The front page of Esquire magazine’s website recently featured an article by its executive editor, Mark Warren, “Investigate the Vatican,” giving new meaning to the word “rant.” He began by applauding the New Yorker for its critical piece on Scientology, but asked, “Wouldn’t the resources and time of journalists be better directed at the finances, earthly corruption, and raw power of the Catholic Church, an institution that wields influence incalculably greater that L. Ron Hubbard’s [founder of Scientology] itty-bitty religion?”
He continued, “I mean, I grew up believing that every breath I drew sent a god-made-man named Jesus Christ writhing on the cross to which he had been nailed…so that he might die for my sins so that I might live. And yet, I was born not innocent but complicit in this lynching, incomprehensibly having to apologize and atone for this barbarism for all my days and feel terrible about myself and all mankind.” Then, of course, he bashed the pope blaming him for the homosexual scandal. Only an ex-Catholic would be capable of writing something like this.
Having never heard of this guy, we quickly found out that Warren’s hero is poor Christopher Hitchens. Warren spoke of “the dashing Bill Donohue” asking “what on earth have we done to deserve [him]?” Donohue responded, “Much, I would say.”
We said the time has come to investigate Esquire. You know it’s in trouble when it features screeds like this, and when it flags such penetrating articles as, “How to Sew a Button Easily” and “How to Hit a Softball.” Now we know why GQ has a circulation more than double that of Esquire’s.
