Are we now witnessing the beginning of a development towards mounting persecution mania – not only (with some justification) against those Catholic bishops who have, in one way or another, conducted sustained operations to shield abusive priests from justice, thus allowing their abuse to continue (as revealed by the Cloyne report) – but also against any bishop who has failed to act decisively enough in some isolated case, through simply failing (as anyone might in his position – I include myself) to spot its seriousness? And does this persecution mania extend also to any priest who defends the bishop in question, who then himself becomes the object of the same hysterical persecution? I am, of course, referring to a particular case, that of Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas, Missouri, who was recently defended by Father Z, a regular columnist in this newspaper, against an egregious slur by one Phyllis Zagano in the National Catholic Reporter. Fr Z is now (he thinks as a consequence) being threatened by this same Zagano, who he has been told is currently phoning around trying to get something on him. This is the opening of Zagano’s attack on Bishop Finn (whom she then goes on to excoriate at length – referring to him throughout with calculated disrespect simply as “Finn”, as though he were a convicted criminal – for being excessively traditionalist, in favour of celibacy, against women priests and the like):