The Fair Lady Meets The Grey Lady

You could imagine my delight to open The New York Times Week in Review this morning (back page first, as always) and find the familiar byline of our Fair Amy.

The abbess of St. Blog's as lead-in for Frank Rich? There's a name for that -- Heaven!

The blessed event was even celebrated on Meet the Press as three Times columnists -- David Brooks, Tom Friedman and my beloved Maureen Dowd (who once "loved my shirt" and felt me up -- long story, but I loved every second of it) went on to kibbitz with the media's cardinale laico, Tim Russert.

But back to today's contributor, who says

The visitation is naturally of great interest to members of the clergy, who, like anyone, wonder if they could have been better prepared for the realities of life after school. But the rest of us - the people in the pews - have a stake as well. We may be on the outside, but we read the papers, and we see disturbing and persistent problems.

Recently, priests have been arrested for things like possession of child pornography, public lewdness and even embezzlement. This month, two seminarians from St. Mary's of the Lake in Mundelein, Ill., died when their car - driven by another seminarian who, prosecutors say, was under the influence of alcohol - crashed, well after midnight, on a weeknight. Another seminarian in the car had been accused of bribery and perjury in his former career in law enforcement. The seminary had no idea.

The system may have improved since the last such visitation ended 19 years ago, and may even be better than it was 50 years ago when nothing was thought of setting 13-year-old boys on the path to priesthood. But incidents like these, however isolated, reflect deeper weaknesses....

All congrats to Amy. We're all terribly proud.

-30-