One of the chores of blogging is the constant struggle to get everyone to understand where you’re coming from. In other words, the continual re-introduction of yourself to new readers. Sometimes I try, most of the time I give up. Read the archives!

Anyway, over at Dawn Eden’s blog, she posted about the latest Crisis e-letter in which Brian St. Paul remarked on the latest Orthodox troubles (blogged here earlier this week) in the context of the interest some RC’s have felt about Orthodoxy in light of our own problems. It struck Dawn and many of her commentors as triumphalistic (someone posted the text of the letter in the comments) and one commentor brought me into it, specifically the post on the Kentucky Porsche-buying minister and his congregation’s support for him, about which I commented "Of course."

Was I being triumphalistic? Well, here’s where the "Get to Know Your Blogger" part comes in. Here’s what I explained in the comments:

For the past three years a constant theme on my blog has been the Errant Cleric (usually RC) and The Congregation That Loves Him. That is, we get our stories of priests who have abused, embezzled and downloaded child pornography, and in a shocking number of circumstances that priest’s parish rends its collective garments and gnashes its teeth in mourning – not at the priest’s sins, but at the prospect of him being taken away from them. I’ve posted several articles about such priests being given standing ovations upon their return to parish life, or upon the occasion of their fairwell homilies.

That Kentucky pastor story was just the latest variation on a favorite (although regrettable) theme of my blog, and happened to be not a Catholic.

The broader theme, of great interest to me, is leadership in religious institutions, period, and how power (and there are different types of it) affects ministry, no matter what the denomination.