Flagellum Dei

While the Catholic Church is less than enamored of Sully, it mightily digs Boy George's favorite-ist Justice, Nino Scalia. And there's nought that Nino likes better than a good ol' asswhipping from the Big Man himself. A rhetorical and heterosexual asswhipping, but an asswhipping nonetheless. Because God always hurts the one he loves.

Nino is such a favorite of God's that he can joke with Bill Safire about his (Nino's) grammatical constructions in Lawrence v. Texas without concern that the deity will smite him as a bigot. Safire says:

But his attempt to be a regular guy backfired. In a jocular tone, Scalia observes: ''God -- whom I believe to be a strict grammarian as well as an Englishman -- has punished me. The misquotation would have been more difficult to engineer had there been an apostrophe after 'homosexuals.' I am convinced that in this instance the A.P. has been (unwittingly, I am sure) the flagellum Dei to recall me from my populist, illiterate wandering. (You will note that I did not say 'from me wandering.')''

Har de har har har.

And Nino loves the pecking order: God punishes man for poor grammar, while man incarcerates gay men for acts of love. And all is right with the world.

Reading Sully's Sunday sermon in the Times, I wondered what he could possibly find admirable about the Catholic Church. It must be the class of people it attracts.