I must be dreaming! Reading Gary Sterns' blog today, Blogging Religiously, I learned that Aquinas Institute in Saint Louis gave Rocco Palmo, the Whispers in the Loggia blogger, an honorary doctorate while also giving him the privilege of being the commencement speaker on May 7
Admittedly, I am not terribly enthralled with Palmo's perspective church-matters, nor his speculation on some things, nor his disrespect for the Holy Father, hence I wonder by what criteria did Aquinas Institute use to decide on giving Rocco Plamo these honors. But may these are the criteria by which the Dominicans of the Central Province judge excellence, getting in touch with those on the margins and theological thinking. Rocco is hardly a journalist, at least not by industry standards in the way John Allen or or Cindy Wooden or John Thavis are journalists; but he can be informative humorous but much too gossipy (the later not being a Catholic virtue and certainly unbecoming of the new evangelization). What was Aquinas Institute President Father Richard Peddicord thinking?
Could Rocco Palmo be now the new type of preaching we can expect from the Order of Preachers? Even the St Louis Post Dispatch's article is trite. It is a free world, after all, but give me a break. So much living the Dominican motto: to praise, to bless, to preach.
I wouldn’t fret over the Aquinas Institute thing. Seriously. When I was considering joining the Sisters of St. Dominic, Amityville, they were going to send me there my first year of the novitiate. The reason not to be worried (maybe TO BE Worried!) is this: this is the same congregation that told me I should perhaps think of God as a woman when I expressed concern over a nun DURING A HOMILY referring to God as SHE. Oh yeah. This is the same congregation that had girls acting out the gospel (on Sunday) rather than the priest reading it. Oh yeah.