Christine M. Flowers: The Catholic bishops go rogue

THERE ARE tea parties, and then there are what you might call "Holy Trini-tea" parties.

One of the latter recently took place in Baltimore, doing to my more liberal Catholic brethren what the tea- party movement did to secular progressives on Nov. 2. According to an Associated Press report, written in the breathless language of a political dispatch, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan was elected president of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops this week in what was described as a historic "upset."

The significance? Well, for starters, it's the first time in almost 50 years that a sitting vice president of the conference has been defeated for the top spot.

More important, it's a clear shot across the bow to the wing of the church that believes Vatican II didn't go far enough. Tucson, Ariz., Bishop Gerald Kicanas, a favorite of liberal Catholics, was considered a shoo-in, and his defeat was a stunning rejection of the leftward tilt some church leaders (and many in the laity) have embraced in recent years.

But just as some Democrats have spun their midterm defeats as the fault of the Obama administration's failure to "communicate the message" (voters got the message just fine, thank you, and rejected it), progressive Catholics will no doubt urge the church to double down on liberalization.

So we'll hear more frequent calls for female ordination, the acceptance of abortion "in necessary cases," a more robust opposition to capital punishment, acceptance of homosexuality and the big kahuna - an end to celibacy. And they'll do this while continuing to point out that unless we "modernize" the church, we'll continue to have that horrible epidemic of sexual predators roaming the sacristies and parochial schools, and lose future generations of Catholics.

But they're going to have a very hard time getting Dolan to go along with the project. Because New York's archbishop, a self-styled "moderate conservative," has both the charisma and intellectual fortitude to withstand the onslaught of the social-justice revolutionaries.

It's not that he doesn't believe in the fundamental moral principles that animate our shared faith. Dolan is an eloquent spokesman for a philosophy that celebrates the sanctity and dignity of life, that believes the poor should be given an opportunity (not a handout), that accepts the flaws in human beings while not condoning them and believes in forgiveness - to a point.

The religion in which I was raised was not a Big Tent but rather a loving fraternity - with rules. With a tent, all you have to do is lift the flap and come on in, no questions asked. The fraternity requires a bit of effort on your part, a willingness to accept the membership requirements. And unlike some clubs, those requirements are not up to a popular referendum.

Yes, Vatican II did open up the club's windows and let some fresh air circulate through the musty rooms. It gave official recognition to what was already accepted, that women were valuable contributors to both the intellectual and spiritual life of the church.

It tried to bridge the sometimes formidable divide between priests and the people sitting in the pews, abolishing (sometimes unwisely) traditions that kept God's children at an artificial distance from him. Included in that banishment was the use of Latin as the Mass vernacular, making services more accessible (but much less beautiful) than before.

And as one of the guinea pigs who spent her puberty post-Vatican II, I appreciated the more open discussions about sexuality that occurred in church and the schools. The other stuff - cloying and annoying guitar masses, the sign of peace (ever hear of germs?) and allowing us to actually hold the Eucharist in our hands (pass the Purell) - I could have done without.

But even these changes haven't been enough for those crusading Catholics who believe their church isn't user-friendly, and who have tried to make dissent from the hierarchy into its own special virtue.

I'm particularly incensed at those nuns who, to push their health-care agenda, bent over backward to assure us that public funds wouldn't be used to fund abortion if the legislation passed without the Stupak amendment. (It was either wishful thinking or, more likely, deliberate misrepresentation of a lobby that put universal health care above the rights of the unborn.)

Fortunately, Dolan is a match for all of them. Especially since, with this election, there won't be any recounts.

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer.

E-mail cflowers1961@yahoo.com.