I disagree with Christopher Hitchens when it comes to his assertions about religion generally, but the conclusion to his column pointing out that fear dominates our society's treatment of Islam, and the special sensitivity that too many advocate towards that faith.

There can be no concession to sharia in the United States. When will we see someone detained, or even cautioned, for advocating the burning of books in the name of God? If the police are honestly interested in this sort of "hate crime," I can help them identify those who spent much of last year uttering physical threats against the republication in this country of some Danish cartoons. In default of impartial prosecution, we have to insist that Muslims take their chance of being upset, just as we who do not subscribe to their arrogant certainties are revolted every day by the hideous behavior of the parties of God.

It is often said that resistance to jihadism only increases the recruitment to it. For all I know, this commonplace observation could be true. But, if so, it must cut both ways. How about reminding the Islamists that, by their mad policy in Kashmir and elsewhere, they have made deadly enemies of a billion Indian Hindus? Is there no danger that the massacre of Iraqi and Lebanese Christians, or the threatened murder of all Jews, will cause an equal and opposite response? Most important of all, what will be said and done by those of us who take no side in filthy religious wars? The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, or neutral, without inviting their own suicide. And the advocates and apologists of bigotry and censorship and suicide-assassination cannot be permitted to take shelter any longer under the umbrella of a pluralism that they openly seek to destroy.

To answer Hitchens, though, the answer seems to be that there is not a possibility of a violent response to Islam when atrocities are regularly and gruesomely carried out in its name. We know that because we have seen, time and time again, that the rest of us stand by as Islamic barbarism is perpetrated against us and out co-religionists (or, in Hitchens' case, co-irreligionists). When there is a response, the meekest voices among us demand that we turn the other cheek, forgetting that the same Christ said that the day would come when his followers would need to buy a sword to defend themselves.

Of course, I do not suggest that we need to duplicate the methods of the jihadi swine who engage in riots, bombings hostage-taking and murder to advance their malignant faith. I do not advocate that we behead innocent Muslims or otherwise murder random Islamic hostages. But I do insist that it is right and proper that people of good will speak out against the teachings and actions of the Islamists -- and that we not hold back for fear of radicalizing those who object to such condemnations as treading upon what they hold sacred.

And to the Muslim who demands that we not blaspheme against the Koran or Muhammad, let me remind you of an inconvenient truth -- Islam's teachings that the Bible is corrupt and that Jesus is a human prophet and not the eternally preexistent Son of God constitutes blasphemy to the ears of Christians. Shall we impose upon you the penalties that you and your faith demand upon those who tread upon your religious sensitivities and sacred tenets?

H/T Blogs for Bush

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Riots?

Beheadings?

Media condemnation?

Hate crime prosecutions?

I doubt it -- they are only ridiculing Jesus and demonstrating hatred for Christians.

While college students are thrown in jail on multiple felony charges for pranks involving Korans, Hollywood merrily continues a campaign of ridicule against Christianity, which does not enjoy the favor Islam does in our politically correct establishment. The latest assault is The Ten, a comedy spoof of the Ten Commandments, which features a lecherous Jesus who corrupts a virgin librarian.

How daringly provocative, in a vulgar sixth-grade bully sort of way.

I'm curious -- where is the film mocking the false prophet Muhammad and the heresy of Islam?

H/T Moonbattery

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Human rights don't mean a thing if you are a religious believer in China.

Four priests from China's underground Roman Catholic church were detained by police, a U.S.-based monitoring group said Sunday.

Three priests were detained Tuesday in the northern region of Inner Mongolia after fleeing their hometown to avoid arrest for refusing to join the state-sanctioned church, the Cardinal Kung Foundation announced. It said the fourth priest was detained in early July in the northern province of Hebei following a motorcycle accident.

The world cries out in outrage when someone looks askance at a Muslim. Where is the voice of the world community on behalf of the oppressed religious believers of China?

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If you want your every religious dictate respected by the airline, I guess you'll just have to take some of your cash and start your own.

A Qatar sheik held up a British Airways flight at MilanÂ’s Linate airport for nearly three hours after discovering three of his female relatives had been seated next to men they did not know.

