"I can hear it now.
"But Father! But Father!", leaps from the lip of you who are soft on the TIME spin of these events. "You are being unfair! The writer, Amy Sullivan is probably just an objective reporter sticking to the facts as she sees them. You are twisting her words!"
Oh?
Who is Amy Sullivan?
BeliefNet has this little bio about the writer, Amy Sullivan with my emphases:
Amy Sullivan is an editor of The Washington Monthly. She has written about religion and politics for publications including the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and The Washington Post, and has served as a commentator for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NPR’s Morning Edition, and other news outlets. Previously, Sullivan served as a legislative assistant to U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle and as editorial director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard Divinity School.
Washington Monthly has this little bio:
Amy Sullivan is the nation editor for TIME magazine, where she directs political coverage and the magazine’s polling operation. Her book on Democrats and religion, The Party Faithful, will be published in February 2008 by Scribner. Sullivan’s work has appeared in publications including the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and was included in The Best Political Writing 2006. She is a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows. Previously, Sullivan served as editor of the Washington Monthly, and as editorial director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard Divinity School, and pursued doctoral studies in sociology at Princeton University.
Her liberal pedigree thus established, did you see what she wrote in TIME about the "quiet faith" of late Sen. Edward Kennedy? It is a paen to the privatization of one’s faith, shelving of one’s faith when acting in the public square.
Bp. Martino is a bishop for whom Catholic identity includes accepting the Church’s teachings and then acting accordingly according to his state in life, including acting on Church teachings openly and actively in the public square.
We will be seeing more and more bishops like him in the future.
That idea has the liberal Catholic abortion collaborators in panic mode..."
I mean, really.
As I said in my original post, I do believe there is something more than meets the eye here. Though I do not believe that she (the Time author) has it right (as many of my peers have said, this is a bunch of liberal hogwash)
I watched the video of the press conference where he announced his resignation (available on the diocesan website). Frankly, he did not appear to be ill, exhausted, or depressed in that presser. Having said that, I haven’t heard that much from him (vice having read that much), so my impression could be misinformed because of that lack of familiarity.
I would tend to suspect that there was political pressure from the more liberal faction of the bishops’ college placed on Abp Sambi. Or it could be a money issue from his diocese’s benefactors. Or something else that we simply don’t and won’t be able to know about at all. But I have a hard time believing that exhaustion alone would garner him more than an authorized rest for a period of time.
What will be most telling to me is who is named as the next bishop.