They said that he said and then she said, wrong; now they say, “release the tape.”
June 22, 2010, 10:05 am
Posted by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
Why not release the tape of Cardinal George’s remarks?
That’s the solution, especially since Ms. Osman said she listened to the audio recording to make sure that the comments at issue had not been made by Cardinal George when she heard him live. If Ms. Osman is covering up–and I’m leaning in that direction–then the issue becomes whether she acted on her own accord or at the direction of someone else. Does the Church really need intrigue, even minor league intrigue such as this, at this time?
They should release their private memos explaining how they got their occult interpretation of the health care reform before they release the tape of Cardinal George. The first, I think, is more important, though should have been done long ago, the latter, though important, I think is somewhat dangerous because the bishops came to the meeting expecting it to be private (not that I think it should have been, but once it was determined it would be, that puts a slant on it, and makes one wonder who it is that was talking — I have my guess but, of course, that is all it is).
Agree. Release the tapes!
(Links at the right of that CNA article lead to other interesting stuff. “Sr. Keehan chose Obama over Catholic bishops”, for one, with the comments below. The story of the proposed sale of a convent to Muslims, for another. With all the bare ruined choirs for sale, I wish Commonweal would do an article on the matter. The vacant motherhouses and convents have to be sold, but to whom and for what purposes?)
The last few comments on this post took up the USCCB-CNA spat.
One thing we can say for sure is that this, or something like it, ought to have appeared in the original article, if indeed it’s true:
Also, their claim that the NCR article by John Allen “validates” the disputed quotes in the CNA article is just crazy talk.
Release the tapes. . . . Are we facing Cardinalgate here?
Perhaps they should release the tapes simultaneously with the tapes of the CHA meeting.
John Allen files a report on the spat at NCR’s site. He also posts a full transcript of his interview with Cardinal George, in reaction to the (ridiculous) claim from the CNA that his on-the-record interview somehow backs up their unsourced quotes.
A sample from George:
Who’s going to tell him that he has been proven wrong?
I think it would be interesting to find out what he means by “The bishops cannot speak to the moral content of the law.” What is the “moral content of the law”? Is it a moral evaluation of the content of the law? Or is it something else?
And if this Cardinalgate, who was Deep Throat? Did CNA name its sources? Should it? If were Cardinal George, it seems to me that I’d have most cause to be upset at the bishops who violated the confidentiality of the confidential meeting.
I was just pleased to see that an actual person works at CNA. You’d never know it from their Web site:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/about.php
It is interesting to compare the transcript of the telephone interview of Cdl George with the quotes John Allen selected. It seems to me that he tries to choose non-inflammatory quotes and the more conciliatory sentences. Peacemaker?
According to Wikipedia the editor of NCA, a Mr. Bermudez, is also a reporter for the National Catholic Register. The latter, says Wiki, is owned by the Legionaires.
You’d think that after the Maciel debacle that the Legionaires would have sense enough to lay low until they get their stinking house in order. Not so, apparently, at least not for Mr. Bermudez. The belittling little remark about “keeping an eye” on the U.S. confirms my hypothesis that he/they is/are not about to give up their plans to dominate the Church.
Oops — the info about Mr. Bermudez is from the CNA home page itself. That page does not mention any connection with the Legionaires. It does say, with admirable opaqueness, “In accord with its goal to provide Catholic news free of charge, CNA and ACI Prensa are funded, almost entirely, by gifts from our readers and benefactors.”
Ah, the cabalistic wing of the Catholic Church.
What I find interesting is the reaction from “right wing” blogs: to fire Helen Osman and to make the problem all about her, not CNA.
Why are you attacking CNA when it is their accuser, Osman, who will not release the tapes to substantiate her charges of inaccurate reporting by CNA?
CNA: “It is easy for Ms. Osman to claim she has proof of CNA’s alleged dishonesty, and then say that she will not release the audio recording that would corroborate her claims. We support the release of the audio to see who is right.”
CNA’s original story is certainly less than forthcoming. Here is a link:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal-george-sr.-keehan-chose-obama-over-catholic-bishops/
Nowhere does it say that the source is several bishops who wanted to send a message to the CHA during its meeting. The story doesn’t even say that unidentified sources were used, information that should have been included. The story reads as if a CNA reporter was present to report on the session.
CNA had reason to be concerned that the bishops who leaked the story would give a version that suited their interest in sending a pointed message to the CHA. That doesn’t mean the story shouldn’t run, but a prudent news organization would have handled the material more carefully and avoided direct quotes – especially without indicating that the supposed quotes are reconstructed from interviews with people present. And the responsible way to handle the story would have included trying to confirm the information with an official or a less biased source (such as some bishops who had a different point of view from those who wanted to send a message to the CHA.) CNA should have contacted USCCB’s press office for comment before running the story (and, if it declined to comment, included that in the story).
I’m not surprised that USCCB’s spokesperson would criticize this. EWTN commentators would be railing for days if a secular news organization reported a story in this way.
I confess I don’t understand this story from beginning to end, but … doesn’t CNA have a tape of the remarks? Is that usual?
