UNITED STATES
Faded Memories blog
January 19, 2019
By Dan Carlson
When I was in Air Force technical school many years ago, one of my instructors kept a toy tractor on his desk. As we in the class learned quickly, the tractor was a useful motivational tool … when a student gave a wrong answer in class, the instructor would pass him the tractor telling him to use it to pull his head out of his … well … someplace where it should not have been.
Watching the continuing comedy of errors in Catholic Church leadership, I have a feeling that my instructor’s tractor could be useful. The most recent candidate for this piece of machinery would have to be Cardinal Donald Wuerl who, last week, remembered that he had forgotten about an accusation he had forwarded to Rome in 2004, concerning sexual misconduct by disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
Yes, you read that correctly … he remembered that he had forgotten.
It is important to note that this hollow explanation follows upon Wuerl’s repeated obfuscation regarding what he knew about McCarrick’s sexual misconduct, when he became aware of it, and what he did about it. Meanwhile, McCarrick, who has been ordered to a life of seclusion, prayer and penance at a friary in Kansas, awaits disposition of his case in the Vatican justice system.
In the late 1970s, comedian Steve Martin explained how using the words “I forgot” can get us out of trouble. Martin went on to explain that it is possible to become wealthy simply by not paying taxes, and when the IRS comes calling all we have to do is say: “I forgot that I am supposed to pay taxes.” The same thing goes for a charge of armed robbery … according to Martin, all we have to tell the judge is: “I forgot armed robbery is illegal.”
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