When the Washington Post writes about liberals, how much do they assume the readers already know? In today’s Jackie Trescott profile of Patricia Quigley Stonesifer, the new Smithsonian board chairman and the former Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation executive, readers are expected to know about the Berrigan brothers and Bread for the World, that these are markers of the hard-left corner of Catholic Christianity, with a heavy vibe of the “reform” 1960s:
Her brother Tim, a professor at Wichita State University, says: “It was also a time of Vatican II, a time of a great deal of reform, looking outward, seeing your privileged place in society. The Berrigan brothers were heroes of ours. We grew up during the civil rights movement, and we were people who followed both of the Kennedys.”
The Quigleys went to Mass at Christ the King Catholic Church. Their father managed a car dealership and started a food-for-the-poor program that still bears his name. Their mother was a physical therapist. Now she lives in a retirement home, where she has started a Bread for the World chapter.
As a fan of the blog Get Religion, I certainly read through this piece and wanted Trescott to get Stonesifer to evaluate how far she’s fallen from the Roman Catholic tree, what with the Gates Foundation’s aggressive promotion of the abortion agenda, and her personal support for Hillary Clinton and Emily’s List, among other things.
She’s also now married to liberal controversialist Michael Kinsley, whose jeremiads in favor of embryo-destroying stem-cell research includes such allegedly scientific statements as “These microscopic dots . . . have fewer human characteristics than a potato.”