{"id":14098,"date":"2013-04-26T15:25:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T19:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/?p=14098"},"modified":"2013-04-26T15:25:14","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T19:25:14","slug":"at-bostons-bombing-scene-catholic-priests-need-not-apply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2013\/04\/at-bostons-bombing-scene-catholic-priests-need-not-apply\/","title":{"rendered":"At Boston’s bombing scene: Catholic priests need not apply"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phil Lawyer posts at CatholicCulture.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Graham tells me something that I hadn\u2019t heard about Boston Marathon bombing. As dozens of victims were sprawled across Boylston Street, many of them in danger of death, Catholic priests came running to the scene\u2014and were turned away.<\/p>\n

Doctors and nurses were welcome at the bombing scene. Firefighters and police officers were welcome. But Catholic priests, who might have offered the solace of the sacraments, were not.<\/p>\n

\u201dCatholics need not apply.\u201d That slogan was familiar in Boston years ago, before Irish and Italian immigrants took over control of the city. Now, after decades of decline in Catholic influence , the attitude has returned. One priest who was barred from Boylston Street remarked that in the past a priest was admitted anywhere. \u201cThat\u2019s changed,\u201d he said. \u201cPriests are no longer considered to be emergency responders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unless police officers in Boston are uniquely hostile to priests (a distinct possibility), the tide has turned very quickly on this question. On September 11, 2001, there were Catholic priests at the staging areas near the World Trade Center, giving absolution to firefighters before they rushed into the doomed building: mass-producing saints!<\/p>\n

Unable to provide spiritual help to those whose lives were endangered, the priests in Boston retreated to a nearby church, were they \u201cset up a table with water and oranges and bananas to serve people.\u201d Doesn\u2019t that nicely capture what a once-Catholic, now-secular culture expects from the Church? It\u2019s not essential for priests to administer the sacraments; in fact it\u2019s unwelcome. But if they could just stay out of the way, and give people something to eat, that would be fine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If true this is extremely sad but not surprising. Just another move into the \u201cbodies without souls\u201d direction. First responders now can not be last rite responders. I wonder how other clergy were treated? I remember that wonderful scene at the start of The Apostle with Robert Duvall involving this.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Graham captures the problem well:<\/p>\n

But it is a poignant irony that Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy who died on Boylston Street, was a Catholic who had received his first Communion just last year. As Martin lay dying, priests were only yards away, beyond the police tape, unable to reach him to administer last rites\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On a related note I would wonder about the \u201cCatholics need not apply\u201d, there is the semi-famous \u201cNo Irish Need Apply\u201d that might well be a historical myth in America imported from experience abroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The fact that Irish vividly \u201cremember\u201d NINA signs is a curious historical puzzle. There are no contemporary or retrospective accounts of a specific sign at a specific location. No particular business enterprise is named as a culprit. No historian, archivist, or museum curator has ever located one; no photograph or drawing exists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Still you don\u2019t need physical signs to harbor that attitude as the Obama administration has shown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phil Lawyer posts at CatholicCulture.org. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Graham tells me something that I hadn\u2019t heard about Boston Marathon bombing. As dozens of victims were sprawled…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14098"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14100,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14098\/revisions\/14100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}