Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

When Colin McEnroe condemns what he calls pedophilic priests – often -- Catholics should join in the condemnation, although they may quibble with the word “pedophilic” as it has been applied to Fr. Richard Foley on McEnroe’s blog “To Wit.” The clinical definition of pedophilia involves sexual relations with pre-pubescent children. Fr. Foley has been accused of having improper sexual relations with teenage boys; that would make him a predatory homosexual or a child abuser. If McEnroe wants to condemn a church hierarchy that winked at the behavior of pedophiliac priests like Fr. John J. Geoghan of Boston and by so doing enabled that behavior, Catholics should send up a hearty cheer for McEnroe. Gehogan was convicted on a charge of molesting a 10 year old boy, though this was but the tip of his personal erotic iceberg. But it’s important to maintain proper distinctions even in condemning priests. Geoghan, murdered in jail by a homophobic prisoner, was a pedophiliac; Fr. Fr Paul Shanley , ...

Clarice Feldman, an attorney in Washington, writing in the American Thinker , uncovers some -- but by no means all -- of the dark and unwholesome roots of the Foley scandal. "Pardon me, but I smell something very peculiar in the way we have learned of the disgrace of Rep. Mark Foley. "The email scandal which led to the resignation of the Republican Congressman is reverberating throughout the capital and the nation, as Democrats attempt to capitalize on bad news for Republicans. The seamiest of the released emails, which Foley has not denied, are right up there with Rhodes Scholar and Illinois Democratic Congressman Mel Reynolds’ taped phone conversations lusting for 15 year old Catholic school girls in their uniforms. "But Democrats are attempting to make hay by alleging that the Republican leadership may have known about the inappropriate emails and covered them up for months. Their hope, no doubt, is to discourage turnout by disillusioned evangelical and other voters s...