Editorials / Father Higgins, RIP / Senator High Horse
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
EDITORIALS Father Higgins, RIP by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Indianapolis T hey buried coach Bob Knight's favorite cleric out here in the rolling greenery of south central Indiana the other day. Bob...
...Will the ers the name somehow humiliating, labor- prospering from these laws...
...Intent on making religion "rational," many have become asylums for kookery...
...They are institutions of prayer, morality, and, for those whose dogma includes it, salvation...
...we step into America's phony world of on...
...Dozens of groups in the his that has demonstrably improved the all than the recent past, with its threats of country could raise similar petty and stu- conditions of his group...
...Give in the best interests of all the bogus Portuguese...
...He has proclaimed himself expert in feelings over alleged slurs, harassments, passing would damage his constituents' representing Indian concerns...
...Now of course the phonies dominate s events in Moscow demon- mouthed extremist can lay claim to a practically every minority movement...
...There has also majorities alike...
...will take the place of intelligent thought...
...The priests claim to be trained masseuses possessing wondrous powers over diligently fingered bodies and souls...
...Now it is idiotic with contradictions: obsessed with child abuse, but also with introducing homosexuals into the Boy Scouts, insistent that women are the same as men—strong and selfreliant—albeit terrified by a lewd glance from the local sexual harasser...
...ing world history...
...Now, alas, when he blows there will not be a ruddy-faced cleric in Roman collar standing by the bench, eyes cast heavenward...
...Bullying...
...Actually many do, which you might come up with, I shall point out gies of our leaders absorbed in...
...Has Senator Campbell ever and sacred honor to blocking the pose, they are forced to immerse them- implemented any policies that have Washington Redskins from getting a new selves in the petty stupidities of frauds...
...Those churches that have entoiled themselves in political and social causes have steadily lost members...
...So what are the ener- pid complaints...
...Father James P. Higgins was an unassuming priest who somehow left a profound mark on most of the eminences he encountered...
...Is the Pope supposed cheerfully to relinquish centuries of teaching based on scriptures held to be Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Times column syndicated by Creators Syndicate...
...believes the Church will get on with its noble role of spreading progress: guaranteed human rights (ever more human rights, and animal rights, too...
...Times," of course, in this century have been changing since roughly August 1914, and the orthodox churches have changed hardly at all...
...And what makes him almost solely populated by victims, where intelligent thought comes in...
...And read Emma Lazarus' s poem on the being done in all the hubbub about the maybe it was Lani Guinier's Jewish Statue of Liberty "and I shall get them a quack rights of the aggrieved...
...At his interment a terrible grief creased the faces of .his friends...
...Clearly the a series of legitimate complaints into the efforts such risible creatures as Senator Washington football team is free to call present humbug governed by charlatans...
...But this is claims them to be...
...As Along with the charlatanry there is a Why, brute power of course, which is an I say, America' s world of Minority large element of bullying in these petty unwelcome prospect for minorities and Rights is a phony world...
...Those rites and teachings are not modern but timeless...
...He was from the Reverend Jackson's race, and back in the 1920s, when he wrote, he had premoniSenator High Horse Lions that phony leaders would supersede legitimate black leaders with meretricious proposals over terminology...
...Now he will do God's work in a more exalted place...
...though he was infinitely more at ease with ordinary people, ministering faithfully to their needs, spiritual and otherwise...
...Show me a prized liberal value and I shall show you a high-minded liberal pompously contradicting that value...
...The futility of such cosmetic revisions in terminology was noted fifty years ago by the eloquent and perceptive social critic George Schuyler...
...In reading the news stories about And what about the Bill of Rights and Minority Rights, which has evolved from these unhappy people and about the our right to free speech...
...Think of Jesse Jackson's many public complaints on behalf of petty revisions in common English usage...
...A strate, mighty events are shap- leadership position in it...
...I can think of not one practicBut Senator Campbell is not to be disput- neurotics to complain about their hurt ing Moses of Minority Rights whose ed...
...For every one nuclear nightmare...
...Even such defenders of the Catholic Church as the columnist E.J...
...And they charge for their services...
...Now he is urging all non-racists sensitive to the plight of lowly blacks—who apparently remain lowly despite the grand old time Jesse has been having on their behalf for so many decades now—to abjure the term Black for African-Americans...
...Bob Knight is, of course, one of the great coaches in sport...
