the Council proposed negotiations with the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

— Alexander Khrebet/Олександр Хребет (@AlexKhrebet) May 27, 2022

Having studied "continuing Anglicanism" pretty closely while writing my old blog, this is all starting to have a familiar ring. Conventions and councils are staking out their positions in Ukraine and elsewhere just as disgruntled Episcopalians did late in the last century and early in this one, for instance here, via Google Translate:

The Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (hereinafter - the Council), held on May 27, 2022 in Kyiv, considered issues of church life that arose as a result of the military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. Based on the results of the work, the Council approved the following:

1. The Council condemns war as a violation of God's commandment "Thou shalt not kill!" (Exodus 20:13) and expresses condolences to all those who suffered in the war.
2. The Council appeals to the authorities of Ukraine and the authorities of the Russian Federation to continue the negotiation process and search for a strong and sensible word that could stop the bloodshed.
3. We disagree with the position of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia on the war in Ukraine.
4. The Council adopted appropriate amendments to the Statute on the Administration of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which testify to the full independence and autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
5. The Council approves the resolutions of the Councils of Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the decisions of the Holy Synods of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which met after the last Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (July 8, 2011). The Council approves the activities of the Department of Affairs and Synodal Institutions of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

This is not to say there isn't a huge grievance here, but the Orthodox in this case are running up against a very similar problem that eventually beset the Church of England by the early 19th century: the idea of a "national confession" simply became harder and harder to support. Religion can't be identified with nationality. In England, this occurred in peacetime when domestic reforms allowed tolerance of denominations outside the Church of England. It's clearly much more difficult when a single denomination becomes doctrinally divided on who's right in a war.

However, this step isn't completely new. According to Wikipedia,

A schism between the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC, also known as the Moscow Patriarchate) and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople began on 15 October 2018 when the former unilaterally severed full communion with the latter.

The resolution was taken in response to a decision of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople of 11 October 2018, confirming its intentions to grant autocephaly (independence) to the Eastern Orthodox church in Ukraine in the future. The decision also stated that the Holy Synod would immediately: reestablish a stauropegion in Kyiv, i.e. a church body subordinated directly to the ecumenical patriarch; revoke the "Letter of issue" (permission) of 1686 that had given permission to the patriarch of Moscow to ordain the metropolitan of Kyiv; and lift the excommunications which affected the clergy and faithfuls of two unrecognized Ukrainian Eastern Orthodox churches. Those two unrecognized churches, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), were competing with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) (UOC-MP) and were considered "schismatics" (illegally segregated groups) by the Patriarchate of Moscow, as well as by the other Eastern Orthodox churches.

Just as with "continuing Anglicans", the division degenerates into alphabet soup. The Council in the link above appears to be the UOC-MP in the Wikipedia entry, which, however, has also now declared independence from Patriarch Kirill. However, whether it will now associate itself with the either the UAOC or the UOC-KP is unclear, and if the "continuing Anglican" precedent applies, unlikely.

If we take the Episcopalian paradigm as any sort of indicator on what this schism will bring about for Orthodoxy, the prospects aren't good. In "continuing Anglicanism", the divisions have produced generations of litigation over property, which has depleted enormous resources for both loyalists and dissidents, while damaging everyone's prestige and encouraging disaffection among the population at large, which was losing enthusiasm for any sort of organized religion anyhow.

I can see only further damage to Orthodox prestige in the West, where up to now Orthodoxy has been a real option only to members of the loopy right, most prominently Rod Dreher, who became Orthodox in response to the Roman Catholic clergy abuse crisis in 2006. He is a member of the Orthodox Church in America, which is primarily made up of US-born, English-speakng members, some of whom are refugees from main line Protestant denominations as well as Catholicism.

While the OCA itself has denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine and criticized Patriarch Kirill's support of Putin, Dreher himself has been taking the US far right position on the war:

I agree that Russia was wrong to have invaded Ukraine, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what we have to gain from risking war with Russia, or expanding this war to the rest of Europe.

I think this is a crisis for Orthodoxy, which I think Dreher finds it convenient to ignore. If nothing else, it will do nothing to increase Orthodoxy's prestige in the West as a conservative alternative to either Catholicism or a declining main line Protestantism.

