Archbishop Harry Flynn Smacks Down Katherine Kersten

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From today's Strib:

Katherine Kersten's column of Dec. 4 ("Battle for soul of St. Thomas takes a turn for the worse") was an inaccurate and slanted portrayal of the current and future Catholicity of the University of St. Thomas.

I simply wish to make two points about the statement she quoted as being from our "Archdiocesan spokesman":

First, the statement we e-mailed and faxed to her was headlined as being a "Statement of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis." It came from me, not from our "spokesman."

Second, and more important, Kersten used only the first sentence of my statement in her column. The other two sentences were ignored. They read as follows: "The Saint Thomas board will always include bishops or priests. Any rumors or speculation about the 'de-Catholicization of the University of Saint Thomas are ill founded, inaccurate and ludicrous.'"

The editing of my statement leaves open to question her motivation in writing this one-sided and inaccurate column.

THE REV. HARRY J. FLYNN, ST. PAUL;

ARCHBISHOP OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS

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Good for Harry. St. Thomas has been taking its licks lately, but there are a lot of good folks over there struggling with what it means to be a Catholic institution of higher education.

Katherine Kersten is a columnist for the Strib of the, shall we say, conservative persuasion. She's there for balance, apparently.

The Strib has also had its own problems lately. They've let go a lot of good newspaper people and seem really squishy and afraid to take much of a stand on anything.

Today Par Ridder resigned from the Strib. He used to be over at the Pioneer Press, and jumped ship - along with a laptop containing, shall we say, useful information - to join the Strib.

I know it is hard to believe, but that's the way it is here in the vicinity of Lake Wobegon. Every once in a while the cloud of irrationality drifts over to BigU, or the TwinCities, or the State Capitol, or the whole state. Recall that we are the folks who elected Jesse Ventura, a professional wrestler, to be governor.

Of course there has always been a red phone line between the Strib editorial office and Morrill Hall [aka the U of M admin building, the one the river of money runs through] - Mr. B. has pointed out an example of this in the past, see "If You Build It, Grants Will Come."

Of course there is more to it than the above paragraphs. Feel free to chime in. I just wanted anyone who dropped in from the outside world to have a little hint of what this post was about.

Back to business, Bonzo