At Mirror of Justice, Patrick Brennan of Villanova comments on John Allen’s interview with Archbishop Myers of Newark:

Little wonder, I suppose, that politicians wishing to abuse and injure the visible communion of the Church have pretty much a green light in New Jersey.  The clergy have effectively put the laity in charge of communion, the laity (we’re told) don’t know what’s going on, and the politicans — who we can be sure do know what’s going on when they claim to have a right to receive communion while causing a scandal to the faithful by there persisent, public disregard of a central, nonnegotiable Church teaching — are without benefit of Church leadership that will teach them that they are putting themselves outside the visible communion of the Church.  Pastoral prudence is called for, to be sure — and it does not include saying in a news interview that the Church cannot protect the sacramental communion because she has turned it over to benighted laity. 

Here is what seems, to me, to be true: When we look back at the history of Christianity, the moments when the Church fails to embody a powerful witness to the Gospel are always those moments in time, in which the Church aligns itself with secular power, or, at the very least, refuses to speak the Truth in the midst of a complicated relationship with secular power.  Yes, hindsight is 20/20, conveniently so, but still, there are lessons that can be learned. And, you would think, should be.