Nancy Pelosi Doesn't Drink

What struck me about her husband Paul's DUI arrest over the weekend was the episode in the 2020 election campaign where pro-Trump pranksters put up a slowed version of one of her appearances that made her sound drunk. The response of the fact checkers was to say the speaker doesn't drink:

We requested an interview with Pelosi for this story. Her office declined, but spokesman Drew Hammill told us in an email that the speaker doesn’t drink. (Pelosi’s office told us she doesn’t drink for a similar fact-check in 2010.)

That lines up with what others have said about Pelosi over the years. After a manipulated video of the speaker slurring her words went viral on social media in May 2019, her daughter, Christine Pelosi, tweeted a rebuttal.

“Republicans and their conservative allies have been pumping this despicable fake meme for years! Now they are caught,” she said. “#FactCheck: Madam Speaker doesn’t even drink alcohol!”

At the time, my reaction was, "The Pelosis own a winery, and she doesn't drink?" But I set that aside. In preparing this post, I did a web search for images of the speaker drinking wine, or at least what appeared to be wine, and they weren't hard to find. In the photo at left, the others are holding smallish champagne flutes for a toast, but the speaker is holding a big wine glass, and it's pretty darn full, just like the one at the top of the post. A couple of full glasses that size, and my wife and I would be on the floor.

As I say, it sure looks like wine to me, although it could certainly be non-alcoholic, but I don't see that as part of the speaker's style.

The UK Daily Mail reported,

One vineyard owner who lives nearby told DailyMail.com the couple often block the road with their convoy of blacked-out SUVs when they come to town, but that they didn't seen [sic] anything this weekend.

. . . 'I wouldn't be going to the kinds of fundraisers and parties they go to.

'I don't like them very much or find them very interesting,' the vineyard owner said.

Big parties and fundraisers at their vineyard, and maybe she drinks non-alcoholic wine. That's hard for me to believe. Another interesting question is the timeline of the arrest:

For some reason that hasn’t been fully explained yet, it took law enforcement officers more than four hours to book him after he was arrested. He wasn’t booked until 4:13 a.m. Was he resisting a breathalyzer? Causing a problem? Were they debating whether or not to charge him? It’s not clear. And if he was still blowing more than 0.08 after that time, what was he like at the time of the crash? He was released about three hours after he was booked on $5000 bail.

For those who used to watch Live PD, DUI arrests were a common subject, and they were pretty straightforward: the subject is asked to take a field sobriety test, which he either fails or he refuses to take. He is then arrested, placed in the back seat of a police unit, and taken to the station, where he's booked within a fairly short time. (DUI attorneys advise people in that situation to demand a blood test at the station rather than a breath test in the field, simply because this will take more time and allow the body to lower the BAC, but of course, there are limits to how much help this can provide.)

I assume there is both body and dash cam footage of this incident. I would also guess that the officers immediately were asked, "Do you know who I am?" and much of the four-hour interval between the arrest and booking was taken up with calls among Pelosi fixers and authorities at the county, state, and federal level, but I would also guess that whatever Mr Pelosi blew, it was so outrageously high that there was no covering it up.

As at least one commentator suggested, for the guy to be doing this at age 82 suggests he'd been drinking at this level all his life. As Glenn Reynolds put it, "In Paul’s defense, if I were married to Nancy I’d drink heavily too."

I'm inclined to say stay tuned. It shouldn't be that hard to get the body and dash cam footage.

Meanwhile, remember that the speaker does not drink alcohol.

I'm Still Working Through This Puzzle

I've mentioned here already that by far the best coverage of the Russo-Ukraine war is at the leftist Daily Kos, and that's a puzzle, because the left as we used to understand it, even well after the death of Stalin, was always inclined to idealize the Soviet Union. Go no farther than the leftist Sen Sanders, about whom there is dispute whether a 1988 trip there with his new wife following their wedding was a honeymoon, though the trip definitely did occur.

A little over a generation later, it seems like the left is taking the lead in opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, even at the price of endorsing Reagan-era neoconservative policy, and in fact neoconservatives like Eliot Cohen and Frederick Kagan are being rehabilitated. For now, I just don't have an explanation, except to note that this is taking place. But let's look at the analysis in today's update from the Daily Kos:

The U.S. is sending its heavy vehicles by ship. There’s 200 of these on the way, plus hundreds of more Humvees, so this is likely more efficient than trying to fly them in. Also, it seems that things like artillery cannons and ammunition are higher priority for limited air transport space. I looked up shipping times from Georgia to France (no idea what port they’re going to), and it’s 24 days. Then they have to be unloaded and rail-shipped to Poland, and then transported across the border however that’s done (no one is talking about it for obvious reasons). So optimistically, all this armor won’t be in Ukraine’s hands for at least another 6-8 weeks.

Ukraine needs to buy time, and it seems that keeping Severodonetsk in Ukrainian hands for the next few weeks is part of that strategy.

Furthermore, there is suspicion in Ukraine that Russia is convincing its western allies to trade Ukrainian territory for a cease-fire. France and Germany certainly seem squishy, and Ukrainian media wasn’t happy when the United States and Russia re-established their military deescalation hotline. We might think, “good! Less chance of a misunderstanding escalating to nuclear war!” But Ukraine is convinced that Russia is in a full-court diplomatic press to freeze the conflict at its current status quo, averting a prolonged war (and its effects on the global economy and food supply), all for the low-low price of just the Donbas and Kherson.

Whatever Ukraine’s motivations, all indications are that the situation in the Donbas is desperate.

. . . Finally, let’s remember the full scale and context of the current battle zone:

Everything that is happening now is the culmination of incredibly shrinking Russian ambitions. Ukraine holds around 5,000 square miles of Donbas territory. That Lysychansk/Severodonetsk pocket would get Russia 5-10% of that territory. They've got a long way to go.

In contrast, today's update from the neoconservative Institute for the Study of War is flaccid and obtuse:

Russian forces have made steady, incremental gains in heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine in the past several days, though Ukrainian defenses remain effective overall. Deputy Ukrainian Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated that the fighting is currently at its "maximum intensity” compared to previous Russian assaults and will likely continue to escalate. Spokesperson for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry Oleksandr Motuzyanyk characterized Russian gains as “temporary success” and stated that Ukrainian forces are using a maneuver defense to put pressure on Russian advances in key areas. Russian forces have now taken control of over 95% of Luhansk Oblast and will likely continue efforts to complete the capture of Severodonetsk in the coming days.

Their discussion of what's happening is vague and uninformative, and any attempt to explain why is completely absent.

The Daily Kos analysis also puts in context the recent statement by Henry Kissinger at the World Economic Forum:

Kissinger, who turns 99 years old on May 27, has generated even more controversy for himself. Speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum this week, the former statesman had a piece of advice for the Ukrainian government: it's time to think about a diplomatic settlement to end the war, and that settlement will have to include territorial concessions to Russia. "Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante," Kissinger surmised, referring to the pre-war lines in which Russia controlled the Crimean Peninsula and approximately a third of territory in the Donbas. "Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself."

However, Secretary Blinken so far has insisted that any decision to cede territory is up to Ukraine, which appears to be a change in policy from what had been articulated prior to the invasion. As of December 9, 2021,

President Joe Biden's administration is reportedly going to urge Ukraine's government to cede territory to Russia-backed groups in an attempt to appease Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Associated Press reports American officials plan on pushing Ukraine to grant autonomy to eastern regions of the country which are currently under the control of Russia-backed separatists who revolted in 2014.

Nevertheless, even then, US policy would have been to arm Ukraine and eastern NATO countries in the event of an actual invasion:

In a two-hour call with Putin, Biden warned if Russia invades Ukraine, the United States will take action.

“There was a lot of give and take. There was no finger-wagging,” says White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan who also says if Russian troops move in, America would support its allies. “We would provide additional defensive material to the Ukrainians above and beyond that which we are already providing and we would fortify our NATO allies on the Eastern Flank with additional capabilities in response to such an escalation.”

However, the question once the invasion took place was what kind of weapons to send, and how many. Every indication is that the administration's policy did change over a period of weeks following the invasion, and the Daily Kos story indicates that it's changing even as of today:

The United States’s decision on whether to send MLRS/HIMARS rocket artillery to Ukraine has been painfully long and torturous, but they’re reportedly on the verge of making it happen. According to CNN’s sources, the problem is fear “Ukraine could use the systems to carry out offensive attacks inside Russia … The MLRS and its lighter-weight version, the HIMARS, can launch as far as 300km, or 186 miles.”

