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In one more irony and historical marker of clerical decadence, the Catholic candidate will receive a higher percentage of support from the Catholic episcopate than the Catholic laity

In one of his books, Chesterton has a chapter on the times in Church history that the episcopate has been utterly corrupt and renewal surged up from the laity. This would seem to fit that pattern.

There has been a bit of a kerfuffle lately on whether Kerry has been excommunicated. For those who are not au courant, last spring a CA canon lawyer, Marc Balestrieri, filed a Complaint for Heresy against Kerry with the Boston Tribunal. I gather that for a layman to file such a thing was almost unheard of. Should the Boston Tribunal reject it, there remains the option of appealing to Rome.

The Boston Tribunal has taken no action, but has put the Complaint in the hands of the Archbishop. Balestrieri (possibly to keep the pot boiling) went to Rome in an attempt to get an answer to the question of whether politicians who vote for abortion should be excommunicated. He did get a response from a Vatican Congregation to the effect that they have excommunicated themselves. Kerry's name was never mentioned in this exchange, and there are those in Rome who are denying the whole thing.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Boston Archdiocese has said that it has "thousands upon thousands" of such Complaints to go through. This sounded highly unlikely to me, but on Balestrieri's website, De Fide, I thought I saw a message to his supporters a few days ago not to do anything else except on his instruction. I can't find it there today, but there are instructions for joining the suit: Join the Class-Action Lawsuit. Connection with the "thousands upon thousands"?

Balestrieri has been fired from his post as a canon lawyer with the Los Angeles (Mahony) archdiocese.

Balestrieri (possibly to keep the pot boiling) went to Rome in an attempt to get an answer to the question of whether politicians who vote for abortion should be excommunicated. He did get a response from a Vatican Congregation to the effect that they have excommunicated themselves. Kerry's name was never mentioned in this exchange, and there are those in Rome who are denying the whole thing.

I give Balestrieri an A+ for strategery. A media campaign is the only way to move this forward.

The Roger Mahonys of the hierarchy are Democratic activists and dilettantes, not guardians of the ancient faith. (For more on Cardinal Mahony, click here.) They have no problem supporting an open heretic like Kerry, because their faith in Catholicism is as ambivalent as his. Kerry is their idea of a good Vatican II Catholic -- liberal on economics, avant garde on morality. Indeed, a loss for Kerry represents a loss for them. He embodies the liberal catechesis they have tried to drill into the laity for decades. If a majority of the Catholic laity vote against Kerry, it will be one more rude confirmation to Roger Mahony and company that their post-Vatican II project to liberalize the laity has flopped.

Great points here.