America's Roman Catholic bishops aren't completely obsessed by abortion and gay marriage. My former colleague Ann Rodgers, one of the best religion reporters around, reports in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that bishops have been battling over whether to approve a retro English translation of the Mass with more traditional (and, critics charge, more stilted) language.

The new/old language won out at the recent bishops' conference. So now when the priest says "The Lord be with you," the congregation will reply "And with your spirit," not "and also with you," the current, clunky and inaccurate translation of the response I learned as an altar boy: "Et cum spiritu tuo." Like W.H. Auden, I believe that you can combine conservatism in liturgical language with more progressive political view.

Conservatism is cool even when it leads to technical language. Take the line in the Nicene Creed in which, in recent years, Jesus has been described as "one in being with the Father." Now he will be described as  "consubstantial with the Father." Abstruse? Perhaps. But truer to the Latin rendering of a Greek theological distinction that once led to violence between Christians. Confusion can beget a look into church history.

Even archaic non-theological language can be a spur to education. When Christians used to say that Christ would return to judge the "quick and the dead," parents could explain to their bewildered children that "quick" referred not to marathon runners but to those who were living, who had been quickened in their mothers' wombs. The lesson could then turn to the expression "cut to the quick."

Now that the Vatican has invited restive Anglicans to bring at least some parts of their majestic Book of Common Prayer with them when they cross the Tiber, the "regular" Catholic Church has to worry about non-tone-deaf believers switching  to the new church-within-a-church. The new/old liturgy approved by the bishops could be a bulwark against such defections.

-- Michael McGough

I met Tim Russert only once, before a "Meet the Press" debate between two Senate candidates from my home state of Pennsylvania. Russert was engaging, impressively au courant with Keystone State politics and, well, a nice guy. I also admired his work, and I was sad when he died before his time. (You never hear about someone dying at his time.)

Still, I cringed at the excessiveness of his obsequies. Journalism has a long, and appealingly human, tradition of providing a little nicer send-off to colleagues than someone in another business might receive. That's why newspapers give their own printers and truck drivers suspiciously long obituaries. The over-the-top eulogies for Russert were a species of this phenomenon, but that didn't make them less bizarre. I like to think that Russert, looking down, would want to interrupt his media mourners in mid-gush just the way he called politicians on their prevarications.

But at least that's over now -- except that it isn't. Tomorrow the Newseum (I know, it's a goofy name for an interesting resource) will unveil a new exhibit: a re-creation of Russert's office at NBC News, complete with his desk "stacked high with research material, books and handwritten notes, illustrating the rigorous preparation Russert put into each show" and "mementos of his beloved Buffalo Bills." What, no Rolodex?

This has just a whiff of the medieval Catholic practice of venerating relics of the saints, which probably would amuse Russert -- and, I hope, embarrass him.

Maybe it's because I'm a long-ago high school newspaper editor, but I was shocked and appalled (nobody is ever shocked but not appalled) by a New York Times report that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy -- "widely regarded as one of the court’s most vigilant defenders of First Amendment values" -- insisted on reviewing and tweaking an article about his appearance at a private school in New York. The student newspaper at the Dalton School published a tantalizing editor's note saying: "We are not able to cover the recent visit by a Supreme Court justice due to numerous publication constraints."

Then I read the Times article again and discerned some shades of ethical gray. It's true, as Frank D. LoMonte of the Student Press Law Center said, that "in the professional world, it would be a nonstarter if a source demanded prior approval of coverage of a speech." But apparently Kennedy's purpose wasn't to vet the article as a whole but to reconsider the felicity of some of his phraseology.

It wasn't clear whether he made this request in advance. But if he did, and the agreement was confined to allowing him to polish his prose, I'm less shocked but still somewhat appalled. My own practice as a reporter was to refuse at the outset to show my completed story to an interviewee. As for quotes, I never would allow someone to retract or rephrase an answer because of second thoughts about its political effect.

