Monday
“We showed no care for the little ones,” the pope said in a letter to the faithful at the beginning of the week, in response to the publication of the shocking 1,356-page grand jury report into child sexual abuse by priests across six dioceses in Pennsylvania. The report, which took two years to compile, included details of more than 300 accused priests and covered offences allegedly committed over 70 years.
The pope’s letter was not the point, but still the language felt off: the sentimentality of “little ones” made one want to scream in the circumstances, particularly when the letter contained no concrete plan of action – part of the wider inability of the church to squarely confront the crimes in its history.
And then this, from Cardinal Tobin, the archbishop of Newark: a note sent out in the same week to clergy in his diocese urging them not to talk to journalists, but instead to direct all inquiries to the archdiocese’s director of communications, after an article by the Catholic News Agency had fresh allegations of sexual misconduct by two priests. The cardinal claimed ignorance of the matter and expressed a hope that the anonymous sources referred to in the piece were not priests in the diocese. (The Catholic News Agency confirmed that they were.) The Catholic church’s habit of secrecy and denial continues.
Tuesday
Say what you like about Madonna, but at least she annoyed the Catholic church. Her antics look very tame now and the worst that can be said about her, after her ill-advised tribute to Aretha Franklin at the Video Music Awards this week, was that like most celebrities at that altitude she has become thoroughly deaf to nuance.
I had lunch with a friend today who had been on a Madonna-themed cruise up the Hudson River the previous week as part of Madge’s 60th birthday celebrations. She looked very glum about it. “My girlfriend thinks I’m in an abusive relationship with Madonna,” she said. “Madonna would hate me if she met me. She’d think I’m not cool enough. She’s exactly the type I used to go for and it never worked out well.” The cruise, she said, was an unhappy combination of gay men and straight women from New Jersey and we speculated on what might have happened if the boat had gone down, both agreeing that the phrase “Madonna could not be reached for comment” would have featured in the coverage.
Wednesday
The last-known Nazi war crimes suspect in the US was deported from New York: a 95-year-old called Jakiw Palij who had served in the Trawniki concentration camp in occupied Poland – a man the US courts had been battling to deport for 14 years. His neighbours in Queens, one of the most diversely populated areas in the world, made obligatory comments about how quiet he had been, but none expressed the opinion that he was a sorry old man and should have been left alone. In fact, many regarded his quiet presence among them – mostly people whom the Nazis would have deemed suitable for elimination – as a chilling reminder of what “ordinary” people are capable of doing.
It was a rare feel-good story for Donald Trump, who for once, was the guy not being referred to as a Nazi. “The last-known Nazi officer living in the United States, they’ve been trying to get him out for decades,” he said. “President Obama tried, they all tried. We got him out – gone. He’s back in Germany.” Germany didn’t want him – nor did Poland, nor Ukraine – but it took him in as part of its post-war responsibility. There might be a lesson in all this for the pope: perhaps paedophile priests who escape prosecution owing to the statute of limitations should be stripped of their citizenship and sent to live in the Vatican City.
Thursday
Two days after the double whammy of Michael Cohen pleading guilty to campaign finance violations and Paul Manafort being convicted of fraud, the sweet sound of Trump in trouble tinkled on. If such a thing is possible, the president’s tweets became even more half-baked and rose to a more hysterical pitch, and then he went on Fox News and threatened that the markets would crash if he were impeached. There was something almost winsome about the childishness of his logic: “I don’t know how you can impeach somebody who’s done a great job,” he said, adding that if he stopped being president, “everybody would be very poor”. Trump is an effective promoter of Project Fear, but this seemed a stretch, even for him.
Friday
“The summer has ended and we are not yet saved.” I think of this line every year. It is from Jeremiah 8:20, but more recognisably from Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. I’m thinking of the TV version: the young Jess, frightening her classmates with wild quotes from the Bible and threats that they are all going to burn in the fiery furnace.
I spent two hours in a Target store, by the end of which a fiery furnace seemed appealing. The toy aisle seemed to have been ransacked during a zombie apocalypse. The only saving grace was the soothing effect of the stationery aisle, which as my children start school in two weeks, it turns out has been waiting for my return all these years. It was just as I remembered, and for a moment the pleasures and anxieties of life whittled down to this: the business of choosing the right pens, and finding a lunch bag, which if we got it right would change our destinies for ever.
Digested week, digested: Judgment Day.
