025 :
13 Feb 2010

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 24 "Baltimore" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: In the Chapter 23, Cardinal Mahony and Cardinal Grandeur met in Phoenix at the solemn high requiem mass of Bishop Thomas Olmsted. In the procession, they have a meeting of minds. Mahony says he will destroy the incriminating photos of Hawkslaw and Grandeur together as long as Grandeur will fight fair at the Fourth Council of Baltimore. Grandeur agreed, but he will battle against a people's Church, insisting the pope will never approve of an autochthonous Church in the United States. Mahony asks Grandeur if he saw Ian Fisher's story in the New York Times that morning about the pope's encouraging an autochthonous Church in China? From that story, Mahony has a notion that the pope may want to see American Catholics rebuilding their Church, American-style." Grandeur demurs. "I'll believe the pope will approve an autochthonous Church in America when I read it in an encyclical. He will never give you permission for that!" Mahony says that if the Fourth Council of Baltimore wants the American Church to go autochthonous, it won't need permission. And the pope will then be faced with a choice, to accept a people's Church in America, or say we're all in schism. "Cardinal Ratzinger might have been capable of doing that. As the pope, I don't think he'd do that. Seventy-five million Catholics? You think he wants to lose them? Seventy-five million affluent American Catholics who provide almost half of the Vatican's annual support?" Now here's the Final Chapter... [more]

024 :
06 Feb 2010

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 23 "Music" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: Last week, Rackham and Phoebe pulled off a bit of industrial espionage, aided by some clever technology. In Msgr. Hawkslaw's Wilshire Boulevard high-rise on a Saturday night when Hawkslaw is out to dinner, they download the entire contents of Hawkslaw's personal computer and discover records that reveal kickbacks that Hawkslaw has been getting from a number of major textbook publishers, plus a file labeled Pretty Young Men and another marked FOG. They make a narrow, harrowing escape. Then he and Phoebe decide to go directly to the beach house at Malibu where Mahony and the A-team have been spending the weekend—to face the music. Now here's Chapter Twenty Three... [more]

023 :
30 Jan 2010

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 22 "Caper" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: In the last chapter, we see that Cardinal Grandeur's dirty tricks department has come up with proof that Cardinal Mahony's campaign for a people's Church is being financed out of a numbered $75 million account in Zurich held by Pike and the Obregón woman, money raised from the TV networks by Para los Otros. Grandeur tells Hawkslaw, "This damn movement is being financed with blood money, pulled together by one of the boldest kidnapping plots of all time." Grandeur has Hawkslaw give Mahony an ultimatum. Grandeur's information will be given to a federal grand jury (which could mean long prison sentences for Pike and Juana Margarita Obregón) or Mahony can just stop his campaign. Mahony, who feels he has been betrayed by his own A-team, has a tearful showdown with Juana Margarita Obregón, learns the total truth behind his kidnapping and its aftermath, and forgives her because he loves her. He cannot accept either of the ultimatums that Grandeur has given him. Instead, he asks the A-team for ideas: how can they stop Grandeur? After a long and fruitless brainstorming session, Rackham says they have to focus not on Grandeur, but on Hawkslaw, Grandeur's spy in Los Angeles. He recruits Phoebe to help him break into Hawkslaw's Wilshire Boulevard apartment and hack his computer. Now here's Chapter Twenty Two... [more]

022 :
23 Jan 2010

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 21 "Blackmail" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: Last week, Mahony's fears about the opposition of his brother bishops diminished when he learned, to his surprise, that half of the U.S. bishops had decided to bring elected delegates to the Council. Pike suspected their decision had been dictated by a strong shift in public opinion. Michael Moore's documentary had triggered a swell of popular support for a people's Church, an idea whose time had come, for the people, and for the more-pastorally-minded bishops, whose sense of crisis over the shaky state of American Catholicism compelled them to start "thinking outside the box." It was a cliché that worked for them. A number of these bishops met at an exclusive site in cyberspace called "OUTSIDE THE BOX." This angered Cardinal Grandeur, who fired off an e-mail note to colleagues who were still on his side. "Everyone knows the Church is not a democracy. Everyone except Mahony and his crowd. If they get their way, they will bring to the Council of Baltimore everything that's wrong with American politics: deceptive sloganeering, lobbyists, maybe even television ads full of blatant deception, wild claims, and outright lies. And dirty tricks." Grandeur's reaction was a classic case of paranoia—his forefinger pointing at another, his other three fingers pointing back at him. He had already launched his own plan to derail Mahony's movement for a people's Church with his own department of dirty tricks, including right wing Catholics working for the FBI and the CIA. Now here's Chapter Twenty One... [more]