But I made an exception when I did a series of interviews with prominent intellectuals. One law professor, in explaining his constitutional philosophy, used an analogy in reference to the Constitution. He later called me to suggest a different analogy that he said more precisely made his point. I let him change it, because the whole purpose of the piece was to let him present his thinking in his own words.

The difference here is that the Kennedy story was an account of an event at which an audience heard the justice's original words. That tips the scales of journalistic justice. Kennedy said what he said; if he wanted to correct it, he should have written a letter to the editor.

Actually, there's a precedent. Last year the court ruled that the death penalty couldn't be imposed for rape. Writing for the court, Kennedy cited as proof that the penalty was cruel and unusual the fact that, while 26 states and the federal government, had the death penalty, "only six of those jurisdictions authorize the death penalty for the rape of a child." After the decision, a blogger pointed out that the Uniform Code of Military Justice allowed the death sentence in the rape of a child, a fact the court had overlooked

The court added a footnote rectifying its omission -- but it didn't blot out the original language.

--Michael McGough

It was a blow to Roman Catholic liberals when the Vatican announced last month that it would welcome, en masse, conservative Anglicans who share the pope's opposition to female clergy and traditional views about homosexuality. But there was a silver lining for liberals: The fact that in welcoming married Anglican priests to the fold, Pope Benedict XVI was perhaps opening the door to married priests within so-called Latin Rite Catholicism. (Eastern Rite Catholics, who recognize the pope's authority but follow rites similar to those of Eastern Orthodoxy, do ordain married men, though Eastern Catholics in the United States were pressured to conform to Western practice so as not to "scandalize" their Irish Catholic neighbors).

But the publication this week of the decree implementing the overture to Anglicans suggests that the slope to married Catholic priests isn't that slippery. After saying that married former Anglican priests could be ordained as Catholic priests, the "Apostolic Constitution" stops short of adopting the Anglican practice of routinely ordaining men who want to become priests.

While authorities of the new church-within-a-church will abide by "the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule," an "ordinary" (a bishop or former Anglican bishop) may also ask the pope for permission to ordain married men "on a case-by-case basis." This could be a face-saving way to perpetuate the Anglican tradition of a married clergy without saying so, or it could be a warning that married Anglican laymen will be ordained only rarely. Either way, the new Anglican body within Catholicism will not have the autonomy enjoyed by the Eastern Catholic churches.

The more stinging rebuff to Roman Catholic advocates of married priests is this rather mean-spirited provision of a companion document: "Those who have been previously ordained in the Catholic Church and subsequently have become Anglicans, may not exercise sacred ministry in the Ordinariate." In other words, if you left the Catholic Church and now want to return alongside other Anglican priests, you are treated worse than an Anglican priest who never belonged to the Catholic Church in the first place.

Perhaps the purpose of this provision is to prevent married Roman Catholics who want to be ordained as priests to pretend to convert to Anglicanism so that they can go back through the revolving church door and be accepted as married Catholic priests. But how likely is that? And if the church is willing to incorporate Anglican traditions that don't violate Catholic doctrine (as opposed to a mere regulation like mandatory celibacy), why not treat the new Anglican Rite exactly as the Eastern churches are treated? The only justification for that inconsistency is to stifle discussion about ending mandatory celibacy for Roman Catholic priests.

-- Michael McGough

LONDON -- Like most Anglophiles, I feel cheated when I cross the pond and find myself listening to American accents or walking past Burger King and McDonald's in search of a British pub, only to find the bar cluttered with Rolling Rock and Bud taps. What we want is contrast (like Conservative proto-Prime Minister David Cameron embracing the National Health Service, a.k.a. the public option, as he did in a speech today).

Likewise, I relish reading the British papers with their accounts of endless "rows" -- an all-purpose, headline-friendly word that covers everything from mild disagreement to nuclear war -- even though I do keep up with the Times (our Times) online.  From my first visit to Britain as a high school student, coming here has been a trans-dimensional experience.  As they used to say of Earth-Two, the parallel universe in DC Comics, Britain was a world like our own, but with subtle and interesting differences.