What officiual position does CNA have as oposed to Ms. Osman at USCCB?
Only adulators of CNA and that ilk would try to reverse the tables here.
But that’s classic to the divide in our Church,
Bob, from the fact that Ms. Osman has an official position, it does not automatically follow that her word is authority; it is conceivable that she is lying for the sake of some kind of cover-up. I wonder if you don’t have excessive trust in authority!
Paul Moses, thanks for your comment, it helps me understand the nature of the dispute here.
FWIW – I can think of a couple of legitimate reasons that the USCCB might not want to release an audio recording, the most obvious being that there are other things on the same recording that would create controversy or cause headlines, perhaps having nothing to do with the present dispute. People can be careless in their verbal comments, particularly if the understanding is that the conversation is not for public consumption.
Fire Osman? What a ridiculous idea. As if her post was written on her own authority, without the approval, or even urging, of her bosses–that is, the bishops.
Okay: let’s be clear. Osman is the conduit of the NCCB –and of George. She’s not doing this on her own authority, she’s doing what she’s been asked to do as a spokesperson.
So if the CNA has a problem, it’s with George, not with Osman.
And if George has a problem, it should be with the bishops who leaked to CNA–in a way that undermines him and his authority terribly. That’s the sort of thing you’d get fired for in a secular organization –but of course, you can’t fire bishops.
And if the rest of us have a problem, it should be with CNA’s journalistic standards–per Paul Moses’s analysis above.
As if we do not know that a great apostasy exists within the Catholic Church that includes some of the bishops. The Magisterium includes the Pope and those bishops in communion with him.
Are you calling Cardinal George an apostate, Nancy? That’s not like you!
If you want to see how some other sites are dealing with the discussion, here are ones which might be of interest:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/06/cna-and-usccbs-sec-for-communications-square-off-who-speaks-for-the-catholic-church-in-the-usa/
http://www.catholicvoteaction.org/americanpapist/index.php?p=7667
http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=USCCB-Official-Disputes-Cardinal-George-s-Criticism-of-Sr.-Keehan-and-CHA.html&Itemid=127
http://catholickey.blogspot.com/2010/06/helen-osman-curious-correction-demands.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheCatholicKeyBlog+%28The+Catholic+Key+Blog%29
Nancy: in case you haven’t looked, ALL bishops are in communion with the Bishop of Rome. They are all successors of the apostles.
Thanks, Henry. Rather flailing–and ignorant of how the bishops conference works.
Jimmy Mac, define “communion with”. If it is true that all bishops are in communion with Rome then we would not be in the state of apostasy.
You’re welcome, Grant I thought they were interesting and telling — this is the kind of message which is being spread in the underbelly of the blogosphere, and it shows, as you said, ignorance of the conference — but more than that, the bias which is being used to justify a disregard for CNA’s error.
The official statement of the Bishops can be found here:
http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2010/10-104.shtml
“Such as those bishops who had a different point of view from those who wanted to send a message to the CHA.”
Unless we know the message, we do not know what a different point of view would be.
Nancy,
Bishops can disagree with one another, and with the pope, without being apostates!
The parallel magisterium conundrum is a result of empire. The bishops would have screwed up the multiplication of the loaves or the feeding of thousands by Jesus. It never ceases to amaze me that with all the evil in the world; the trafficking of women and children, the unconcsienable neglect of 5 million children who die each year of neglect before they reach the age of 5, the daily destitution of Haiti, the approval of the church of the oppresive governments of South America etc. etc., that one issue gets so much attention……
David, in the area of Faith and Morals, Bishops must be in communion with The Pope.
“that one issue gets so much attention”, The issue is the Dignity of the Human Person from the beginning.
Nancy, what’s your deal? Are you really accusing certain bishops of apostasy? (And in a comments box!)
Has it really come to this, that believing that the health care legislation will not fund abortion is now apostasy?
This is crazy, y’all.
CK: Yes, it is crazy, or better said, outside the framework of these discussions.
Craig –
You sure know how to sum up an issue :-)
But I think we need a lot more reflection on Cardinal George’s concern that the bishops should be attended to when they say about the application of ethical principles to “empirical” matters, as he puts it. First, must we listen to what the majority of them say? Or what each individual bishop says? The latter presents a problem because they sometimes disagree. But is that a bad thing? (I think not.)
Or should the head of the bishops organization present *all* of the different arguments, or at least the major ones, of the individual bishops so the rest of us can reach a more informed judgment and write to our Congresspersons accordingly?
As I understand the basic theory of practical reasoning the major premise is a general principle, the minor is a particular judgment about “empirical”, that is, jucbmdngx of fact.. And the conclusion is also about the facts, or tries to be. If this is what practical reasoning involves, then what the bishops say about particular judgments can’t be a principle, so if he presents himself as an expert on the matter he has strayed beyond his competence. He might even be right, but it’s not because he’s a bishop but because he is a wise man, and therein lies the necessity for bishops to try to persuade us of their particular moral judgments.