021 :
16 Jan 2010

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 20 "Tsunami" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: In the last chapter, we saw that Michael Moore, Hollywood's most exciting documentary film maker, invaded the bishops' retreat at the Phoenician and come back with a series of delicious interviews that have them coming off as a bunch of arrogant lords. But, since Moore cannot sell his idea, either to Hollywood, or to the TV networks, he is amenable to joining forces with Pike and Rackham and company to produce a documentary called The Bishops and Me and market it as a DVD. They plan to sell a million copies (splitting the proceeds with Moore, 50-50) and start a tidal wave of public opinion to send some independent-minded Catholics to Baltimore—as delegates with a voice and a vote, not just observers."The Fourth Council of Baltimore," says Pike, "ought to be a meeting of the people's Church. Instead, it's shaping up like a meeting of the clerical Church." Moore okays the deal, if the campaign for a people's Church can come up with the $1 million he needs to produce a musical score. Says Moore: "I'd like Bob Dylan and maybe Sting to do a few songs for us." Juana Margarita Obregón okays the $1 million. Now here's Chapter Twenty... [more]

020 :
09 Jan 2010

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 19 "Moore" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: During a retreat at the Phoenician, Arizona's poshest resort, the U.S. bishops voted down Cardinal Mahony's proposal that each bishop bring one elected delegate to the Fourth Council of Baltimore. Instead, each bishop will bring one appointed delegate, to observe but not to vote. Back in LA, the news sends Rackham and Pike into a state of gloom. Pike says, "We've got a national campaign headquarters here. And no real campaign." He nodded toward the screen of his laptop. "And, to make things worse, Roger says they tabled his proposal to allow the press into the Baltimore meetings." The press will be on the outside looking in. That will make our job ten times harder." Rackham is more confident than Pike. He says, "The Holy Spirit will think of something." Pike observes that Rackham, a Jew, doesn't even believe in the Holy Spirit. Rackham replies, "If She comes to the rescue here, I could believe in Her." Now here's Chapter Nineteen... [more]

019 :
02 Jan 2010

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 18 "Standoff" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: In the last chapter, we saw Cardinal Mahony face off against Cardinal McCarrick on a nationally televised panel discussion, led by America's most thoughtful host, Bill Moyers, about the upcoming national synod. The discussion heats up when Mahony says the convention must get gavel-to-gavel coverage on television. To McCarrick's challenge, Mahony says, 'TV will make it possible for the people to be there. If the people are there, and if the people like what they see happening, they will say, "Yes, this is my Church." They will want to own it. When they do, many of those folks who left it in disgust will come back, and, I hope, attract a great many new people, too, who will want to be a part of a people's Church in America, fully American, and fully Catholic, too. A people's Church.' Two panelists on the right challenge Mahony on that. One says, 'This sounds like the communist people's Republic of China.' Moyers is puzzled. He says to Mahony, 'You want an American Catholic Church that is also loyal to the pope?' Mahony says, 'Bill, I don't think you understand autochthony.' Now here's Chapter Eighteen... [more]

