For some retirement is the rocking chair and a liquid at hand. Not for the peripatetic former Cardinal Archbishop of Washington. Few American prelates will ever amass the frequent flier miles of this cutting edge St. Francis Xavier. This last week the Cardinal was in Canada. He had been invited by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to speak to the gathering of all the Canadian Bishops who recently returned from their ad limina-visit with Pope Benedict. The Cardinal was asked to speak about dialogues with politicians. A full copy of the remarks can be found and read at the following website address for the CCCB: http://www.cccb.ca/MediaReleases.htm. Sitting with Cardinal McCarrick is the Archbishop of Quebec, Cardinal Marc Oulette. The statement is truly worth reading to understand some aspects of the dialogue that did not become public during our last presidential election. Surely the Cardinal's remarks do put something of an "end" to the stories about the Cardinal and Cardinal Ratizinger dialog about the matter. As Cardinal McCarrick noted, the focus of the national debate and what I would call "argument" focused on reception of communion rather than the central issue of life, the protection of the life of the unborn. Again, it its worth the read if you ever questioned the position that Cardinal McCarrick put forward during the "debate."
