Nicholas Senz: Some Bishops Need to Lose Their Lives to Find Them

By Nicholas Senz, First Things, Sept. 26, 2018 

To say one thing and mean its opposite is a special skill of the politician. No other creature is as practiced at leaving a certain impression without actually having said anything, and leaving plenty of room for deniability – and, of course, the kind of “clarification” that effectively becomes obfuscation.

When politicians are caught in misdeeds, they give non-apologies that sound contrite but that, upon closer examination, neither admit what was done nor express regret for it. Politicians do not make mistakes; rather, “mistakes were made.” The passive voice leaves the identity of the mistake-doer a mystery.

Likewise, politicians do not apologize for any actions. Instead, they apologize for “the hurt that these actions may have caused.” It is for the sadness and anger engendered that the politician is sorry, because they hurt his public image. He is not sorry for what he has done, for he will not even admit to that; he is sorry he got caught, and that people are now mad at him. And to save face, the politician often blames the scandal on a conspiracy by his ideological opponents to discredit him……Read more….https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2018/09/26/some-bishops-need-to-lose-their-lives-to-find-them/