The American Spectator

The letter, a version of which is almost always sent out to the bishops around election time in the United States (across the country, many Catholic priests take the time in homilies before election day to remind parishioners of the Church’s policies in such matters), took on greater meaning in 2004 because Sen. John Kerry made such a production of attending Catholic services and receiving communion during his campaign.

It didn’t help McCarrick that he allowed the Kerry campaign to make public meetings he had with Kerry and his advisers. When, on one occasion, McCarrick went out of his way to hide the meeting, Kerry’s aides leaked word of it anyway.

McCarrick is also known to have prevented the founding of at least one orthodox Catholic studies program that was seeking his support to open a small two-year college in Washington, D.C. Known as Campion College, it would have served as a feeder school to Catholic University, Christendom College in Virginia, and the soon-to-open Ave Maria University in Florida, and offered philosophy and theology courses to young professionals in the Washington area interested in expanding their Catholic faith. The program had the support of a number of high-ranking conservatives in the Vatican.

In Rome, after the election of Pope Benedict, rumors swirled that McCarrick, along with several other prominent American Cardinals, had initially thrown their support behind Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, a political moderate, but one in line with the Church’s important teachings.

ANOTHER CARDINAL PERHAPS looking over his shoulder is Los Angeles’s Roger Mahony, who more than any other American Catholic leaders except Cardinal Bernard Law, is stained by the covering up for pedophiles in the Catholic Church.

But Mahony has other issues that have caught the eye of Rome in the past few years, not the least of which were his attempts to block Los Angeles parishioners from taking part in traditional Latin masses in his diocese. At one point, Mahony claimed that only Catholics who attended such masses back in 1965 would be allowed to participate in the Tridentine Mass.

“That hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, but Mahony’s maneuvers in that case have been remembered here,” says the Vatican source. “Some of these gentlemen may have thought they would outlive the strict enforcement of doctrine. The confirmation and ascension of Pope Benedict is evidence that they will not.”

Why would the Tridentine Mass controversy stand out? Perhaps, in part, because Pope Benedict XVI has often spoken and written about the beauty and spirituality of the Latin Mass, and its focus on Christ and His sacrifice. As recently as two years ago, then Cardinal Ratzinger reaffirmed his belief that there was a place for portions of the Latin Mass in today’s liturgies.