That's less and less true in London with its similarities to other cosmpolitan, multicultural cities like L.A., New York and D.C.  But London isn't Britain (or even England) in the way New York isn't the United States. Thus I was chuffed, as they say here, to spend Sunday in the country celebrating (with 90 others) the christening of the son of an old friend. From the Saxon church where the baby was sprinkled by a Central Casting English vicar, we repaired to the manor (no kidding) for a post-baptismal repast.

An Anglophile's dream, but -- Globalization Spoiler Alert -- U.S. politics intruded even in this settiing. I found myself sitting with an American who engaged me in a mostly friendly discussion about whether Obama was really born in the U.S. (and where's that original birth certificate?). The really depressing thing wasn't that a fellow American asked for my view of the Birthers, but that English heads inclined interestedly to hear my answer (which, by the way, was "bunk').

More tea, Vicar? -- and how about that Glenn Beck?

--Michael McGough

  In today's editorial and opinion pages, the Times editorial board gives former Assembly Speaker Fabuan Nuñez a shout-out for being cleared of ethics charges arising from his lavish spending, and then gives him a shout-down for the underlying actions. No, he's not a crook. But he still relied too heavily on the largesse of donors with issues to press in Sacramento.

And we pair a shout-down of Philadelphia Eagles player Michael Vick's dogfighting operation with a shout-out to Wayne Pacelle of the the Humane Society of the United States -- for going on a, pardon the expression, dog-and-pony tour with Vick to educate communities about stopping cruelty to animals.

And shoutouts and shout downs abound for the food industry's Smart Choices program.

Columnist Meghan Daum weighs in on farming-chic, and two folks sack Sacramento's recent move to waive environmental laws to hasten construction of a football stadium in Los Angeles or, rather, the City of Industry. Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) worries that the Legislature "opened the floodgates" to future exemptions to the California Environmental Quality Act. And sports author Dave Zirin sees just the latest in a series of sweetheart deals between unwitting taxpayers and tycoon team owners.

Photo: AP/Nick Ut

I don't usually consider Facebook posts to be worthy of transplanting to a (cough cough) professional blog like this one, but I'm making an exception for an FB thread about a Washington Post story.

The article focused on Georgetown University sophomore who has advertised for a personal assistant who would handle tasks "such as organizing his closet, dropping him off and picking him up from work, scheduling haircuts, putting gas in the car and taking it in for service, managing his electronic accounts and doing laundry (although the assistant will be paid only for the time spent loading, unloading and folding clothes, not the entire laundry cycle)." The pay: $10-$12 an hour.

One response was whimsical: "Just this morning I told my mom I needed a PA. She laughed at me. Then [she] saw this article on Facebook and told me about it." (Oh, oh, Parent On Social Media Alert!) But the Facebooker who introduced the subject considered the student's quest  "the most egregious of all insults."

 I weighed in ...

I've tried to stay away from all Glenn Beck-associated commentary in recent days -- he's such an easy target and I hate being part of a media herd.  But his latest rant is just too funny. The Huffington Post has a video of Beck that's really worth viewing. In it he pontificates that progressives used to be called "tyrants," or "slave-owners -- people who encouraged you to become dependent on them."

..."Encouraged you to become dependent on them."

Encouraged.

That is just priceless. And pretty neat. Now that I'm done laughing about encouraged slaves were (but hey,  at least he didn't say "enticed")  I have to admit that although he's completely insane and thoroughly inaccurate, Beck also makes a rather elegant toss of the race dice.

Conservatives, of course, were slave-owners and liberals were not. Conservatives in the 19th century believed in the tyranny of state government and liberals did not.  Everyone with a shred of understanding about American history knows that. We had a whole war over it.

But since Beck is probably not genuinely stupid, I'm going to say he's tapping into a sentiment that is very much alive in Confederate USA. Many southern conservatives (AKA the Republican base) still argue that the federal government had no right to restrict the tyranny of slave-owners. For it to do so was, well, tyrannical. As were later federal restrictions on state restrictions regarding segregation in schools, housing, public education, etc... Tyranny, tyranny, tyranny, tyranny!

