This is another post in a series that honors my long ago major professor’s habit of coming into the classroom some Fridays and saying “Let’s talk about snakes,” which meant we would spend the class talking about whatever was on our minds.

Ashes-to-go: My church is in the news today because we, along with partners in Isaiah 58 Ministries, offered ashes-to-go at the corner of Grand and Arsenal as we have for the past good many years. This year’s program made the front page of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and was featured in The Washington Post in a piece that circulated widely crediting our Pastor, The Rev. Teresa K. M. Danieley, with the original idea. Apparently the idea was not Pastor Teresa’s but originated in a Bible study group of which she was part. Pastor Teresa has asked the Post to publish a correction and has published a disclaimer at Facebook. But that hasn’t prevented a person from California, who claims to have originated the program, himself, from writing flaming posts on Pastor Teresa’s Facebook page. Perhaps he should write to God.

Planned parenthood: Two days ago in The Washington Post Melinda Henneberger opined that the birth control controversy is playing out to benefit Democrats. Says Henneberger:

The beauty of the current birth-control conversation for Democrats is that they not only have public opinion on their side but have cannily managed to make contraception a front-burner election-year campaign issue — by complaining that Republicans are making it front-burner election-year campaign issue.

I couldn’t be happier, and I’m happier still if Andrew Sullivan is right in a piece to which Henneberger refers, in claiming that President Obama lured Republicans into the birth-control swamp by design.

Cardinal Dolan: Timothy Dolan is back in this country, where he celebrated Mass for Ash Wednesday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and distributed some ceremonial bags of food to the hungry. Though he wore Lenten purple and affected to care little for the trappings of his new status as Cardinal, saying “The fact that I’m wearing red amounts to a hill of beans,” his vestments were still pretty grand and he wore a red zucchetto. Much is being made of Dolan’s new status in St. Louis, where he is regarded almost as a native son. But the writer of one letter to the editor in today’s paper isn’t entirely thrilled:

It is impressive indeed to see St. Louis proud of Ballwin native Timothy Dolan, who was “elevated” to the status of “prince” of the church and member of the “club” of cardinals who are charged with electing the pope’s successor (“He’s got a million of ’em,” Feb. 18). His humor, wit and understanding of the people are rare and often unseen qualities in much of the existing male hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.

As a Catholic, however, I continue to be mystified by the lack of understanding by the hierarchy of the humble servant mentality of Jesus Christ. Magnificent jeweled pectoral crosses, gold rings, flamboyant tailor-made vestments, days of celebration and dining out do not seem to fit in with the simplicity and humility of Jesus, the carpenter who washed the feet of His disciples. Nor does (sic) the terms “elevated” or “prince” describe Jesus, who came to serve and not to be served.

It will be interesting to see what Dolan does with his newly expanded superstardom. I am inclined to agree with Andrew Sullivan who has written, in a piece to which I have already referred, that Dolan and other American Bishops have staked out positions on social issues that do not reflect “Christian engagement with a changing world” but rather presage a retreat into fundamentalism; but I think it would be more accurate to characterize the Bishops’ retreat from social justice as a retreat into majesterium; though a few bags of food doled out to presumably hungry folk makes a good photo op, I’ll admit.