“And When Cardinal Kasper Lied At The Synod, I Stopped Listening To Him At All.”

"What have I done?" — “What have I done?”

That’s a direct quote from me, Joe Six-Pack, USMC. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, fellow Patheos bloggers Elizabeth Scalia, Deacon Greg Kandra, and David Mills, can fill you in. Mills has a translation of something a German website put up that that seems to show Cardinal Kasper doubling down on his prevarication.

“I will not comment on and certainly won’t authorize [the publication of] a private conversation that was secretly recorded, that was no interview, with two other journalists and a third [journalist] whom I don’t know at all and who also did not introduce himself personally to me. These are not proper journalistic methods.” Read more.

I don’t usually go running to the Italian press looking for credible news information, but I found an opinion headline regarding this debacle that is worth sharing.

Götterdämmerung di teologi al Sinodo.

Kevin O’Brien has written in the past that the problem with our clerics is that we expect them to act like decent human beings, and they so often don’t. This example coming from Cardinal Kasper is Exhibit A of this sad reality.

The good news is that there are lots of confessionals open and available for use in Vatican City and Rome proper. So just like I do when I sin, Cardinal Kasper can quickly get right with the Lord Jesus, and with His Bride. But I’m not going to bother reading Cardinal Kasper’s books, interviews, ideas on mercy, etc.,etc., from this point forward.

If he is a decent human being, the kind that we as Christians strive to be, he would stop making excuses for himself, put on sack cloth and ashes, hold a press conference, and apologize for what he has done. Then he would announce that he is resigning from attending this synod, and is retiring to a quiet place where he will spend the rest of his days engaged in a life of prayer.

If Cardinal Kasper loves the Bride of Christ as much as we do, then it would really be helpful if he started showing it. He needs to ask himself the question that reminds me of this scene from a great film.

This is your Jimmy Swaggert moment, Your Eminence. Don’t let it slip away.

UPDATE The Anchoress, “I don’t think Kasper is helping himself, here.”