The High Cost of Father Marcial Maciel, and Why I Resent Paying It!
. . . I can only conclude that there were agendas at work that went far beyond simply telling the truth about Father Maciel. I hope I'm not the only person to notice that all the evidence against him seemed to surface just in time to attempt to derail the Beatification of Pope John Paul II who presumed - just as he should have done - Maciel's innocence absent proof of his guilt or an admission of guilt. There was neither. But for my purposes, the cost of Father Maciel is clear. The Constitution and Church law notwithstanding, the true cost of Father Maciel is to rob any accused Catholic priest of a presumption of innocence. It is the worst possible example of the Catholic Church in America caving into the prejudices of pop culture. I witness the cost of Father Maciel every day. A number of prominent Catholics who once openly supported my defense have been silenced since post-mortem evidence surfaced of Fr. Maciel's bizarre double life and lifestyle. Some Catholics who held out a presumption of his innocence, without solid evidence to the contrary, have been burned by the stinging rebukes they've received from all corners in the Catholic media once that evidence began to surface. . . .
At the Twilight's Last Gleaming: The Fate of Religion in America
. . . It's time for a revolution, and it should be a revolution of real faith in a modern world that values it not. It isn't going to be easy. But before we all sign up for remedial CCD classes, the bad news was offset just a bit by the reality that the United States as a whole flunked the test, and Catholics came out just three percentage points behind the national score of 50% - a solid "F." Other Christian denominations fared just slightly better than Catholics - but still flunked. Jews and Mormons both passed, though just barely, with scores slightly under the atheists. Weighing everything, my own conclusion is that the problem with religion in America isn't religion - it's America. Catholics should remember the value of being counter-cultural. . . .