1935

My after church drive yesterday, thank you, Bill, a car of my dreams. Smooth. Ask the man who owns one.

Early morning, car service, black shirt, collar, perhaps a hospital call after. Lovely end-of- August morning hoping soon for fall. Even though summer isn't over until 2/3rds of the way through next month, the very word September calls up longings for the cool and colorful autumns of memory, memories. Fall 1957, Rhode Island when the world was new. Others before and after.

Extended, busy but happy week looms, visit with friends, wedding, supply next Sunday as football season opens promising for some doubtful for many. Go Gators. Go Blue. Don't roll Tide. Don't chop Seminoles.

Time marches on and in it McCain v & RC uproar (scroll), re which nothing substantive will come. As clergy, I see what is happening, absolute confidence of the confessional, penance and absolution with "go, and sin no more," and all is "under the stole," but RC fails to grasp that child abuse takes precedence over, overrules, cancels out confidentiality of the confessional and if massive defrockings are not forthcoming, the guilt remains and let the cards tumble.

T  

Pope Francis' weekend trip to Ireland was already going to be difficult, with the clergy sex abuse scandals swirling around the church. It became even more so after an ex-church official called on Francis to resign for his handling of the cases. Carlo Maria Vigano, a former archbishop and Vatican ambassador to the US, claimed he told Francis about sex abuse allegations against American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick five years ago, but that the Pope did nothing. Francis, during Mass in Dublin yesterday, asked for forgiveness for abuses and told reporters on his flight back to Italy that he wouldn't say "a single word" about Vigano's allegations.