When none of the other business class passengers agreed to swap seats, the sheik, a member of QatarÂ’s ruling family, went to the pilot, who had already started the engine, to complain, an airport official said.

But the pilot ordered him and his traveling companions, the three women, two men, a cook and a servant, off the plane.

Some requests are reasonable. Demanding that other passengers be inconvenienced for your convenience is not. After all, reserving the seats in advance wouldn't have been so hard, would it? Or maybe you could have flown coach?

But if you want Islamic law imposed on airline flights, maybe you need your own airline.

UPDATE: This story is even worse than it initially sounded.

After passengers had fastened their seat-belts and the plane had taxied on to the runway, two male passengers in the entourage got up to protest about where the women were sitting.

According to the customs of Qatar and other Gulf states, women are not allowed to mix with men who are not relatives.

Cabin crew tried to rearrange the seats but passengers travelling together refused to give up their allotted places. The captain tried to mediate but after more than two and a half hours of wrangling he ordered the bulk of their royal party off the plane.

It is understood that five of the eight - including the princesses and the men who left their seats to protest - were removed.

So it appears that not only were did they demand that their views be accommodated, but they demanded that other passengers be seriously inconvenienced to make that accommodation. After all, they wanted to break up families and other parties traveling together to meet their convenience needs for their afternoon shopping trip. As it was, nearly half of those on the plane missed connecting flights because the captain took as long as he did trying to reach a compromise. A better solution would have been to give them 30 seconds to sit down, shut up, and and fly in their assigned seats -- or hump it back to Qatar by camel.

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Shakeel Ahmad Bhat has become the face of all that is extreme in modern Islam. Now Islamic Rage Boy speaks out -- and his perpetually outraged feelings are again hurt.

"I am not happy with people joking about me or making me into a cartoon, but I have more important things to think about. My protests are for those Muslims who cannot go out onto the streets to cry out against injustice. This is my duty and I believe Allah has decided this for me."

And after all, why would people possibly joke about Shakeel Ahmad Bhat or make him into a cartoon?

After all -- what is really so funny about a frothing-mouthed radical who calls for the death of the Pope, Salman Rushdie, or the editors who published the Muhammad cartoons?

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I'm generally supportive of employers accommodating religious workers. And indeed, federal law requires it, provided that there is no undue burden placed upon the employer. An interesting test case on this issue vis-a-vis Islam may be coming out of Nebraska.

Supervisors at a meatpacking plant have fired or harassed dozens of Somali Muslim employees for trying to pray at sunset, violating civil rights laws, the workers and their advocates say.

The five- to 10-minute prayer, known as the maghrib, must be done within a 45-minute window around sunset, according to Muslim rules. The workers at the Swift & Co. plant in Grand Island say they quit, were fired or were verbally and physically harassed over the issue.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has drafted a complaint to be filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The petition compiles testimony from at least 44 workers who had planned to sign the complaint during a meeting Sunday. The signing was changed to a later date because of a logistical problem.

Jama Mohamed, 28, said he was fired in June for leaving a production line to pray. Supervisors would not allow him a break, he said.

However, the problem seems to be that there are over 100 Muslim workers at the plant -- and accommodating them could present a significant burden for the employer.

Donald Selzer, an attorney for Greeley, Colo.-based Swift, said only three Somali workers were fired for reasons relating to the issue, and that it was for walking off the line without permission, not for praying.

Unscheduled breaks can force unplanned shutdowns of lines, Selzer said.

"That is a significant number of employees, and there is not much of a way to accommodate that consistent with keeping the production online," he said.

Which raises the obvious question -- is shutting down production an unreasonable burden for the employer? I think the answer is obvious.

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No doubt we will hear screechings from liberal theologians, but this document issued by the Vatican does nothing more than restate what came out of the Second Vatican Council four decades ago.

Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.

Benedict approved a document from his old offices at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that restates church teaching on relations with other Christians. It was the second time in a week the pope has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church.

* * *

It restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, "Dominus Iesus," which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the "means of salvation."

In the new document and an accompanying commentary, which were released as the pope vacations here in Italy's Dolomite mountains, the Vatican repeated that position.

"Christ 'established here on earth' only one church," the document said. The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession _ the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles.

