The orthodoxy police.

Last autumn, I found myself up against the vast Catholic orthodoxy police, which operates in silence, making secret charges and convicting without allowing the accused to know what the accusations are. It was Kafkaesque.

Let me explain. Some people make widgets. I make articles for the Catholic press. For seven years, I wrote as national affairs writer for the National Catholic Register. It was an enjoyable part-time gig. I got a regular byline, my name was etched in the staff box, and, with some occasional yelling and screaming, I would get a check. My weekly stories - explaining vital national issues, such as welfare reform, abortion, school reform, the role of Catholics in electoral politics - consisted of "rounding up the usual suspects," providing quotes and perspectives from a wide array of Catholic opinion.

The Register is a conservative weekly newspaper with a circulation of some 20,000. Oops, sorry! I mean it is orthodox. Its editorial stance is strongly propope, befitting a publication that prides itself on orthodoxy, and often pro-conservative Republican, which is another matter altogether.

When I began working for the Register, it was based in California and was owned by the Frawley family. I considered my stories to be right down the middle never deviating from Catholic doctrine, but always expressing the many sides to the question at issue. Rarely were my articles questioned. And, while the editorial page and columnists were tilted toward the conservative/orthodox view, Register news writers were held to the highest standards of professional journalistic objectivity.

Two years ago, the Register was sold to the Legionnaires of Christ, a community of priests with a decidedly conservative (oops, orthodox) reputation. The paper's offices were moved to Connecticut and its editorial tone also began to shift in a more rightward direction. Changes were made in the top echelons of the paper. Still, most of the time my articles continued to be a regular part of the paper, often appearing on the front page.

One day last fall, my copy of the Register came in the mail. I was utterly astonished. The paper had a new national affairs writer and my name had been deleted from the staff box. Without a word, I had been blotted out of the Register. My Kafkaesque thoughts raced to those Soviet histories where out-of-favor commissars were airbrushed from the photos.

What had happened? Was my article about the United Parcel Service strike too pro-labor? Was there a sugar daddy supporting the Legionnaires, disturbed to find a pro-labor sentiment in their paper? Did I include too many diverse opinions on the abortion controversy? Maybe I had crossed a line by quoting from New Ways Ministry in a gay-rights story? Were there people unhappy with opinion pieces I wrote for Commonweal and for my regular job with a diocesan newspaper? I appear on a cable television talk show: Had I said something to tick off some well-connected person? Did I dangle too many prepositions? Too many unclear antecedents? What was this all about?

I phoned the Register powers-that-be. No, they said, my writing style was considered pretty good (I was praised for making complex subjects understandable). "We wanted to go in another direction," I was told. There were entire subject areas, I was told, where I was considered unfit for the Register style. What areas? What had I written? Had I violated some tenet of orthodoxy? The answers were deliberately vague. "Just tell me why I am no longer fit to write for the Register," I pleaded. The powers-that-be were silent.

I still have no idea. Only theories. Perhaps it was because I wrote favorably about ABC-TV's "Nothing Sacred." (Don't scoff: opposition to the now-canceled Father Ray and his parish team has become an orthodoxy litmus test among some groups.) Or maybe it had to do with comments I made about Long Island Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, prochoice and a strong gun-control advocate (her husband had been shot and killed, along with several others, by a crazed gunman on the local commuter train). All I said was that some Catholics had good reasons to vote for her, and that others had good reasons to be against her, an observation that made some abortion foes angry.

Well, those are some of the theories that spin around in my head whenever I ask myself, "But why?"

Don't lump me with dissident theologians. I am an orthodox Catholic in agreement with basic church teachings on sex, social justice, and just about everything else.

But someone, somewhere, believes I don't quite measure up.

All I ask is for him - or them?? - to step forward and explain how.

Peter Feuerherd is assistant editor of the Long Island Catholic and a free-lance writer.