Yes, indeedy, this is going to save the Catholic church from its present crisis.
Yards and yards of scarlet silk. Scads of lace. Just what the doctor orders for an institution sick unto death.
Or this:
Yards of red silk and profound bows.
Could we be more beside the point in our response to the real (and really serious) problems now plaguing us?
The pictures are from Jerry Filteau's report at National Catholic Reporter on the Tridentine Mass celebrated this past weekend by Bishop Slattery of Tulsa at the national shrine of the Immaculate Conception. For incisive commentary on Bishop Slattery's homily, which urged us to remember the enormous suffering the pope is now undergoing due to the abuse crisis (but which apparently, and curiously, somehow failed to mention the suffering of children abused by priests), see Kevin Clarke's latest at America's "In All Things" blog. And Joshua McElwee at NCR, noting Slattery's emphasis on obedience as the solution to the crisis.
Obedience and scarlet silk. Yards and yards of it. That will do it every time, won't it? That and profound bows, and the problem of abuse will be finita est.
That's Latin for not a snowball's chance in hell.
They're just not getting it, are they?
