An interesting start to the bishops' fall meeting, as Cardinal George delivered a strongly-worded opening address on episcopal authority and confirmed the "open secret" of a kind of Catholic identity project that he is hatching. My take is at PoliticsDaily. The lead:

BALTIMORE -- The leader of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States on Monday launched a new effort to rein in Catholic debates and dissidents and to remind the flock that the bishops will be the arbiters of what it means to be a Catholic.In remarks at the opening of the hierarchy's annual meeting in Baltimore, Chicago Cardinal Francis George made it clear that after years of repeated questions about the bishops' credibility, it was time for the bishops to clarify just who can and cannot speak for the church. He also confirmed that he had set up three committees of bishops to develop guidelines for determining what will be considered legitimate Catholic entities."Since everything and everyone in Catholic communion is truly inter-related, and the visible nexus of these relations is the bishop, an insistence on complete independence from the bishop renders a person or institution sectarian, less than fully Catholic," George, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, told some 300 of his fellow bishops. "The purpose of our reflections, therefore, is to clarify questions of truth of faith and of accountability or community among all those who claim to be part of the Catholic communion."

And we move on from there to Ignatius of Antioch.BTW, Rocco posts a USCCB Facebook page foto of the payoff from the Dolan-Rigali World Series bet, and notes that yours truly--a Mets fan, ouch!--is in the background, emerging too late to catch the lead item of the day. As we used to say at my last paper, "If it's news, it's news to us."H/T: Grant Gallicho