Things We Never Knew about ... Catholicism

Although we spent our formative years in one of the most (if not the most) heavily Catholic regions in the United States, we have managed to remain blissfully ignorant of many of the rituals and much of the dogma of the Holy Roman Church. What little knowledge we have acquired was usually through the deeply cynical filters of wise-guys and wise-gals who as youths were subjected to instruction in the Catechism and would later best describe their Catholicism as “lapsed.”

It was not too long ago, for instance, that we learned, via the New York Times, that the Church, as it was known in the Middle Ages, is back to dispensing indulgences, the selling of which once so torqued the German theologian and noted anti-Semite Martin Luther that he launched a revolution that altered the religious predilection of much of Northern Europe. More recently we were apprised by someone whom we believe is in a position to know that there still are priests, even some in Houston, who are licensed or credentialed (we’re sure neither is the appropriate term) to perform exorcisms. (We have no names and phone numbers, so please don’t contact us if you feel in need of a casting-out, unless your name used to be Aloysius Gonzaga Hoang, in which case we’ll try to arrange an exorcism by the Texas Ethics Commission.)

And our knowledge of the Catholic Church continues to expand, once again thanks to the New York Times (some newspapers remain your best education value), which on Saturday, Jan. 24, reported on the Saints fever gripping New Orleans and how that damaged city was hoping, even praying, for municipal-salvation-through-Super-Bowl-victory:

Peggy Scott Laborde, a producer and host for the local public television station, said: “I’m Catholic. We live in a very saintly town.”

She has in her office a statue of St. Clare of Assisi, the patron saint of television. Laborde said that the city’s NFL franchise was awarded on All Saints’ Day in 1966 and that the team’s nickname was not approved until the archbishop declared it was not sacrilegious.

Yes, it’s true, as confirmed by many authoritative sources on the Web––the redoubtable Claire is indeed the patron saint of television (what a thankless saint-task), so designated by none other than Pope Pius XII, a/k/a Eugenio Pacelli, better known for his Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany and general lingering silence on Hitler's atrocities. Fortunately, Pius XII went to his reward in 1958, many years before the debut of Jersey Shore and its exploration of the mores, manners and mating habits of young Italian-American Catholics.

A patron saint of television! What a religion!

All we can say is: Geaux Saints!

Weird Timing: Nat'l Enquirer Touches the Shroud of O'Quinn, in Passing; Stand By for Further Deets

We see that John O'Quinn has achieved a scale of world-class post-mortem notoriety that eluded him in life: He made the National Enquirer! Twice, if you count the follow-up with new "deets" –– that apparently means "details" in Enquirer-ese –– posted today on the paper's Web site. (It is, as they say in the news biz, "developing.")

Unfortunately for the late O'Quinn, he's the distant Second Banana in thee stories, whose aim and purpose appears to be the continued rending of the once-holy garment of his fellow plaintiffs' lawyer, the boy evangelist John Edwards, whose dallaince with and probable fathering of the child of a woman maned Rielle Hunter was so ably pursured and exposed by the Enquirer when the MSM willfiully (and wrongly, BTW) ignored what apparently was almost right in front of them.

The headline tells the tale: "Mystery Shrouds Death of Edwards Contributor" Oh, the ignominy, to be reduced in death to a mere "Edwards contributor." The "mystery shrouds" formulation would seem to to hint at nefarious and secret doings, possibly on the part of the former presidential candidate, but all that's delivered beneath is the news that O'Quiin was being "considered" for possible testimony to the grand jury investigating whether campaign funds were illegally funneed to Ms. Rielle to keep her quiet. Considered!

John O'Quinn was one of Edwards' biggest contributors and also a close friend of Fred Baron, who was Edwards' national finance chairman.

Baron allegedly paid hush money to Edwards' mistress Rielle Hunter and to Andrew Young, Edwards' former loyalist who took part in the cover-up surrounding the ex-senator's out-of-wedlock baby with Rielle.

Said the government source: "While there's no indication of wrongdoing in O'Quinn's death, it's weird timing that he was suddenly killed with the grand jury still investigating whether Edwards had broken any campaign finance laws when paying Rielle."

Edwards has denied paying hush money, but O'Quinn's violent death adds yet another strange twist to the incredible saga of the slick politician's rapid fall.

"There's absolutely no indication that Mr. O'Quinn did anything wrong - or knew about hush money or even knew John Edwards was having an affair," the DC insider said.

We noticed the Enquirer made no mention of such prosaic details as speeding on a winding, rain-slick road while wearing no seat belt and possibly text-messaging or speaking on a cell phone, or both, but there's not much in the way of enshrouding mystery there.

HOLD THE PHONE: The follow-up with the promised new "deets" revealed that O'Quinn, who died in a car crash, collected ... cars:

It's ironic that O'Quinn - a man who loved cars more than anything else -- would die ALONE in a one car crash. [Emphasis added; so much for the Enquirer's fact-check process.]

Now that O’Quinn has been formally ushered off to his final reward, to the strains of Danny Boy and under the able direction of the Rev. Ed Young, we suppose we wouldn't be breaching the bounds of good taste by pointing up the nature of the O’Quinn enterprise (and that of the boy evangelist as well): He was simply another practitioner, a very able and generous practitioner (as well we know), of the art of Victimology, that narrative mix of grievance and entitlement which holds that a woman who willfully chose to have a doctor sew wads of silicon in her chest –– something that just a half-century ago probably would have been considered evidence of mental illness –– was entitled to recompense when things didn’t go as planned, or that an ol’ boy who continued to smoke three packs a day, long after the dangers of such were writ on the sides of those very packs, was entitled to recompense after suffering the inevitable consequences.

This, of course, is the prevailing orthodoxy in most precincts of the academy, the media and the legal profession, and just how deeply and unconsciously entrenched it is could be gauged by the Houston Chronicle’s follow-up story to O’Quinn’s death by auto accident, which posed the question, apparently in all seriousness, “Was it the road’s fault?”

We await the Enquirer's possible revelation of new and tangy deets on the road-blame factor.

¡Benedicto Es Tu Papá!