018 :
19 Dec 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 17 "Press" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: In Chapter Sixteen, we saw the most influential Curial cardinals lamenting their threat to put Califoria under interdict. Cardinal Grandeur, visiting from Philadelphia, insisted that California's Catholics had already excommunicated themelves—automatically—by participating in these outlaw Masses. Other cardinals demur. Grandeur stalked off to take his case directly to the pope. He told Benedict XVI that he couldn't stand by and watch Mahony try to overturn "the divinely instituted hierarchical constitution of the Church." Benedict snapped at him. "There was no hierarchy in the early Church. There was no hierarchy at Pentecost. Hierarchy came later. Men set it up, not God." Grandeur was stunned. This was not the man he knew as Cardinal Ratzinger. Grandeur could see this is a man who had undergone a conversion, especially when he heard the pope tell him, "We have enjoyed a royal papacy for a thousand years. The question is, can we afford to keep running the Church like this for another thousand years? Or even another ten years?" And Grandeur is totally confused when he heard the pope say he would not suppress the upcoming national synod in the U.S., set for July 4, 2009, as Grandeur has demanded, nor discipline Cardinal Mahony. Now here's Chapter Seventeen... [more]

017 :
12 Dec 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 16 "Grandeur" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: In the last chapter, Cardinal Mahony laid out the case for an autochthonous Church in America. He did so in a huge news conference that was televised live around the world. When a reporter says his plan sounds too political, the cardinal points out that the Church has always been political—under various forms of governance. "Today, the Church in Rome has a monarchical form of governance under a kind of constitution called canon law. Romans are proud of it, possibly because it is modeled on ancient Roman law and is therefore part of their own Roman culture. Americans do not quite understand it. Nor will we ever. It is a charter for tyranny, actually, designed to make its secret orders stick by the sheer power of an absolute sovereign, who makes all the laws, interprets all the laws, and enforces all the laws. That's one form of governance. One kind of politics, really. But it is not the kind of politics that commends Christ to his people, not any more, not today. Not in California. Not in the United States.". Now here's Chapter Sixteen... [more]

016 :
05 Dec 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 15 "Interdict" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: When Rackham learned about a new model church for a 21st century based on the ancient model of the autochthonous churches of the Middle East, he promptly tells Mahony he has to lead American Catholics into autochthony. Mahony doubts the pope would ever give permission for that. Rackham says U.S. Catholics ought to make a declaration of autochthony, as the U.S. Founding Fathers wrote a Declaration of Independence in 1776, then stand back and dare the Vatican to say that some 70 million American Catholics are in schism. Mahony isn't so sure it would be that easy. "We'd have a fight on our hands." His prediction seems born out when he reads a Page One story in the Los Angeles Times that said the Vatican was putting the entire state of California under interdict. Now here's Chapter Fifteen... [more]

015 :
28 Nov 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 14 "Autochthony" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of last week's chapter: In Chapter Thirteen, Pike introduced Mahony to Ted Rackham, a Jew, and a former labor union and community organizer who got some of his best ideas from the social encyclicals of Leo XIII, Pius XI, John XXIII and Paul VI. Rackham has rugged good looks, a shaved head, a strong nose, a heavily muscled upper body. He gets around in a wheelchair. He has been a paraplegic from the age of seventeen, but that hasn't slowed him down. Now, in order to help Mahony, he needs to consult progressive theologians like Sean Sunnyhill who can teach him what is doable (and dreamable) in the Catholic Church. When Sunnyhill tells him about autochthony, he cannot pronounce the word, or, much less, spell it. Now here's Chapter Fourteen... [more]

014 :
21 Nov 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 13 "Rackham" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of the story so far: In Chapter Thirteen, a Mahony adviser, Father James Kowalski of Notre Dame, appeared on Fox Television News to debate the chancellor of the Archdiocese of New York about the pros and cons of a people's Church. Kowalski maintains, "Give the people a voice and a vote, and the people will get to work. Not for the hierarchical Church. For their Church, the people-of-God Church. For themselves." Mahony is starting to get the idea, that in order to re-form the Church, he has get into politics--as Nike Pike tells him, "up to his eyeballs." "What I need," Mahony tells a friend, "is a campaign manager, someone who, the less he knows about the Church, the better, someone who won't feel his hands are tied by our archaic customs. Or by canon law." Now here's Chapter Thirteen... [more]

