Burying the lede scorn.

or, Variations on a Theme.

Roger Cohen admirably resists temptation before, alas, succumbing to snark, seven graphs in.

...
As Christians through Easter festivities celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, and Jews through Passover mark deliverance from slavery in Egypt, I prefer to dwell on unity rather than division. Journalism has an inbuilt inclination toward strife that it is as well to resist from time to time.

Oh, the temptation was certainly there — given the Vatican’s amateurish rebuttals of the gravity of sexual abuse among priests, its lashing out at “the gossip of the moment” and the grotesque analogy* (later regretted) drawn by one priest between criticism of the church and anti- Semitism — to devote a column-length excoriation to tone-deaf performances unworthy of high religious holidays.

Pope Benedict XVI of Germany had a very tough act to follow. The least that can be said is that the challenge often appears beyond him.

But popes come and go, as do off-key spin doctors. Easter is about something more riveting: an empty tomb a couple of millennia ago and what that meant. As Jon Meacham has written, “Christianity’s foundational belief is that Jesus was the Son of God, who died and rose again as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of a fallen world.”

The decades old scandal, and coverage of the reforms in place bringing the story up to date, surely deserves the level of scrutiny our two-bit pundits are providing. Not much else happening around the country these early spring days, eh? ;-)


* “The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”


-----------------------

Make it a great Tuesday out there, after the long holiday weekend.

The summer season is afoot. I can smell it already. Our typical Rice Lake ice-out date is mid April. Last Tuesday, the last floe was gone, replaced by glittering waters. And we spent a glorious Easter afternoon paddling the shallows, with the frogs and schools of finger-sized bass -- small fry -- jumping in the reeds. Avoiding the nesting birds, while the turtles and beavers slipped underwater upon approach...