IT SPILLS OVER. Honor and integrity are part of our daily course of living. They, along with other basic qualities of good living, are not mere switches to be turned “off” or “on” as might seem to suit some shadowy whim.
We have two cases before us at the moment in which we are being asked to decide if it is “right” for us to do so-and-so.
The latest such puzzle was laid on us this past week when a prelate at the Vatican in Rome let it become known that he had no intent to fulfill the direct order of the deceased pontiff demanding that all personal notes and writings of his tenure as head of the Church in Rome and around the world, be utterly destroyed -“burned”,I think, was the actual method called for, concerning the ultimate place of all his personal papers and other items which mark the memory of a dearly-loved, and, I assume, a just and decision-making man who certainly did not please everyone. It is in the personal papers that such unpleasant scene might be recorded.
Pope John wanted all such materials o be destroyed. He trusted his secretary-confidante secretary to do so, and now,just a few weeks after his death, we find that the priest refuses to burn the offending writings. He feels “they might contain valuable material.”
You can say that again, Holy Brother! Such papers are of great value in many ways and too far too many people to simply let it be known they might be for sale along the line. There must a score of “legal” ways whereby the use -an mis-use - of such papers might be restricted for a time by an edict of some sort rather than a now jobless secretary-priest saying: I'm not gonna do it!”
For the second time within a few weeks we, the American people, are being asked to give our opinion of the right or wrong aspects of such quandaries. Or, have you already forgotten that we are being asked in another such matter concerning the strange case of a former second-in-command of the nation's F.B.I. who found it easy to break his sworn oaths to serve us and sell political secrets and favor an opposing camp enough bring down a Presidency of our nation in doing so. “Sell”, is not too strong a word, either. He received as payment a quarter of a century of notoriety as a mystery figure in our national history and he will not be forgotten. Scorned,I hope, but not forgotten.
A.L.M. June 5, 2005 [c606wds]