013 :
14 Nov 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 12 "Kowalski" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of the story so far: In Chapter Eleven, Sister Phoebe , with the strategic help of Cardinal Mahony and Nike Pike, turned aside a Vatican attempt to close down St. Priscilla's, and she does so in a televised encounter on the church steps with the Vatican's chosen emissary, Bishop Thomas Dimleigh. She waves a legal-sized envelope. "This document, signed by the cardinal, says I am in charge here. It says the people of God in Solvang own this church, and that the cardinal and I just watch over it for them. If the people don't like what we're doing for them, they can get rid of us." When Dimleigh's aide, sent by the Vatican, says the Church is not a democracy, Dimleigh says, "It sure as hell is beginning to look like one." Now here's Chapter Twelve... [more]

012 :
07 Nov 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 11 "Keys" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of the story so far: Phoebe McNulty, one of the cardinal's nuns serving as a parish administrator in the northern part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, mounts a new kind of priestless liturgy at St. Prisilla's. The national press trumpets the story, of how a little freckled nun has solved the priest shortage and how, emulating her, liturgical communities had sprung up in priestless parish after priestless parish in villages, towns and cities around the world. Mahony ignores the Vatican order to stop these peoples' Masses because his friend, the archbishop of San Francisco, convinces him that "It won't matter what the Vatican says or doesn't say. The people will decide what they want to do, and the Vatican will let them. If I am wrong, I'll eat my hat." But Francis Oliver Grandeur, the cardinal archbishop of Philadelphia, resolves to stop Mahony's radical moves. Now here's Chapter Eleven... [more]

011 :
31 Oct 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 10 "Phoebe" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of the story so far: Juana Margarita Obregon, the cardinal's prosecutor in Mexico, stuns the cardinal by appearing in his cathedral plaza, come back, as it were, from the dead. She tells him how she was spared in the jungle holocaust, spared, perhaps, so she could help him re-form the American Church. The cardinal's chancellor, Msgr. Hawkslaw, believes he was brainwashed, a notion more than confirmed when Mahony mounts a Mass of the Resurrection for his martyred captors, confesses his own mishandling of the priestly sex abuse crisis, and tells a packed audience in the cathedral he will be looking for new ways of becoming a Christian. Now here's Chapter Ten... [more]

010 :
24 Oct 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 9 "Resurrection" Robert Blair Kaiser's summary of the story so far: Cardinal Mahony has been taken off on his own helicopter to Mexico and put on trial for his crimes before a worldwide television audience. A jury of his peers finds him guilty and sentences him to become a Christian. Then a troop of Mexican commandos invade the jungle compound and kill everyone except the cardinal. He wakes up in a Los Angeles hospital, with no memory of his ordeal, but with a nagging feeling that he is being called to a new kind of leadership in the American Church. He meets Nick Pike, a Southern California lawyer, and, Sean Sunnyhill, an Australian Jesuit, who start him thinking about some new ways of creating a people’s Church in the U.S. — even if he has to ignore canon law, which Pike suggests has become something of an idol. Now here's Chapter Nine... [more]

009 :
17 Oct 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 8 "Sunnyhill" Introduction by Robert Blair Kaiser: In the previous chapter the cardinal visited a federal lockup to see Nick Pike, a Southern California lawyer whom authorities say was connected to an organization called Para los otros, the group that kidnapped Cardinal Mahony and took him to Mexico. Pike says he helped found Para los otros, but professes ignorance of the kidnapping. He says, however, that the cardinal's suffering has put something new in play. "What?" asks Mahony. Pike says, "You, your Eminence. A new you." Mahony is intrigued by Pike's dream to help re-create "the kind of Church we had in the beginning, a nonclerical Church, a people's Church" and he gets a retired federal judge to secure Pike’s release. Now here's Chapter Eight... [more]

008 :
10 Oct 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 7 "Pike" Introduction by Robert Blair Kaiser: At the beginning of Chapter Seven, Mahony woke in a hospital room in Los Angeles. He had been in a coma for days, but the doctors decided that, though he could remember nothing of his ordeal, he had survived physically. His chancellor Msgr. Jeremiah Hawkslaw took him home to recover in seclusion. After reading accounts in Time and Newsweek about his ordeal, he began to feel a curious compassion for his captors, and he had recurring dreams about a beautiful young mystery woman calling for his help. Now here's Chapter Seven... [more]

