I asked for it
Reading one of Gerald's post this morning on Fr. Brennan and his attempt to make the Catholic Church relevant through irreverence he had another one of his scary Sister Chittister morphings. I had heard Laura Ingraham on her show yesterday referring to Sr Chittister as Sister Michael Moore after seeing her appearance on Meet the Press. Beware of what you ask for.
Today Laura Ingraham was covering ABC's Good Morning America treatment of Opus Dei with Diane Sawyer.
"We are going to explore some of the provocative questions raised even by this building which is said to have so much money, this organization 3 billion dollars. What do they do with it and what about the practices we keep reading about. Inflicting pain on yourself in order to be close to Jesus."
Laura said that she hoped Dan Brown had stock in ABC since they have been hawking the Da Vinci Code 24/7 pretty much since the book came out. Covering the money angle is pretty silly making a big deal out of an international personal prelature of the Catholic Church having 3 Billion. This is only slightly more than twice of Oprah Winfrey's worth and the same as George Lucas. Pretty strange how provocative questions are raised by a building.
You don't give out names of the members. Is Justice Scalia a member?
Lot of prep work done ahead of time by Diane Sawyer there. Five seconds on Google would have shown this to be confirmed as untrue, though even if he was - so what? Though I found it funny that she says they don't give out names and then asks for a name. Another strange part was Diane Sawyer saying that they didn't even have a sign on the building years before. Especially since the building was only built in 2001.
Known as 
Is Diane Sawyer a member?
She says no, but...
Unfortunately we don't get Laura Ingraham in Kansas City anymore! Nevertheless I went and watched the Diane Sawyer inerview - I cannot believe they pay her to do any show at all!
One question was particularly
telling ...Something straight out of the Kennedy/Kerry playbook: So you try to incorporate prayer and to make your faith a part of everything you do? (like that's wierd) so that's what sets you apart from other members of the Catholic Church? (Sawyer was serious!) How outrageous! How utterly outrageous!
Of course Diane Sawyer didn't want to know if Justice Scalia is a member of Opus Dei. If the answer was no--as it would have been-- then she couldn't ask the question on TV. Why the passion to ask the question??? The book and movie do a total smear job on Opus Dei--just bringing up Scalia's name in the same breath envelops him in the smear-in all likelihood her purpose all along.
The deacon is perfectly right: she didn't want to know if he was a member, she wanted to ask on television if he was a member. She accomplished her purpose - introducing the idea that Our Sacred Freedom of Choice was in the hands of the willing slave of a scary-sounding Catholic organization - merely by asking the question.