Now speaking as an ex-Catholic with four years of seminary training, I can tell you that there is nothing new or shocking here. And while you will have liberal Catholics rant about a betrayal of "the spirit of Vatican II", let me assure you that they are wrong. Indeed, my experience was that most folks who make that argument have never actually read the documents of Vatican II to see what they actually say.

In this case, the document does little more than restate what was written in 1964 in Unitatis Redintigratio -- and indeed also hearkens back to Lumen Gentium, which makes the following point.

This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth". This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.

In noting that groups not in union with Rome are somehow defective and/or not fully churches but are still part of the Body of Christ we have something that is hardly a novel development in the post-Vatican II era. Indeed, were it not for the theological ignorance of many in the journalistic world, I'd be surprised that this new document even merits a mention by the press. What's more, I don't see anything that merits the statement found in the article that the document has a "harsh tone".

And interestingly enough, it would appear that the Protestant spokespeople cited by Reuters to comment don't particularly know anything about the last four decades of Catholic teaching on ecclesiology or ecumenism.

But Bishop Wolfgang Huber, head of the Protestant umbrella group Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), said the new Vatican document effectively downgraded Protestant churches and would make ecumenical relations more difficult.

Huber said the new pronouncement repeated the "offensive statements" of the 2000 document and was a "missed opportunity" to patch up relations with Protestants.

"The hope for a change in the ecumenical situation has been pushed further away by the document published today," he said.

A statement from The French Protestant Federation said that while the document was an internal pronouncement of the Catholic Church, it would have "external repercussions."

But given the reality that absolutely nothing has changed in the position of the Catholic Church on the issue of ecumenism and the nature of the Church, I don't see where anything substantive has changed. What we have instead is simply alarmism.

Now let me expand upon that a little bit more. The Catholic Church has a body, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that is charged with pronouncing upon Church doctrine, as you noted. They tend to do so as questions are raised and brought before it, based upon the writings of various theologians. What seems to have happened here is that particular writers have begun to call into question the meaning of certain Vatican II pronouncements I have mentioned above. As a result, Cardinal Levada and his staff prepared a document that does no more than go back to the earlier documents and restates them in much the same language as originally used 43 years ago. Unfortunately, the fifth question (as did the fourth) goes back to a technical definition of terms as used in Catholic theology that engenders a certain amount of confusion. Indeed, it would have been helpful for the document to more fully cite Communionis Notio, which includes the following passage:

17. "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honoured by the name of Christian, but who do not however profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter". Among the non-Catholic Churches and Christian communities, there are indeed to be found many elements of the Church of Christ, which allow us, amid joy and hope, to acknowledge the existence of a certain communion, albeit imperfect.

This communion exists especially with the Eastern orthodox Churches, which, though separated from the See of Peter, remain united to the Catholic Church by means of very close bonds, such as the apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, and therefore merit the title of particular Churches. Indeed, "through the celebration of the Eucharist of the Lord in each of these Churches, the Church of God is built up and grows in stature", for in every valid celebration of the Eucharist the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church becomes truly present.

Since, however, communion with the universal Church, represented by Peter's Successor, is not an external complement to the particular Church, but one of its internal constituents, the situation of those venerable Christian communities also means that their existence as particular Churches is wounded. The wound is even deeper in those ecclesial communities which have not retained the apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist. This in turn also injures the Catholic Church, called by the Lord to become for all "one flock" with "one shepherd", in that it hinders the complete fulfillment of its universality in history.

Unfortunately, the fifth question was framed as asking why the term "ecclesial community" is used rather than "Church" when dealing with the various post-Reformation expressions of Christian community. It sticks strictly to a restatement of the definition, without delving deeper discussion of how those communities are viewed by the Catholic Church. Indeed, it appears presumed that those reading this new document (technically entitled Responsa Ad Qaestiones or Response To Some Questions -- doesn't the Latin have a classier ring to it?)

Now interestingly enough, there is an additional commentary released by the CDF to explain Responsa Ad Qaestiones more fully. Here's what it says about that fifth question:

The fifth question asks why the ecclesial Communities originating from the Reformation are not recognised as ‘Churches’.