Nobody else, as far as I can see, is reporting on this policy change and what is driving it, either short term or over past generations. Kissinger, who according to the link above is almost 100 years old, was the architect of detante, the pre-Reagan lowering of tensions with the Soviet Union. But as even Barack Obama unintentionally pointed out in 2012, the '80s called, and they want their foreign policy back. Why is the left now the group that's most on top of this?

The Speaker And The Bishops

I can't avoid thinking that perhaps over the past year, the US Bishops came proactively to an agreement-to-disagree on how to handle the issue of barring Catholic politicians from communion if they advocate abortion -- I can't help but wonder if Abp Cordileone was implicitly referring to such a thing in this passage from his interview with America magazine:

I suppose there will be a variety of opinions, but I think as bishops, we respect each other’s decisions and matters like this. Each bishop has to decide in accordance with his conscience in these and other types of situations as well. And they’re usually very complex. There are a number of different values and priorities to weigh in taking an action or not taking an action. What good will it do? What evil will it avoid? What might be the side effects? All these things have to be weighed, and we can come to different prudential judgments, using our conscience.

I note that while a number of conservative bishops have supported Abp Cordileone's action, liberals like Cardinal Cupich have remained silent, while Cardinal Gregory of Washington, who permits Pelosi to receive communion there, has said nothing publicly, and the archdiocese has so far not answered inquries from the press. As a result, there have been no public squabbles, which I think is a positive development. On the other hand, Speaker Pelosi on Tuesday did make public statements about Abp Cordileone's action:

“This is not just about terminating a pregnancy,” Pelosi said. “These same people are against contraception, family planning, in vitro-fertilization. It’s a blanket thing. They use abortion as the front man for it while they try to undo so much. That’s what they tried to do in the Affordable Care Act, which didn’t have anything about terminating an abortion — a pregnancy.”

. . . “Now, our archbishop has been vehemently against LGBTQ rights, too, in fact, he led the way in some of the initiatives on — an initiative on the ballot in California. So this decision, taking us to privacy and precedent, is very dangerous in the lives of so many of the American people.”

The first part of the statement is misleading in several ways. The Catholic Church is not against family planning; it's against artificial birth control but not against natural methods. In vitro fertilization at minimum involves discarding in vitro fertilized embryos, but it may also involve aborting multiple pregnancies in the mother as a result of the procedure. These aren't small issues.

In effect, Pelosi's statements imply that she's continuing to hold what Abp Cordileone in the interview calls her "more and more extreme and more and more aggressive" views on reproduction and sexuality, attacking the Church's views on matters beyond abortion, bringing in by implication the issue of same-sex marriage and using the political shorthand LGBTQ. Abp Cordileone says, "I know I’m going to be accused of being punitive, of being political," but the problem for the bishops and indeed Pope Francis is that Speaker Pelosi is a politician, a very senior and influential one, and she herself is addressing the problem on a political level.

This brings me to Bp Barron's op-ed in the New York Post almost a year ago (I don't believe he's made any public statement on Abp Cordileone's specific action over Pelosi):

The Catholic bishops of the United States are facing a great deal of political pressure these days. We are told that we must pursue dialogue with those who disagree with the divine and natural law on the issue of abortion — or who agree privately as Catholic believers but decline to govern according to this moral teaching.

So he's acknowledging it's a political issue, and the bishops are more or less forced to be involved with it.

I’m the son of a dyed-in-the-wool Chicago Catholic Democrat. My father, whose family was very involved in city politics, would sooner have become a Lutheran than vote Republican. But my trouble with modern Democrats, I explained, has to do with abortion policy, where the party has lately staked out an especially extreme position.

My interlocutors insisted upon the necessity of an ongoing dialogue between pro-choice politicians and the Roman church. I replied, “OK, I’m with you. In fact, the Catholic Church, though it opposes all abortions, would be willing to support legislation that sets at least some limits to the procedure. If you’ll give even a little bit, we’re happy to talk.”

The problem is that Democrats have been locked into what Bp Barron calls an extreme and intransigent position, to the point that they won't even support protection for infants who survive abortion and are born alive. And while he doesn't go this far in the op-ed, nevertheless, over the past year, Democrat politicians have become more extreme over other areas of sexuality, advocating "gender affirming" surgery for pre-teens and insisting that transgendered men should compete in women's sports.

