I haven’t written an editorial since late July, in part because of the heavy and unceasing flood of news—most of it bad and some of it terrible—within the Church. In my last editorial, posted on July 23rd, not long after news broke about McCarrick and related matters, I wrote:
It is true, without doubt, that many of the bishops and cardinals are good men who are trying to do the right thing. But the rot in the Church cannot be covered by good intentions, the corruption in the Body of Christ cannot be treated like a PR problem, and the righteous anger of the laity cannot be placated by soothing sound bites. Put simply, the current course—which has all too often been a wearying combination of tweaks, spins, deflections, and obfuscations—has deeply damaged trust in the leadership of the Church. Not in the Church—One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic—but in her current leadership as a whole, which often seems to think the laity are either stupid or not able to handle the truth.
Now, as the fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore wraps up, where are we? While I tend to list to the cynical side, I harbored cautious hopes that the bishops would make a push to at least present a unified and somewhat determined face in addressing the nightmarish McCarrick situation and the tangled web of secrecy, stonewalling, and straight-up evil involved.
And it appears the bishops also wanted to push forward in some way, having put forward two proposals for vote: one would establish (or at least outline) a new code of conduct for bishops, and the second would create a lay-led investigative body with the ability to investigate bishops credibly accused of misconduct.
Pope Francis, however, had other plans in mind. Or, at least, he didn’t care for the plan on the table (even though he praised the French bishops a week ago for establishing an independent commission to investigate their hierarchy’s response to abuse). And so, on Monday morning, at the very start of the assembly, a rather distraught Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the USCCB, informed the bishops that he had been told late Sunday to set the proposals aside. Most everyone was surprised, except for Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, known both for his rapid rise in the episcopal ranks (with the direct blessing of Francis) and the low amount of esteem he holds among his fellow bishops, who immediately took the microphone. With a flat but clearly planned delivery, he stated, without the least suggestion of irony: “It is clear the the Holy See is taking the abuse crisis seriously.”
No, it’s not.
What is clear is that Pope Francis has surrounded himself with men, including Cupich, who are either seriously compromised or who openly lust after ecclesial power. It’s not just that they show little regard for doctrine or truth, but how they act as entitled sycophants whose disregard for their fellow bishops is matched only by their disdain for the orthodox faithful. It’s also evident that Francis does not want any sort of investigation into McCarrick or related matters to be outside of his control. One need not be well-versed in canon law (I’m not) or sympathetic to the various claims made by Archbishop Viganó (I am) to connect the huge and proliferating dots.
Cupich, while emphasizing (again, without any sense of irony) the “urgency” of the matter at hand, suggested a non-binding resolution ballot and then a March 2019 meeting to follow a special February meeting with Pope Francis, which raised many other questions, including, “How many meetings does it take”? It later came out that the directive to DiNardo had not come directly from Pope Francis but from the Congregation for Bishops, which includes two American prelates: the increasingly omniscient Cardinal Cupich and the retired-but-going-nowhere Cardinal Donald Wuerl. (There were some, via social media, who wondered if Pope Francis knew about the directive, which does not speak well of social media. He knew. He called it. Period.)
There was much debate and conversation yesterday (read about some of it here), but it was already evident that little or nothing would come of it, even if some of the bishops made good points and issued exhortations worthy of consideration. The assembly was essentially dead in the water, or dead even before it got to the water. Things certainly couldn’t get worse, right?
Not so fast. Earlier today, the bishops spent some time debating a resolution that would, as CNA reported, “‘encouraged’ the Holy See to release all documents on the allegations of sexual misconduct against Archbishop Theodore McCarrick. After about a half hour of debate, objections that the resolution was redundant and ambiguous won out, and it was voted down by a clicker vote of 83-137, with three abstaining.”
Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing, who had originally proposed the text, acknowledged, “This is not going to solve everything…” At least, it appears, it might have sent a modest signal to the Vatican that the U.S. bishops weren’t entirely pleased with being hung out to dry. But even that was too much, perhaps in part because the waters have been so poisoned with the notion that questioning or critiquing any statements or actions of Francis indicate an “anti-papal” sentiment.
Bishop Liam Cary of Baker, Oregon, made a cogent point in asking, “If McCarrick were to come to this microphone would he be allowed to speak?”, while he noted, as reported by CNA, “that there was no open microphone for his victims.” In a CWR interview last week, Bishop Cary spoke of “apostolic betrayal” in referencing McCarrick, stating: “The diabolical aspect of his betrayal is crucial. It goes beyond human frailty, it is a deep-seated evil, and a betrayal of the Son of God.” (Are you surprised that Cary is in eastern Oregon and not northeastern Illinois?)