And hey, Obama's half black and half white, so it's sort of neat. Kind of a two-fer. Either way he's to blame. (For being unduly encouraging or overly encouraged or promoting encouragement or something like that).

Seriously, you have to respect this. Saying so much with so few words is really a craft.

-Lisa Richardson

Photo: Glenn Beck addresses fans at Safeco Field in Seattle on Sept. 26. Credit: Alan Berner / AP.

The Vatican today announced a new arrangement under which Anglicans may enter the Roman Catholic Church while retaining many of their traditions, including married priests and the use of at least some parts of the Book of Common Prayer. (It isn't clear from the Vatican news release whether this means only that already married Anglican priests will be welcome, or that future priests and candidates for the priesthood will be free to marry -- probably the former.)

This is a big deal. First and foremost, it is a reflection of the continued crackup of the Anglican Communion, the worldwide association of churches with roots in the Church of England, which was created after King Henry VIII declared himself the head of the church. (As Protestant kids in Northern Ireland used to spraypaint on Belfast city walls: "One Bible, One crown, No pope in our town.") 

In an attempt at face-saving, Rowan Williams, the Hamlet-like archbishop of Canterbury, said the new express conversion (as George Costanza would say) wasn't a "commentary on Anglican problems" over the ordination of gays and women as bishops. It's lucky he doesn't claim to be infallible, because this is a holy whopper.

But if the "poping" of conservative Anglo-Catholics eases tensions in the Anglican Communion, it is likely to exacerbate them in their new spiritual home. Many Roman Catholic liberals will be aghast at this development, because they too believe in opening ordination to gays and women. And even some moderate Catholics are likely to grouse over the fact that cradle Catholics can't become priests and be married, but Anglican arrivistes can. (Married former Episcopal priests in the United States have been allowed to switch teams for some time, through the creation of an "Anglican Use" -- a church within a church.)

One group of Roman Catholics, which comprises liberals and conservatives on issues of sexuality, will be happy about this development. They are the Catholics (and I'm one of them) who abhor the tone-deaf language of the post-Vatican II Mass in English. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer is one of the wonders of the English language. Asked what he missed most about his former church, an Anglican-priest-turned Catholic supposedly replied: "The Mass in English."

After today's announcement, I suspect a lot of cradle Catholics in other countries will be sneaking off to "Anglican Use" parishes on Sundays.

-- Michael McGough

Columnist Jonah Goldberg foresees clouds ahead for the Democrats -- in fact, a coming storm so severe that it could end Democratic control of Congress. It's building from the Tea Party movement, which Goldberg sees as an heir to the Ross Perot third-party movement of the 1990s. "If the GOP can convincingly align with and exploit the growing Perotista discontent, it very well might ride to victory on a tsunami the Democrats can't even see."

Also on today's Op-Ed page, scholar Giles Dorronsoro explains why U.S. attempts to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan's Pashtun areas in the south and east are probably doomed to fail. And ACLU National Security Project chief Jameel Jaffer decries an attempt by Congress to circumvent the courts by giving the secretary of Defense the power to withhold photographs of combatants "engaged, captured or detained" by the U.S. during the Bush administration.

On the Editorial page, The Times weighs in on Atty. Gen. Eric Holder's policy change on medical marijuana. Though we're happy that federal prosecutors will make marijuana cases a low priority in states like California that have passed laws approving its medicinal use, we think that's the wrong approach. The administration shouldn't be picking and choosing states in which to enforce federal law -- rather, it should de-emphasize medical marijuana cases in all 50.

We also note that the best place for local health departments to conduct swine flu vaccinations is at public schools -- yet that's not where the inoculations will take place in Los Angeles, thanks to a failure by the school district and the county to properly coordinate.

And we muse on the bizarre spectacle presented by Colorado's Heene family, accused of perpetrating the "balloon boy" hoax in an attempt to drum up publicity for a reality show. "As much as some people will do just about anything for a Hollywood contract, a good number of the rest will lap up the juicy story of their wrongdoing. In reality, perhaps we all get what we wanted."

Illustration by Jonathan Twingley / For The Times