Rage against the machine

Rod Dreher: Where's the rage, Catholic men?

Rod Dreher's recent article in the Dallas Morning News needs to be distributed to every Roman Catholic man in America.

You'll have to register on their website to read it, but never fear. I told them I lived on 123 Main St. in Kabul Afgahnistan, so don't let that roadblock stop you.

Here's a brief excerpt, posted without permission:

Why aren't the men who run the Catholic church raging against the cruelty of priests who prey on kids? Why do so many good priests and Catholic laymen remain as docile as eunuchs despite it all? Do we think we're not going to have to answer to God for our moral cowardice?

Within the church, there is a culture of what C.S. Lewis called "men without chests." Most of us go along to get along, shirking our duties as Christians and men to protect the weak and guard the integrity of the religious community.

Here we are on the fourth Ash Wednesday of the church's long scandal-ridden Lent. As we examine our consciences in Mass today, we ought to be asking ourselves what our sons and daughters, if they remain Catholic, surely will one day: Where were you when the church needed good men to stand up to defend what's right?

As Police Inspector Hans Wilhelm Friederich Kemp said in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, "A riot is an ugly thing...and I think that it is just about time that we had one!"