...0 been a successful attempt to drive out intelligent thought and respect for the Bill of Rights, in particular, free speech...
...No happy mystical masseuse can banish that grief, only faith and time...
...Two decades ago he was admonishing all those who listened to him to abjure the term Negro for Black...
...Campbell are taking to appease them, itself anything it chooses if the First Indian concerns are whatever he pro- one gets the feeling that America is Amendment has any meaning...
...And what about infrastructure...
...Minutes after I telephoned him the bad news I witnessed Father Higgins rush through the hospital lobby, suavely pass a security desk of astonished doctors and nurses, and enter our friend's isolation room to administer the Church's Last Rites...
...Senator Campbell consid- sands of prehensile lawyers on the make, or educational deficiencies...
...relieved his peoples'—whether Indian or stadium on federal land until they shed the Often it is the law, and there are thou- Portuguese—poverty, health problems, name Redskins...
...Perhaps his Portuguese me your tired, your poor/Your huddled spokesmen for the so-called aggrieved to mother's blood has made him the gen- masses yearning to breathe free," should drive out intelligent thought...
...Well, he is half losers, and the hypersensitive...
...They are beyond science and practicality...
...This is uine Indian that he claims to be...
...an expert on black people's concerns...
...His sudden death from a heart attack encourages me to enter a debate that I missed out on a few months ago when the Pope came to Denver and the American media treated orthodox religious views—whether Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish—as quite shocking...
...Well, is what is ultimately so distressing...
...Years ago one of Father Higgins's parishioners was placed in a hospital's protective isolation room, having suddenly come down with a deadly leukemia and been given but a few daysto live...
...0 16 The American Spectator November 1993...
...Dionne cannot defend the Church as being anything other than a fine social welfare movement in need of a few corrections...
...An undercurrent of the "troubled church in changing times" saw is that the Church is losing the faithful...
...What's their price on baptisms...
...They are always overworked and their work is to bear the rites and teachings of their church to the laity...
...Actually it is doubtful that any of the orthodox churches of the country feel duty-bound to serve as an arm of the Democratic party or for that matter the Republican party...
...the word of God, and take up the belief system of the modern American progressive...
...And what mother's blood that made her so perfect good lawyer...
...Is the Church sufficiently eloquent on the need for more highways and waste-treatment facilities, E.J...
...He is also one of sport's great characters, known for his adamantine principles and, not incidentally, for his irascibility...
...This insight is what drives so many Americans from kookery to orthodoxy...
...There was a day when the belief system of the American liberal was at least coherent...
...It is a hackneyed line that has been resorted to by boob journalists for decades in reporting on orthodox institutions...
...At the services for Father Higgins I actually heard of a couple of liberal Catholic priests who offer "therapeutic massages" at the Indiana University Catholic student center...
...now codifying regulations to encourage problems...
...Any loud- and stupid complaints...
...With him annoyances, bad manners, and on and prospects for improvement whatsoever...
...But what is that belief system...
...educational opportunity, improved dental care, sex education, all manner of personal counseling...
...The immedi- Show me one living leader of a minority The senator's noble cause is of course group who can point to one proposal of ate future could be more perilous for us petty and stupid...
...Actually orthodox churches everywhere are flourishing, as is the Roman Catholic church 14 The American Spectator November 1993 in those dioceses where orthodoxy is preserved and the mystical masseuses are—dare I say it—held at arm's length...
...elimination of the term Redskins be of ing apparently under the belief that sports Thousands of public officials are right any help in assuaging these genuine teams adopt names that humiliate them...
...It is expert in these concerns...
...Drop the ban on abortion, birth control, and celibacy, admit women to the priesthood,and clean up this mysterious mess over child abuse, and E.J...
...In a a dozen who have made their way to the consider Senator Ben Nighthorse time when Americans should be address- top by discovering ever more fanciful Campbell of the great state of Colorado...
...As they have denatured their theology into schemes for personal growth they have become the stuff, of jokes...
...All hospital regulations had been trampled under foot in God's work...
...There is in the Republic a widespread demand for the spiritual labors of priests, ministers, and rabbis...
...What did the commentators expect...
...A Troubled Church In Changing Times," was the theme of most of the coverage...
...ing such serious matters as crime, educa- problems that supposedly lay their peoHe has pledged his prodigious energies tion, family break-up, and national pur- ple low...
Vol. 26 • November 1993 • No. 11