In response to this question the document recognises that “the wound is still more profound in those ecclesial communities which have not preserved the apostolic succession or the valid celebration of the eucharist”. For this reason they are “not Churches in the proper sense of the word” but rather, as is attested in conciliar and postconciliar teaching, they are “ecclesial Communities”.

Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress in the communities concerned and even amongst some Catholics, it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of “Church” could possibly be attributed to them, given that they do not accept the theological notion of the Church in the Catholic sense and that they lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church.

In saying this, however, it must be remembered that these said ecclesial Communities, by virtue of the diverse elements of sanctification and truth really present in them, undoubtedly possess as such an ecclesial character and consequently a salvific significance.

This new document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which essentially summarises the teaching of the Council and the post-conciliar magisterium, constitutes a clear reaffirmation of Catholic doctrine on the Church. Apart from dealing with certain unacceptable ideas which have unfortunately spread around the Catholic world, it offers valuable indications for the future of ecumenical dialogue. This dialogue remains one of the priorities of the Catholic Church, as Benedict XVI confirmed in his first message to the Church on April 20, 2005 and on many other occasions, especially during his apostolic visit to Turkey (28.11.06-1.12.06). However, if such dialogue is to be truly constructive it must involve not just the mutual openness of the participants but also fidelity to the identity of the Catholic faith. Only in this way will it be able to lead towards the unity of all Christians in “one flock with one shepherd” (Jn 10, 16) and thus heal that wound which prevents the Catholic Church from fully realising her universality within history.

Catholic ecumenism might seem, at first sight, somewhat paradoxical. The Second Vatican Council used the phrase “subsistit in” in order to try to harmonise two doctrinal affirmations: on the one hand, that despite all the divisions between Christians the Church of Christ continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church, and on the other hand that numerous elements of sanctification and truth do exist outwith the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church whether in the particular Churches or in the ecclesial Communities that are not fully in communion with the Catholic Church. For this reason, the same Decree of Vatican II on ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio introduced the term fullness (unitatis/catholicitatis) specifically to help better understand this somewhat paradoxical situation. Although the Catholic Church has the fullness of the means of salvation, “nevertheless, the divisions among Christians prevent the Church from effecting the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her children who, though joined to her by baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her.” The fullness of the Catholic Church, therefore, already exists, but still has to grow in the brethren who are not yet in full communion with it and also in its own members who are sinners “until it happily arrives at the fullness of eternal glory in the heavenly Jerusalem.” This progress in fullness is rooted in the ongoing process of dynamic union with Christ: “Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians.”

Viewed in this light, there is not any trivialization of the post-Reformation expressions of Christianity or the action of God working though them for the sanctification of believers. Indeed, it is clear that there is a forward look towards a fuller unity/communion between all Christians -- but seeks to avoid minimizing the greater differences that exist between Catholicism and Protestantism than exist between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. After all, the differences between the Eastern and Western Churches are for the most part rooted in issues of primacy and governance, while the divisions that grew out of the Reformation have much deeper doctrinal issues at play.

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Proving once again that the paper's editors consider the US Constitution to be nothing more than toilet paper, today's editorial insists that the religious beliefs of a well-qualified nominee for public office be scrutinized carefully -- and that the nominee be rejected because of the religiously-based moral views he has expressed in the past.

What’s troubling is the view he once expressed — and may still hold — on homosexuality, through his activities as a lay leader in the United Methodist Church. On the church’s judicial council, he supported a minister who refused to allow a gay man to join his congregation and argued that a lesbian minister should be removed because church doctrine deems the practice of homosexuality to be “incompatible with Christian teaching.” His supporters say these rulings should not be read as his personal views because the council can’t change church doctrine. However, some council members opposed his views, and the bishops later rejected one decision.

His strongest statement on homosexuality can be found in a murky, loosely reasoned paper that he wrote for a church committee in 1991. Titled “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality,” the paper purported to be a scientific and medical review. It argued that gay sex was abnormal on anatomical and physiological grounds and unhealthy, in that anal sex can lead to rectal injuries and sexually transmitted diseases. Dr. Holsinger did not brand the large number of heterosexual women who engage in anal sex as abnormal, failed to acknowledge the huge burden of disease spread heterosexually and implied that women are more likely than men to avoid injuries with generous lubrication.

The Bush administration says the white paper reflected the scientific understanding of the time, but it reads like a veneer of science cloaking an aversion to homosexuality. The committee should examine whether Dr. Holsinger cherry-picked the literature or represented it objectively. Most important, it must determine whether Dr. Holsinger holds these benighted views today. The Senate should not confirm a surgeon general who considers practicing homosexuals abnormal and diseased.

This does, however, fly in the face of the clear command of Article VI of the US Constitution -- no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Interestingly enough, the paper produces no examples of Dr. Holsinger actually discriminating against homosexuals -- indeed, it notes that he has in the past stood up to political pressure to make sure that the health concerns of homosexuals are examined by medical professionals at government-sponsored conferences. Rather, they focus on one scientific paper that gay activists disagree with, and even more closely upon internal matters of church discipline and practice based upon his service in church leadership roles.

There was a time when the New York Times actually believed in the US Constitution as a matter of editorial policy. There was a time that civil rights and civil liberties were viewed as fundamental rights and freedoms not to be violated by the government. Today, however, that formerly great media outlet has clearly rejected the fundamental freedoms protected by that document, and in the name of political correctness demands that Congress do what is prohibited by the blueprint of American liberty. Congress -- indeed, every real American -- must reject the fundamentally unAmerican proposition put forth by the paper today.

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Pope Benedict XVI has finally promulgated his new document allowing wider use of the Tridentine Mass.

Pope Benedict XVI removed restrictions on celebrating the old form of the Latin Mass on Saturday in a concession to traditional Catholics, but he stressed that he was in no way rolling back the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

Benedict issued a document authorizing parish priests to celebrate the Tridentine Mass if a ''stable group of faithful'' request it. Currently, the local bishop must approve such requests -- an obstacle that fans of the rite say has greatly limited its availability.

''What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful,'' Benedict wrote.

Why bring it back?

Benedict said his overall goal was to unify the church. In the past, he wrote, ''at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the church's leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity.''

This constitutes a wise pastoral move -- and one which really does not call into question any of the Vatican II reforms, despite the fears of extreme liberals and hopes of extreme conservatives.

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And this time the victim is a former Muslim who is trying to exercise her human right to follow the religion in which she believes -- because she dared to reject the Islamic faith in which she was raised. And remember, Malaysia claims to be a secular state, despite its Muslim majority.

A Muslim-born woman who was forced to spend six months in an Islamic rehabilitation center because she wants to live as a Hindu said Friday after her release that she will never return to her original faith.

Revathi Masoosai, 29, said officials at the center tried to make her pray as a Muslim, wear a head scarf and eat beef, a practice sacrilege to Hindus.

``Because of their behavior, I loathe Islam even more now,'' she told reporters. ``They say it's a school, but it's actually a prison.''

Her case is one of a growing number of conflicts in Malaysia between religious freedom and state policies that favor Islam, the official faith of this southeast Asian nation. The battles have strained ethnic relations in the multicultural nation.

Malaysia is considered one of the world's most relaxed Muslim countries, having enjoyed racial peace for nearly four decades. But it follows a dual justice system. Islamic, Shariah, courts administer the personal affairs of Muslims, while civil courts govern Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and other religious minorities.

Under Islamic law, a person who is born Muslim cannot convert to another religion.

What is more, the Muslim religious authorities seem to believe that she can still be coerced back into Islam, so they have ordered that she live with her mother and continue to receive their "counseling -- and insist that she stay away from her husband.

What is more, the sharia courts have also seized the couple's 18-month-old daughter from her father and turned her over to Revathi's mother to be raised as a Muslim, despite the wishes of both parents to the contrary -- another violation of internationally recognized human rights norms.

This just goes to prove one of two things -- either Muslims do not qualify as human beings, or Islam is a crime against humanity. Or perhaps a third possibility -- Western nations and international organizations lack the courage to stand up and forthrightly act to end violations of human rights in the name of Islam because they fear Muslim violence.

Past Articles on Islamic violations of religious freedom in Malaysia:
Malaysian Muslims Steal Hindu Hero's Body From Family
Religious Freedom -- Islamic Style
More On Lina Joy
Malaysian Court Rules Islam Trumps Internationally Recognized Human Rights Norms
Lina Joy May Flee Malaysia

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And this time the victim is a former Muslim who is trying to exercise her human right to follow the religion in which she believes -- because she dared to reject the Islamic faith in which she was raised. And remember, Malaysia claims to be a secular state, despite its Muslim majority.

A Muslim-born woman who was forced to spend six months in an Islamic rehabilitation center because she wants to live as a Hindu said Friday after her release that she will never return to her original faith.

Revathi Masoosai, 29, said officials at the center tried to make her pray as a Muslim, wear a head scarf and eat beef, a practice sacrilege to Hindus.

``Because of their behavior, I loathe Islam even more now,'' she told reporters. ``They say it's a school, but it's actually a prison.''

Her case is one of a growing number of conflicts in Malaysia between religious freedom and state policies that favor Islam, the official faith of this southeast Asian nation. The battles have strained ethnic relations in the multicultural nation.

Malaysia is considered one of the world's most relaxed Muslim countries, having enjoyed racial peace for nearly four decades. But it follows a dual justice system. Islamic, Shariah, courts administer the personal affairs of Muslims, while civil courts govern Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and other religious minorities.

Under Islamic law, a person who is born Muslim cannot convert to another religion.

What is more, the Muslim religious authorities seem to believe that she can still be coerced back into Islam, so they have ordered that she live with her mother and continue to receive their "counseling -- and insist that she stay away from her husband.

What is more, the sharia courts have also seized the couple's 18-month-old daughter from her father and turned her over to Revathi's mother to be raised as a Muslim, despite the wishes of both parents to the contrary -- another violation of internationally recognized human rights norms.

This just goes to prove one of two things -- either Muslims do not qualify as human beings, or Islam is a crime against humanity. Or perhaps a third possibility -- Western nations and international organizations lack the courage to stand up and forthrightly act to end violations of human rights in the name of Islam because they fear Muslim violence.

Past Articles on Islamic violations of religious freedom in Malaysia:
Malaysian Muslims Steal Hindu Hero's Body From Family
Religious Freedom -- Islamic Style
More On Lina Joy
Malaysian Court Rules Islam Trumps Internationally Recognized Human Rights Norms
Lina Joy May Flee Malaysia

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I'm saddened by the guilty plea by Chicago's Father Dan McCormack -- a guy I spent four years with in the seminary. Not just because someone I regularly broke bread with has done something unspeakably evil, but also because the sentence imposed seems unconscionably short to me.

Voicing no contrition for his crime, Rev. Daniel McCormack, the Chicago priest whose sexual-abuse case rocked the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese and led to an overhaul of church policy, pleaded guilty to molesting five boys and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.

With McCormack's admission of guilt, church officials vowed to permanently remove him from the priesthood.

As part of the plea deal worked out with prosecutors, McCormack, 38, pleaded guilty to five felony counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and was promptly sentenced by Circuit Judge Thomas Sumner to 5 years in prison. He was taken from the courtroom to begin serving the sentence.

Within an hour of the court proceeding, church officials said they would move quickly to petition Rome for McCormack's removal under church law. But they said they hope McCormack, the former pastor of St. Agatha Church on Chicago's West Side, will request his own termination.

Frankly, this sentence is not nearly enough in my book -- Dan needs spend a lot more time in prison than this, because he has admitted to raping no less than five boys. A year a piece is shockingly short -- though admittedly more than he would have gotten had he been a buxom young female school teacher.

I'm also angry that Dan McCormack was not required to stand up like a man and admit to the exact nature of his crimes -- and that his attorney even tried to get the true extent of his abuse of these children kept off the record. Not only that, but McCormack refused to even offer a word of apology or contrition for what he had done. I always considered Dan to have an arrogant streak, I am horrified that it runs this deep. Indeed, had I been the judge this would have been sufficient basis to reject the plea deal and move forward so that Dan McCormack could have received a longer, much more punitive sentence for his indefensible deeds.

I hope, and I pray, that Dan spends every single day of this sentence behind bars -- and that he spends each and every one cowering in a corner, praying that the guards can keep the other inmates from using him like he used those little boys.

Posted by: Greg at 03:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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