Sunday, September 14, 2008

An Irish Tragedy by Joe Rigert

There is a new book, An Irish Tragedy, by Joe Rigert that has two chapters dedicated to the topic of the infamous and somewhat banished first bishop of Knoxville, Tennessee, Anthony J. O'Connell.

I am looking forward to reading this book and am especially interested in the part on O'Connell. There is so much left unknown and unsaid about O'Connell. My greatest fear is that we will forget about him to the point that he will drift off to Europe and become a renowned leader of a basilica or cathedral or other edifice of note.

After all Cardinal Bernard Law, his best buddy forever, was rightly humiliated in Boston and then went to Europe to become the potentate of a huge church in Rome. What a punishment! Talk about the ultimate "getting bumped upstairs" situation.

I am so afraid that O'Connell will trade his peaceful, posh, carefree existence at Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, for an equally posh existence in Rome or Ireland or some other unsuspecting region of the world.

He deserves jail. He gets comfort. Not fair at all.

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