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	A Bishop Who Was in a Bad Mood on the Fourth of July Indianapolis Star July 22, 2009 http://blogs.indystar.com/thoushalt/2009/07/a_bishop_who_wa.html As essayists go, most Catholic bishops tend to be a little sedate. Boring is often not an inaccurate term. Not so for the latest epistle penned by the Rev. William L. Higi, bishop for the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana, whose column appeared in the July 19 issue of his diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Moment. The piece about how he spent his Fourth of July was a real corker. Apparently in a feisty, somewhat curmudgeonly mood, Higi disparaged the music of both Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin, decried hot dog eating contests for their gluttony and expressed disdain for patriotic music that doesn't adhere to his sense of "the good ole stuff that I have come to love." But the most startling bit of Higi's long rant was undoubtedly his take on the "hoopla" following the death of Michael Jackson. Apart from the saturation coverage, which he described as "grossly exaggerated and extended beyond sensitivity," Higi took issue with the Jackson adulation in light of accusations that the King of Pop was a pedophile. "His bizarre lifestyle, coupled with allegations of pedophilia, would have branded anyone else a disaster," Higi wrote. "Yet he is being held up as one of the great people of our times." Higi, for those of you unaware of the history, presides over a diocese that, according to a 1997 expose in The Indianapolis Star, had 16 priests who were accused of pedophilia and sexual misconduct over a 25-year span. To be clear, Higi was never accused of abuse personally. But the Star found that instead of ensuring that the abusive priests in his diocese were prosecuted, Higi sent them to therapy. Some abusers were allowed to slip out of town or out of the country and begin new lives outside the priesthood. For his body of work, Higi was recently lauded in his own diocesan newspaper and his diocese for completing 50 years as a priest and 25 years as a bishop. He was held up, you might say, as one of his diocese's great people of our time. Beyond the jarring nature of the pedophilia reference, Higi, 75, also revealed that his appreciation of modern music ended with work composed somewhere around, say, 1924. Regarding Jackson's music, he said: "What others celebrate as fantastic music, I find little more than unintelligible screaming accompanied by gyrations that add nothing to the fine arts." Jackson aside, Higi committed the unpardonable sin of criticizing the work of Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin: "For the life of me, I couldn't understand the lyrics to the so-called music being presented. (Aretha Franklin and I simply don't capisce.)" Higi was referring to his apparently frustrating attempts to find Fourth of July telecasts of fireworks displays that have music that he describes as "the good ole stuff that I have come to love and cherish." So what is the "good ole stuff"? Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" and George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," which he described as "welcome relief" when he finally found a fireworks show featuring it as accompaniment. Music aside, the bishop informed his readers, too about his disdain for an annual Fourth of July hot dog eating contest that gets national attention. "Simply gross," was the way the bishop described it. "Gluttony," he reminded his readers, "is one of the seven capital sins." Thank you, Bishop Higi, for raising the bar on bishop essays and for livening up the pages of your diocesan newspaper. We look forward to your upcoming series of columns on fall fashion that will, we understand, emphasize the versatility of black.
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