Good News! I Might be Way Wrong!
A reader tells me: Wanted to point out that I saw some helpful discussion of
that word “notorious” in yesterday’s New York Times (online). When I read
the Cardinals’ statement I got stuck on that word and thought “who uses a
word like this?”
Turns out from the NYT that this is a technical canon law word. (Bevilaqua,
my bishop, is a canon lawyer as are some of the others.) It seems that
“notorious” is a trigger in canon law for the defrocking process. It was a
slip into the church equivalent of lawyer speak.
I’m okay with that and it makes me feel a little better that what they were
trying to get across was that they’re going to throw the guys out, but didn’t
someone reading the draft say “Notorious? Can we get a better, jargonless
word here? Bernie, any suggestions? What did you call that SOB Shanley when
you saw his name in the paper again?”
As I have written elsewhere (and should have thought of) Catholic theologians (and, even more, canon lawyers) have a positive genius for cloaking sensible ideas in impenetrable jargon. If this is the case here (and given what Cardinal B has been saying since the Confab, it looks like it) then I’m much more comfortable with the direction things are taking.
Join the Discussions of the Year of Faith
Follow Patheos
Catholic: