Thursday, March 19, 2015

In the Spirit of Matthew 25:40


Sal Cordileone, on his way to  
take a solemn pontifical shower?

Pope Francis recently installed several banks of showers just off St. Peter’s Square where the homeless of Rome could get cleaned up for the day.  Borrowing an idea from his boss, Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco also installed several banks of showers outside his cathedral.  The Cordileone showers are designed to go off every thirty to sixty minutes throughout the night drenching the homeless who seek shelter from the night, sleeping beneath the doorways of Saint Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco.  For God’s Sake, Sal, these are the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters, not pigeons to be shooed away.  I had previously thought of this protégé of Grand Poobah of the Knights of Malta to be simply another Burke Buffoon but this shows him to be a mean-spirited prick and he should be fired for this.  

9 comments:

  1. actually, I should clarify that these "showers," though only recently employed to "discourage" homeless people from seeking shelter in the Cathedral portals, were installed two years ago.

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  2. Whether your gracious estimation of the Archbishop was fair or not, the showers continued to fall under his watch. You might also note if his prickishness preceded him while in Oakland -- I am sure many there would shower him with the appropriate encomia. As for the other Burkesque Buffoons still haunting the American episcopate -- Morlino, Matano, Finn, et. al. -- we continue to be showered with their unwelcome ministrations and pray they too might be doused with a hardy dose of common sense and get lost.

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    1. I too would gladly see the Burkesque Buffoons get lost, preferably to some place where they can compare the lengths of their cappae magnae, or the value of their clerical bling away from us!

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  3. Snark does not become you.

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    1. While I am not above being snarky, I had no intention to do so in this posting. I am too outraged, indeed scandalized, by this totally deplorable behavior to settle at being snide or sarcastic.

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    2. I thought you pulled the snark off well. :)

      It is bothersome for a church leader - a shepherd if you will - to treat his flock so callously. But I suspect that he didn't make this decision by himself. I suspect that there are members of the parish who fully support the move and may have even instigated it. Even if it was totally the Archbishop's idea, we bear some responsibility for allowing it to continue.

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    3. I am sure that H.E. the Archbishop didn't make the decision at all. The management of a Cathedral is in the hands of its rector. But the rector is directly responsible to the (arch)bishop and it is the prelate who sets the tone for the Diocese and certainly for the management of the Cathedral. Cordileone needs be held responsible for this atrocious behavior as he has obviously fashioned a clerical culture that doesn't see the problem of treating the poor with indignity. And yes, you are right, we all bear some responsibility for allowing it to happen because we don't hold "our betters" to account.

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  4. Calls to mind a story about our one-time Shepherd here in Boston, William "Gang Plank Bill" Henry Cardinal O'Connell, who, when asked by a reporter why he was going on a winter cruise to the Bahamas at the height of the Great Depression, is said to have responded, "Because I can't bear to see my sheep shivering in the cold!" Now he would be someone to do a post on!

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    1. Oh, but I have done posts on O'Connell--he is one of my favorite figures in American Church History. Check the Label list to the right for Cardinal William O'Connell

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