Julian Assange and Me!

LONDON — Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who was released from a British jail late last week, is facing a new challenge: the leak of a 68-page confidential Swedish police report that sheds new light on the allegations of sexual misconduct that led to Mr. Assange’s legal troubles.

Last week, I took the Sacrament of Penance, AKA Reconciliation, at St. John Cantius Church just prior to the start of the Nine Lessons and Carols Concert by the St. Cecelia's and the Holy Innocents Choirs. Without divulging my litany of sins, let's just say that I was in the Box for what would be in baseball a good two innings with both teams getting four runs on walks.

The Sacrament of Penance, AKA Reconciliation, is not yet accessible on Al Gore's Information Superhighway. You can not text-it, wire-it, or phone-it in; you must go to the Confessional . . .with a priest behind the screen.

I received Absolution, but that was a week ago. I had a week chock-full of vanities, vices, follies, foibles, outbursts and impure thoughts, but that is between me and Father Anonymous.

We live in a culture that insists upon featuring the sins and follies of everyone. Julian Assange, the Wikileaks celebrity, blackmails whole governments with the complicity of tabloids and networks.

Today, the Albino Dagobert Assange had his secrets appear in ink.

Governments and individuals must reconcile their faults and tell their sins to the proper Confessor. Likewise, we should remember the words of the Duke of Wellington when some bimbo threatened to publish his love letters in the British tabloids, unless Wellington coughed up some gelt. The Iron Duke drew himself to his fullest height,cocked an eyebrow and rejoined, "Publish and Be Damned!"