This ignores another problem concerning their competence: how they should determine *which* moral principles take priority given a particular set of circumstances. Confronted with a hard case, how does the bishop (or any person making such a judgment) know which principles should have priority given the particular circumstances. It seems to me that this is where the people on the ground often have a better understanding of the relevant moral factors than bishops do.
Civil judges make such decisions all the time. I wonder if the law has developed some meta-principles for deciding which paraticular principles should obtain in given circumstances.
At any rate, it seems to me that matters of public policy should always be a jooint project of bishops and the rest of us.
One other thing about C. George’s interview. He speaks of the bishops “ruling” the Church. That sounds too much like a monarchy or an army. The bishops need a new verb.
Craig, etc., When you consider the fact that elective abortion is not Health Care and that it was always possible to support a Health Care Bill that would not include coverage for elective abortion, it is a rational argument.
Nancy, are you now suggesting that some abortions (I see your careful use of “elective”) would fall under the heading of health care? Have you, too, now surrendered to the dread modernists?! I will give you one hour to recant your heresy in the comboxes. ;-)
Spontaneous abortions that are Miscarriages would fall under the heading of Health Care.
Is it possible that all that happened is that Cardinal George gave a long, wide-ranging speech in Ecclesiastical-Bureaucratspeak and most people present listened to some parts and kind of snoozed through the other parts; and then several people tried to describe the speech and got it mostly right and partly wrong, each according to his own preoconceptions; and then the reports were consolidated, summarized, edited and posted to the website by other people?
I mean, could this be one of those occasions when one should just give one’s fellow Catholics the benefit of the doubt?
If the CNA story was supposed to put pressure on the CHA at its meeting, it doesn’t seem to have worked. CHA continues to applaud Obama’s health care plan and put out this on the PR Newswire:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/catholic-health-association-continues-to-support-the-patient-protection-and-affordable-care-act-96920674.html
Felapton: possibly there is a good deal of bureaucratic buffoonery on all sides. But it is hard to give the bishops as a group the benefit of the doubt when they have already instilled so many doubts about so many matters and not just the health care bill.
In contrast to preceding generations of bishops, conservative and liberal, this crowd seems genuinely inept. And within their own polarized condition, at least some of them are eager to win a point either by lying, exaggerating, misremembering–or God help us–telling the truth. Who knows which?
Cardinal George could resolve the matter by going on the record and saying, either “I did not say what I am quoted at CNA as saying,” or “My general remarks would seem to point in the direction of the CNA quotes, but I certainly did not go that far,” or “That’s what I said and that’s what I meant.”
Michael Sean Winters has an interesting take today on this issue at the America blog. According to him, the bogeyman (or woman) is not Cardinal George or Ms, Osman, but unnamed, though easily guessed, bishops who were not happy with Cardinal George’s wish to iron out differences with the CHA. According to MSW, this cabal of bishops wants the CHA punished, and they either manufactured quotes that they passed to CNA, or they provided false paraphrases that CNA then put in quotes.
WC: sounds right. They should be called out then for lying.
“If the CNA story was supposed to put pressure on the CHA at its meeting, it doesn’t seem to have worked. CHA continues to applaud Obama’s health care plan and put out this on the PR Newswire:”
Paul, thank you for the link to that release. It confirms an impression I have, which is: the CHA supports the the core benefits delivered by the legislation – health care coverage for those without coverage. The bishops should support that, too, and I think they do, but I’d sure like to hear them say it louder and clearer than they have so far.
The bishops, for their part, object to the legislation because of pro-life concerns, conscience-protection concerns, and concerns about the coverage of those here illegally.
They’re more or less talking past one another in their public statements.
“Cardinal George could resolve the matter by going on the record and saying, either “I did not say what I am quoted at CNA as saying,” or “My general remarks would seem to point in the direction of the CNA quotes, but I certainly did not go that far,” or “That’s what I said and that’s what I meant.””
I agree. Unless that happens, though, istm that John Allen’s transcript is a valuable record of what Cardinal George actually does think about these issues, regardless of what may or may not have been said on the retreat.
Thanks to Bill Collier for the latest update that MSW provided at America blog- and I also concur that the current crop of US Bishops are, by in large “inept.”
One of the interesting things I see from a certain group of commentators is the claim: CHA was disobedient, openly disobedient, and should be punished. Oh, and the nun makes a million a year (ignoring how that money is used).
Of course, these are the same people who are in immediate disagreement with the USCCB on issues like immigration reform, CCHD, nuclear weapons, and the like. They are very open about it, often declaring the USCCB to be heretics. Funny how that is.
Jim, with all due respect, this statement, which is part of the Bishops official statement is clear: “solutions can be advanced in Congress while retaining what is good in the new law. Indeed, any failure to do so would only leave these genuine problems as ammunition for those who prefer total repeal of the law.”
http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2010/10-104.shtml
Nancy, yes, you’re right, they have said some positive things about the legislation. I’d like to hear even more.
I suppose that is not so easy to do until we know all the details.
In order to understand all the details, I would begin by asking Sister Carol Keehan, President and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, why she supported the creation of a Health Care Bill that does not prohibit elective abortion coverage rather than the creation of a Health Care Bill that seeks to preserve all Human Life?