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Saturday, April 16, 2016

Let the light shine



When I was a child I spent the night at a friend's house and at some point I got out of bed to get something to drink. I walked into the kitchen and turned on the light. There was a huge brown shimmering circle on the wall above the sink. Before I could figure out what this weird sight was, it broke apart and the thousands, (millions?), of German cockroaches that had been socializing on the wall fled from the light. I stood there and no longer wanted drink of water. I went back to bed and when my mother came for me in the morning I couldn't wait to go to home. I told Mama what I'd seen and she never allowed me to spend the night anywhere ever again. Every time the mother of my friend invited me over Mama had a plausible reason why I couldn't go. She didn't want to shame the woman but there was no way she was letting her child visit a roach infested house.



When I read on the  An Archdiocese of Washington DC  blog that the head of the U.S. bishop's news agency has resigned I thought of those cockroaches having a merry time in the dark and how they scattered when I turned the light on. Tony Spence had a lot to say on Twitter as was his right. Twitter in the case of non- celebrities or non-public officials is practically semi-private. People who don't have a Twitter accounts  or even know that you exist  would never know what you said about anything unless someone brought it to their attention. The Lepanto Institute  shone a light on his comments. The interesting question is this: Was Mr. Spence speaking for himself alone or was he really speaking for  members of the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops who prefer to keep their true feelings in the dark?