On March 25, the blogging bureaucrat in the bishops’ conference I mentioned yesterday issued a press release announcing:

“We are in a paradigm shift in how people receive information, as profound as when the printing press was invented,” she said. “It is important that the Church not only provide its wisdom regarding the primary dignity of the human person in this information evolution, but also take advantage of the opportunities this new media ecology provides.”

This week, she has used that “paradigm shift” to make clearer than ever how some bureaucrats in the bishops’ conference are comfortable undermining the teaching authority of bishops in pursuit of their Democratic political agendas. (Remember, “paradigm shift” or not, the bishops had no trouble clearly exercising their teaching authority – and even in their as-in-unison-as-it-gets voice through the body of the conference – during the health-care debate.)

On March 25, by the way, the New York Times was in full-on attack mode on Pope Benedict, leading to seemingly endless will-the-pope-resign conversations on MSNBC and other talking-head outlets. A priest on NRO and an archbishop from his pulpit (and website) took on their impressive list of inaccuracies, but the “paradigm shift” didn’t seem to help get to the truth. Months later, the paradigm shifter is only adding to the fog. As Cardinal George examines the collective Catholic public-policy conscience on health care, paternally scolding groups that did something very dangerous and threatening to innocent human life, a blogging bureaucrat has taken advantage of “this new media ecology” to undercut the cardinal. This has only confused people further about what Church “wisdom regarding the primary dignity of the human person means in 2010.”

It’s a tale of bureaucracy gone wild. But it is also a transparent new-media manifestation of something that’s been going on for a long while. Those Catholics who were encouraged by the bishops’ attempt to speak some truth during the disingenuous health-care push should provide support to Cardinal George, the likes of the Catholic News Agency, and good reporters like John Allen. Your support can be as simple as highlighting to friends what George said, or thanking him; you could also consider lending time to your state’s bishops’ conference. The problem of the liberal ideologues co-opting Catholic organizations doesn’t have to last forever.