007 :
03 Oct 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 6 "Remembering" Introduction by Robert Blair Kaiser: In Chapter Five, the jury found the cardinal guilty on all counts and sentenced him to become a Christian. "What!" he cried, "I have been a Christian all my life." The jury foreman said, "Few have noticed. You have been something of a crook. You lied during your depositions. you hid priests behind the statute of limitations. You bought the silence of their victims. You let your lawyers put legalism ahead of the Gospel. You manipulated the media. Try to think of yourself as a servant of the little people, not their lord and master." Then hell broke loose. Mexican commandos attacked the compound with automatic weapons and grenades. Mahony saw Díaz and Kelly wilt with bullets to the head. Then, for him, everything went black. Now here's Chapter Six... [more]

006 :
26 Sep 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 5 "Verdict" Introduction by Robert Blair Kaiser: In Chapter Four, the cardinal sickened under the assault of all the videotaped testimony against him. His lawyer, Paul Kelly, protests to the judge, "It's like the picadors have weakened the bull enough. Isn't it time to send in the matador?" His nurse/keeper, Maria, takes pity on him when he complains to her, "I thought my people loved me. Now I know. They hate me." Maria says, "They do not hate you. They just think you can be better than you are." The cardinal says he is beginning to fall in love with her. "You only think you do," she says. "Did you ever hear of the Stockholm Syndrome? Like, Patty Hearst fell in love with her kidnappers?" Now here's Chapter Five... [more]

005 :
19 Sep 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 4 "Testimony" Introduction by Robert Blair Kaiser: In Chapter Three, Mahony's prosecutor, Juana Margarita Obregón, presented the jury with one videotaped interview after another with victims of pedophile priests in Los Angeles and their families who never got any comfort from the cardinal. Rather, his prosecutor charged, he had fallen back on a "if only had we known" defense. She tells the court, "This was just another type of denial, a rationalization." Now here's Chapter Four... [more]

004 :
12 Sep 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 3 "Trial" Introduction by Robert Blair Kaiser: In the previous chapter, the cardinal met his judge, Ivan Díaz, the jury (five retired bishops from Latin America), his defense attorney, and his prosecutor, Juana Margarita Obregón, who tells the court (and millions around the world who are watching the trial on TV) that Mahony "has let the unwritten rules of his clerical club undermine the rule of the gospel itself. He has robbed the patrimony of Christ's poor to enrich crafty lawyers—and keep sodomizing priests out of prison." Now here's Chapter Three... [more]

003 :
05 Sep 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 2 "Arraignment" Introduction by Robert Blair Kaiser: In Chapter One, three liberation theologians (who look like terrorists) kidnapped Roger Michael Mahony, the cardinal-archbishop of Los Angeles, and take him off in his own helicopter to face trial for his sins. When his captors demand $49 million ransom, the President of the United States lauched a military task force to rescue him, while the world's media watch with fascination. Now here's Chapter Two... [more]

002 :
29 Aug 2009

Cardinal Mahony — Chapter 1 "Snatch" It is with great pleasure that we are able to bring you today the Preface and Chapter One of Robert Blair Kaiser's novel "Cardinal Mahony". In my own review of the book in 2007 I wrote: "Robert Blair Kaiser has turned to the novel form to advance his prosecution of the case that the Catholic Church is in serious difficulties — and the responsibility for the crisis largely rests with the men at the top who have had responsibility for leading the institution. ... It's a sort of cross between a Morris West novel — with its superb understanding of Catholic Church culture and politics — and a Tom Clancy action thriller." [more]

001 :
29 Aug 2009

Cardinal Mahony — The Preface It is with great pleasure that we are able to bring you today the Preface and Chapter One of Robert Blair Kaiser's novel "Cardinal Mahony". In my own review of the book in 2007 I wrote: "Robert Blair Kaiser has turned to the novel form to advance his prosecution of the case that the Catholic Church is in serious difficulties — and the responsibility for the crisis largely rests with the men at the top who have had responsibility for leading the institution. ... It's a sort of cross between a Morris West novel — with its superb understanding of Catholic Church culture and politics — and a Tom Clancy action thriller." [more]