The Rude Pundit offers a tantalizing tidbit about St. Patrick, who is preparing to drive the serpents out of DC.
I had a Jesuit professor at Loyola--Father Fitzgerald taught me Latin and Art History, and he was one amazing sumbitch, having been president of St. Louis University at one point and a big wig at Georgetown before "retiring" to Baltimore to teach. He was good friends with the King of Jordan and his Yank wife. One day Fr. Fitzgerald was waiting for Buf, Sluggo and me out in the cold snowy commuter parking lot when I pulled up at 7am because he'd heard a dozen people were killed on I-83 by a tractor trailer jumping the median. "I just wanted to make sure my boys from PA were OK," he said. Fr. Fitz, despite his fervent faith, was no sucka for Orthodoxy, often turning his Jesuit analytic skills on his own Church. He blasted John Paul II's policies routinely in class, he was critical of the hierarchy at Loyola College, and said often that the school should hand out condoms and beer to the students. "Kids have always had sex and gotten drunk. They did so long before Christ and they continue to do so now. We should act in ways to minimize the negative consequences of their decisions, and if people are dying from AIDS and drunk driving, then we're sinning if we don't find ways to keep them alive--even if those ways are contrary to Church doctrine." He was never afraid to choose his own view of right vs. wrong over what his superiors told him should be his view. He also not only tolerated my obstinant athiesm, but at times cultivated it.
I'm counting on Pat Fitzgerald to live up to that fiercely independent legacy.
