Religion writer: Catholic Leaders’ Sins Are Faith-Killers
The Catholic Church leaders who built a system of lies were an existential threat to Rod Dreher’s faith — and remain so to that of the faithful in general. In 2004, Dreher recounts in The American Conservative, he discovered that his priest had elsewhere “been suspended by his bishop after a complaint of sexual abuse.” Dreher had been reporting on sex abuse in the church, but this was the “last straw.” For “because we had allowed Father Clay into our family’s life . . . my wife and I had to face the fact that for all our vigilance, we couldn’t protect the boys either.” Dreher warns: “It is true that the sins of the clergy do not negate the truths proclaimed by the Catholic Church,” but “that rigorous logic is hard to live by when you’re raising children.”
Editorial-page editor: Press Deserves Blame, Too
President Trump is wrong about the press being the “enemy,” writes Nolan Finley at the Detroit News. But: “Presidents always blame the messenger.” This time the media is just taking it more personally than usual, and “allowing him to goad us into abandoning the fundamental principles of our profession.” Reporters used to keep their opinions to themselves to protect their credibility. “Now reporters post their opinions on Facebook and Twitter. They sob in newsrooms over the results of an election. News meetings and editorial boards are often indistinguishable.” And “we are making more mistakes in our haste to discredit him.” Concludes Finley: “We are not their enemy. But nor can we claim, until we chase our own bias out of the news, to be the honest watchdogs they need us to be.”
Former prosecutor: Brennan Deserves To Lose Clearance
While it may have been for the wrong reasons, the revocation of John Brennan’s security clearance was the right move, argues Andrew McCarthy at National Review. “Brennan, after all, has expressly asserted that our ‘treasonous’ president is ‘wholly in the pocket of Putin.’ ” Such politicization of intelligence from a clearance-holding former head of the CIA “would be beneath any former CIA director, but it is especially indecorous in Brennan’s situation. There are ongoing investigations and trials. Brennan’s own role in the investigation of the Trump campaign is currently under scrutiny.” Plus, “there is considerable evidence that intelligence was rampantly politicized on Brennan’s watch as CIA director and, before that, Obama’s homeland-security adviser” on issues such as Iran, al Qaeda, Benghazi, Syria and North Korea. Brennan “has proved himself irresponsible and untrustworthy.”
From the right: Academia’s Confusion on Sex & Gender
Yale University epitomizes the confusion on innate gender and sex differences, according to Heather Mac Donald at City Journal. The school’s alumni magazine has an article replete with quotes from school medical officials lamenting the neglect of female study subjects. The school also has an initiative showing how “males and females differentially respond to stress, environmental risk factors, drugs and disease.” So much for “gender is a social construct,” right? And yet, “an assistant professor at the medical school suggests asking students how the prognosis of a disease changes ‘if the patient identifies as a woman or a man.’ ” Which shouldn’t matter if Yale’s own researchers are right about the biological differences between men and women.
Biz beat: Minorities Will Suffer From NY’s Wage Gambit
New York state’s move to eliminate the tipped-wage credit, which “allows restaurant owners to pay tipped workers $8.65 per hour so long as tips ensure that the employee is earning at least the minimum wage at the end of the day,” means disaster for the city’s communities of color, explains Manhattan Chamber of Commerce chief Jessica Walker in the Gotham Gazette. In New York, “it’s notoriously difficult for locally owned and operated restaurants to survive.” And these establishments are “essential to the economic and cultural vitality of communities of color in every borough. They employ locals, from a handful to a few dozen each, and sometimes those employees have been with them for decades.” Ending the tip credit will cause labor costs to “soar” by about 50 percent overnight, “and communities of color can least afford it.”
— Compiled by Seth Mandel
