The REST of the Fr Pfleger Story

Take it from Roeser--because he knows.

Pfleger loves a show and he relished his clowning around, affecting Hillary sobbing into a hanky and prancing around as a performer for the relish of the crowd.

The speech should have been the last straw in a series of Pfleger insults to his Church and the IRS, making a mockery of its supposed stance against mixing politics with nonprofit church worship. If this had been another priest who had gone to a church, blistered Obama and his black following, you could bet that he would be hauled down to the chancery and silenced…sent to a rehab center because of mental imbalance (a favorite prior archdiocese punishment to some authenticist priest dissenters) before the day is over.

But in an archdiocese where ecclesial leadership comes in the form of parsing over performance, where lay public relations specialists hold sway, that is not likely to happen. But still, Pfleger’s near-lunatic conduct has shocked even the staid Democratic party adherents who plan to occupy many of the posh offices that used to be Quigley preparatory seminary which they have now assigned to themselves.

Now as before, the archdiocese, fearful of its own shadow, trembling in its deference to the largely Irish bloc of hack, pro-abort Democratic politicians who guide much of its fundraising, doesn’t want to encourage a racial confrontation over removal with the white Pfleger the darling of black activists, leading the Church to be perceived as…horrors!...authoritarian, seeking to censor the fiery pastor for political activity in behalf of “civil rights” so treasured by the oligarch one-party (most of whom nominal Catholics) that has been in power in Chicago longer than the USSR existed from Lenin to Gorbachev.

Previous archbishops were themselves simpatico to calming the waters with the local Dems. Now the job has been handed over to the de-facto CEO of the archdiocese, Jimmy (his baptismal name) Lago, the lay chancellor…formerly Ed Vrdolyak’s best Democratic precinct captain. Lago more than anybody else understands that Pfleger is far more than just another hyperbolic racial demagogue. He is a key operator in the Cook county Democratic party, and is every bit as bright a light in the Democratic party firmament in his own way as are the Democratic Catholic Daleys, the Madigans, Emil Jones, the Hynes, Eddie Burke, the Stroger clan et al, not to forget that great layman Dickie Durbin. And then you get to the black Protestant wing: Barack Obama and the three Jacksons.

Jimmy Lago understands that to make Pfleger a martyr ruptures the archdiocese’s indissoluble linkage with the Democratic party, the party of abortion and gay rights and secularism. That tie-in now goes right up to the probable (the election is his to lose) next president of the United States, Barack Obama Although Obama has issued a statement chastising Pfleger for his wild and frenetic appearance at Trinity United Church of Christ…and Pfleger himself has expressed contrition for acting much like a drunk on a spree…, Pfleger still has an enormous following among blacks and is in fact, word and deed a major Democratic party leader.

If this had happened to a Roman Catholic pastor in, let us say, Deerfield who entertained a crowd with prancing about insulting Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in favor of John McCain, a heavy hand bearing the ecclesial ring now bequeathed to the chancellor would smack him upside the head and he’d be on a long-long sabbatical.

Pfleger should be unhorsed as pastor tomorrow, chastised officially, not given any further pastoral appointments while he undergoes prolonged suspension. He truly is one of the very few Catholic clerics who has earned his trip courtesy of the mental health budget to the funny farm for psychological counseling.

There is one very slight chance some of these censorious actions would happen. Not because he has harmed the Church. Mercy, no. If he has indeed harmed the Obama campaign so seriously…by resurrecting the specter of a loony rogue pastor ala Jeremiah Wright…that Pfleger’s future service to the Democratic party has ended. That just could be.

Obama really has been put at a disservice by this clerical clown, a disservice that Obama didn’t ask for, doesn’t deserve and could, if continued, haul him down. This could kick up Jeremiah Wright, always jealous of competition, for a repeat. But I don’t think Pfleger will be unhorsed or even seriously criticized by Church authorities. Pfleger will appear chastened either at the archdiocesan office or in his rectory and will stay that way until the very next opportunity to misuse his ministry for partisan political advantage while the archdiocese turns its back and raises its eyes in hypocrisy.

The short version?

1) The Archdiocese of Chicago is not run by its titular head, Cdl. George--rather, it is run by a claque of Democrat Party operatives.

2) Said Democrat Party operatives are perfectly happy with Pfleger's service to the Party. Therefore, who gives a damn about his 'service to the Church,' which is convenient, but secondary?

3) If Pfleger endangers the Party, he's out. But so far, so good.

Now you understand why Wisconsin Catholics are distinctly uncomfortable with John Huebscher, the apparatchik on the Wisconsin Catholic Conference's payroll. Huebscher, not as important to the Democrat Party as is Pfleger in Chicago, keeps a lower profile--but he is no less a threat to the Church.