Forgive the Chief -- He's Still Getting Used to This

Look at Roberts -- he's somewhat puzzled, unusually flapped. But for Ted and Condi, it's just another day at the office.

The Archdiocese of Washington has posted Cardinal McCarrick's Homily from this morning's Red Mass here. (Thank you, Susan.)

As always, some snips from God's Favorite Cardinal

The parable of the vineyard has many meanings. This was probably clear to those who heard it and maybe not as clear to us. It speaks of the Father’s goodness, of His gift of this great vineyard and His entrusting it to the workers. The vineyard must yield good wine for the health and comfort of many people and the vineyard’s workers are given the chance to be part of this great accomplishment. It is a lesson not just to the people of Israel to whom the Lord spoke, but to all of us, as well. The parable also speaks of the rejection of the prophets, this sad history of God’s chosen people, for so much of their history. It speaks also ultimately of rejecting Jesus Himself, the Son, the Heir who comes to call the people back to faithfulness to the Father and is driven out of the vineyard and put to death. All of us share their guilt because ultimately we are all workers in the vineyard of the Lord. God has graced each one of us with a special role to play so that we may produce good things for Him and for our neighbor and that we might promote the Kingdom where He is Lord forever and ever....

Life is like that, too. Isaiah preaches that message, also. The vineyard is the vineyard of the Lord. The vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel. The vineyard of the Lord is all of us. In a deeper sense, the vineyard is this world in which we live in our own country, among our own people, in our own land.

For our vineyard, too, there are good times and bad. There are days of plenty and days of challenge. In this particular moment of the history of our lives, we walk our days in a time of great challenge. Let us count the ways:

· We are at war with international terrorism.
· We are facing a difficult conflict in Iraq; thank God, less so in Afghanistan.
· We are so clearly living in a world of conflicts, as in Darfur in the Sudan, in parts of Asia and Africa, in the Holy Land.
· We worry about AIDS in Africa and here in our own neighborhoods and poverty and hunger among so many people of our world.
· We worry about the poor at home, especially those who have lost so much in the wake of the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

These are the times of challenge when the vine growers need to work together and be more aware of the responsibility they hold to bring the wine of sweetness and the wine of strength to ourselves and to all our people.

All of these troubles weigh heavily upon us. How could it be otherwise? We tend to blame each other, and the level of our discourse can sometimes become shrill and caustic and uneven. What happens in the vineyard can happen to us in our public life. We must be careful that we do not condemn the vineyard and harm to the vine growers. And yet, thanks be to God, in the last few days, we have witnessed a period of greater civility in the selection of our Chief Justice. I pray that that civility will continue because it is so important not just for good government, but for the good care of our people who look here to all of you and your colleagues for the kind of leadership that is not destructive or not too intensely partisan.

We know that we must become friends again, not agreeing on everything, of course, but striving to dialogue more gently, more positively; more careful to set the conversation within a forum of mutual respect by being willing to listen for the good points that are usually present in every reasonable discourse and so will help us learn again to build and not to tear down. During the past few weeks, many of us, myself included, have spoken about civility and the need for it in every part of our civil life, in every part of our society – and not excluding the Church itself.

Civility and unity have been one of McCarrick's cherished speaking threads through 2005. How ironic that his sheer presence makes some Catholics shrill and uneven -- or, rather, more shrill and uneven than usual.

Don't be fooled by the "75" thing -- The Ted's still got some great lessons in him yet... All you gotta do is listen to him.

And one last thing for you DC-heads -- Will we be seeing a Robin Givhan vestment review in tomorrow's Post?

PHOTO: Reuters/Jason Reed

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