Or is that — a time-traveling antipope? My husband showed me this evening that Mr Shields has bestowed the red hat on “Cardinal” Joseph Francis Rummel. The time-traveling part comes from naming him a prince of the Church retroactively, since the good Archbishop (who was never made a Cardinal by any of the generally acknowledged popes) fell asleep in the Lord in 1964.
Of course, it is nothing for a time-traveling antipope to give the late Joseph Cardinal Bernadin an extra “e” on his name. I see that Francis Cardinal Arinze (or, as Shields styles him, “Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze”) has at least been promoted to “a major Vatican official.”
So what did Shields take for his antipapal name? Maybe he’s Pius XXIII!
I wish Mr Shields would avail himself of the Catholic Almanac, which is even available on-line. It would be so much less distracting. He does make a couple of good points in his article about the hypocrisy of those who criticize church leaders for disciplining pro-abortion Catholic pols while praising church leaders who take positions they like (such as the late Archbishop, who excommunicated two segregationist leaders.) Of course, Shields goes on to repeat the tired old slander that pro-lifers don’t care about people who are actually born, urging them to heed “the wise counsel of Cardinal Bernadine [sic], who reminded those who emphasize political opposition to abortion to the exclusion of all other social justice issues that to believe that life begins at conception does not mean that it — or our serious responsibilities — politically end [sic] at birth.” But then, if Mr Shields doesn’t know who his own bishop is, perhaps it is asking too much for him to be in aware of the activities of his co-religionists active in the pro-life movement. Why should he? After all, they’re not mentioned in the DNC press releases.