The Catholic Standard Disgusts Me

In my mailbox today was the September 10th issue of the Catholic Standard, the official publication of the Archdiocese of Washington.  This issue was a bit thicker than usual, as it was devoted to Pope Francis' imminent visit.  It was filled with all sorts of stories, tributes from schools, etc.  I certainly understand that.  After all, the pope is coming to town and we'd naturally expect to see that visit lauded in the official diocesan publication.  What troubles me is what wasn't mentioned at all in the Standard.

Now let's be clear.  The issue wasn't devoted exclusively to the pope.  There were the ads (of course) and a tribute to a recently deceased Gonzaga teacher; this tribute occupied over an entire page.  Well, that's nice, but one key piece of news was glaringly absent.

I'm referring to the situation regarding Kim Davis.

Let's be clear about this.  Kim Davis was the first person in US history to be imprisoned precisely because she held to Christian ideals and morals.  Might that not have been deemed worthy of a paragraph or two inside an allegedly Catholic publication?  Perhaps some space could have been purloined from one of those "pope-francis-tee-shirt" ads to put Ms. Davis' name before the Catholic readership.  Perhaps Kim Davis could have been lauded as an example of one who "walks with Francis".

All in all, the Catholic hierarchy's treatment of Ms Davis throughout her whole ordeal has been nothing short of an abysmal disgrace.  One might think that they would have treated St Thomas More in the same way during his imprisonment in the Tower of London.  Come to think of it, the bishops of his day (with the obvious exception of St. John Fisher) did precisely that.  This does not bode well for next October's sin-nod nor for the Church's fortitude in standing against future onslaughts.