WashingtonPost: McCarrick retiring soon

The Washington Post reports:

"Although the Vatican has not announced a date for his departure or given any clues to who his successor might be, McCarrick said, 'I am getting the sense that this is going to happen soon.'"

Some other quotes:

"'I'm not the ideal archbishop,' he said."

"McCarrick said yesterday that "the life issues are primary." But he said he worries about a "loss of civility" in politics and rising stridency among religious leaders in telling politicians, and even voters, how they must act, not just on broad moral issues but on particular legislation or in particular races."

"I'm afraid there are a lot more people in the church who think that things are black and white," he said. "No one can really read another person's conscience. . . . I hope it is not cowardice, I hope it is prudence -- we must always give people the benefit of the doubt."

McCarrick declined to speculate on his successor but set a high bar. "The fellow who comes should be a great leader. He should not be afraid of you people," he said, referring to the news media. "He should be a holy man. He should be a great teacher, and he should teach more by example than with words. And he should be funny."

Cardinal McCarrick also has something to say today about Pope Benedict:

''I'm sure he [Benedict] has surprised some of the very conservative people, but that's because they didn't really know him. They just saw one side of him, which was his responsibility as guardian of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,'' said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington.

''I think this Holy Father is a man in the center, and we're seeing that now,'' the cardinal said.

Reading through the news stories published at Pope Benedict's one year anniversary, if I had to sum-up today's evaluation of Pope Benedict by the mainstream media in one phrase, it would be just that, "Benedict the centrist."

Now, that phrase sure is "nice" and "non-challenging," but is it really that accurate? Is it a bad thing that Pope Benedict has been playing his hand so close to his chest that no one realizes how challenging his pontificate really has been? This includes - arguably - the people we would think need to realize it the most - the media themselves, who are so influential in shaping public opinion. I mean, how effective is the Pope's approach if most the world is missing the point, or ignorant that a message is being preached in the first place?

Hmm, maybe you just can't trust the media with anything so that is why Pope Benedict is choosing to go beneath their radar. I don't know. I do know I dislike it when Pope Benedict is described as a "centrist" (which seems to carry with it the tacit condemnation that he really doesn't matter all that much). "Centrist" seems to be a throw-away compliment, in other words. What I can't decide if it's a good thing that the media just hasn't a clue.