Send in the Clowns, by Charles Coulombe

By Charles Coulombe, Crisis Magazine, Jan. 16, 2024

Charles A. Coulombe is a contributing editor at Crisis and the magazine’s European correspondent. He previously served as a columnist for the Catholic Herald of London and a film critic for the National Catholic Register. A celebrated historian, his books include Puritan’s Empire and Star-Spangled Crown. He resides in Vienna, Austria and Los Angeles, California.

Maintaining a sense of humor in light of the depraved and cruel actions of some prelates is a healthy and necessary response for Catholics.

Two recent events in the seemingly endless parade of the bizarre that this pontificate is producing hit this writer all at once. One was of worldwide importance and the other, purely local. The first was the revelation that Cardinal Fernandez had authored some excruciatingly theological hard-core porn and published it some years ago. The second was the surprise suppression of the Tridentine Mass at New Haven, Connecticut’s St. Stanislaus Church after 38 years—in accordance, of course, with the effluvia blowing from the Holy See in the wake of Traditionis Custodes. Strangely, the depravity of the one seemed perfectly matched with the soulless cruelty of the other. …

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