Abp Cordileone echoes Bp Barron in saying of the speaker, "her advocacy for codifying the Roe decision into federal law [is] becoming more and more extreme and more and more aggressive". And insofar as it's a legislative effort, it's political, and it's hard for Catholics, especially bishops, not to get involved in it. The positive side, though, is that Pelosi's position is looking more and more like a political loser, and it's a major reason why she'll likely lose the speakership in November.

Novertheless, the silence of both the liberal US bishops and the vague signal from Pope Francis that issues of life and death can't be defined down to matters of "choice" suggest that the balance is shifting even there.

Why Is John Kirby Really Going To The White House?

According to Politico,

Not even a week into press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE’s time at the lectern, the White House brought in her Pentagon counterpart JOHN KIRBY, a runner-up for the podium, for a communications role.

. . . For about 24 hours, no one at the White House could answer whether Kirby would be working at the National Security Council or the press office and how often he would be appearing at the podium, if at all.

Several White House officials and insiders told West Wing Playbook that they felt the move put a damper on Jean-Pierre’s first week, and undercut her credibility at a moment when conservative media has targeted her.

Indeed, according to Red State,

Suddenly, we started hearing reports about a new shake-up in the Communications department at the White House — that John Kirby, the Pentagon spox, who had been considered for the Press Secretary job was going to be brought in, in a communications role, and saying that he would be doing some briefings.

. . . Not good, when it looks like you’re bringing in the white guy because you think he’ll help the situation. But as we saw during the Afghanistan debacle, Kirby was a horror. He and the Biden Administration still haven’t been held to account for lying about the number of Americans that they left behind in Afghanistan.

Regarding Afghanistan, I got the impression that Kirby, a retired admiral, understood the chain of command and was saying precisely what he'd been told to say. Indeed, the position of the Pentagon from Secretary Austin on down was that in Afghanistan, they were doing what they'd been ordered to do. This in fact seems to have been the subtext of President Biden's own remarks. Kirby was doing the absolute best he could with the cards he'd been dealt, and I can't really fault him for that.

I would say this has been Kirby on Ukraine as well. Among other thngs, he appears to have been acutely aware of the need to minimize any implication in his public remarks that the US has been sharing intelligence with Ukraine, though it's hard to avoid concluding this has been the case in situations like targeting Russian generals or sinking the Moskva. The advantage to the Pentagon is that, as someone who's previously been an admiral, nobody has to bring him up to speed on how the whole system operates. They trust the guy.

The Politico link above is intriguing farher down:

In theory, the move was meant to add a strong foreign policy voice at a moment when crises abroad occupy a huge portion of the president’s time. Kirby’s experience in the Pentagon, and the State Department, and his strong relationships with many reporters and broadcast network higher-ups serve as useful tools for a White House fielding numerous thorny foreign policy questions every day[.]

. . . In addition, there was confusion over what exactly Kirby would do in the White House.

. . . There were also discussions about whether he would have the responsibilities and receive the same title held by BEN RHODES, former deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and speechwriting.

. . . “The thing about describing models like that — the Ben Rhodes model — they tend to be unique to an individual,” JAKE SULLIVAN told reporters on Air Force One Sunday. “John Kirby will have the John Kirby model of the role of coordinator for strategic communications at the NSC.”

I think it's safe to say that Kirby is absolutely trusted by Secretaries Austin and Blinken, including on the basis of his down-the-line performance on the Afghan withdrawal. At the same time, I have the impression that Austin and Blinken have managed to carve out a field of policy discretion for themselves over Ukraine. Observers like retired Gen Jack Keane have made the point that after the first weeks of the Ukraine invasion, the administration made a 180 degree policy turn, moving to full support of Zelensky, shippinig him heavy weapons and allowing the transfer of old Warsaw Pact aircraft from NATO countries.

I've got to assume this was at the initiative of Austin and Blinken, while I've also got to note that this is just about the only policy Biden hasn't [messed] up. I've also got to assume Austin and Blinken recognize that Biden is the creature of his handlers, and they need to have a credible figure on site at the White House to further their interests and act as a Biden handler on the specific issue of Ukraine. Otherwise, the risks of Biden himself trying to take control (as he did with Afghanistan) or some other unqualified handler getting involved are too great.

Kirby is the utterly trusted catspaw for Austin and Blinken to carry out the Pentagon's day-to-day interests in the White House. They couldn't care less about Karine Jean-Pierre; that problem will deal with itself soon enough.