Meanwhile, in an earlier session, Cardinal Cupich opined that in examining “those offenses against minors as opposed to adults, I would strongly urge that they be be separate. It’s a different discipline because, uh, in some of the cases with adults involving clerics, it could be consensual sex … There’s a whole different set of circumstances.” Again, nary a hint of irony could be detected in his delivery, even though his parsing of the particulars of canon law (as opposed to criminal law) when it comes to sinful, shameful acts bears a strong resemblance to the “teachers of the law” so often denounced by Pope Francis.
However, most striking, in reading accounts and watching video of the proceedings, was the contrast between parliamentary bickering and the huge stakes involved. Unlike some, I still do believe that many of the bishops are very good and holy men. There is a real sense in which they are held hostage by the nature of the Conference, which has shown itself to be mostly worthless if not worse. There is undoubtedly a lot of pressure being applied by the Vatican to conform and toe the line.
But that’s not good enough. Not now. As I wrote back in July:
The Catholic faithful do not want “easy”; they want the hard truth. They do not want therapists and counsellors; they want faithful men of God. They do not pine for happy talk, but for the joy found in the word of God, preached by servants of Christ in and out of season. And they do not easily trust those who do not vigorously proclaim and live the truth.
And, again, it’s not clear that the Holy See is taking the abuse crisis seriously. But that’s a topic for another day.
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The criminal bishops like Wuerl arranged to have the arch criminal Cardinal $660M Mahony “intervene” at the conference this week, demanding “affection between the Bishops.”
What a diabolical abuser this fiend Mahony is, the Head mafiosi of the 2002 coverup (condemned as such by Governor Frank Keating of the National Review Board) and BIG PAL ELECTIONEER of Pope Francis.
May God bring him to justice for his evil.
Time for married priests who enter vows later in life, with established marriages and no scandals.
What about the huge scandal in the Southern Baptists and the fact that most sexual abuse of minors is perpetrated by married people and often close family members of the victims? Your solution is naive and not based on reality.
Well, a Scilian priest was speaking up against Francis as a false prophet, and was excommunicated today….the priest in Chicago who dared have anything to do with exorcising a deviant sex den in his parish had to flee to avoid becoming a real life One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest victim is a sedated happy place..
And US Bishops are of course helping out this poor US priest with good legal council and offering him safe haven?
The have not the spine even for organized Civil Disobedience. And Europe is bored by what they see as biz as usual for effete priests, yawn, big deal. The US flocks are hugely moribund in major media areas, ie blue enclaves, thinking Francis is right.
And it is only the easily derailed and unhinged and truthfully dangerous at times, (theologically), laity calling for action, any action, while fearful bishops were worried about “blood on the walls” if protesters entered the building (sounds like Cupich calling the cops).
Personally, I know the USA counts for about as much as Germany as for funding the Vatican, and also personally know many are tired of funding vast US Bishop bureaus of vast ineffectivity except to employ favored lay members,..m and time for folk to donate to WORTHY areas of the faith, directly, and cut out inefficient middlemen from top to bottom.
NOTHING would hurt the machine worse than loss of bribe money top to bottom, even if bribes only more jobs…whatever happens to the folk nationwide who work for the sleazeball degenerate bishops? Nothing…they are still there long after the bishop leaves.
What is needed is cutting off funding for perverts, and for useless drones soaking up tithe money. And we can do that without crossing any theological boundaries….we can still fund Holy Church, but, just the Holy part.
I have to take comfort in the fact that the Church survived, for example, Pope John XII.
Cupich needs to be arrested for intimidation and attempted kidnapping for his treatment of Father Paul Kalchik in Chicago.
So true!
Is it any wonder that Archbishop Vigano had to go into hiding once he suggested that Francis resign for the good of the Church?
And don’t be surprised if at the next Synod Circus in Rome McCarrick shows up. He might even bring one of his boyfriends. In fact, the Pope might have all the bishops to invite their current “beau” to accompany them (excuse the term).
I have read and re-read, studied and pondered, “The Conversion of the Papacy and the Present Church Crisis, by Professor Douglas Farrow.
As Dr. Olson writes, this essay provides us with “a serious and learned” explanation of some “essential theological questions facing the Church today”.
The essay is long. The following provides a small sample of this important writing.
The essay begins by identifying the question before us: “One salutary aspect of the troubling Bergolio pontificate is that it forces us to think about the papal office as such.” The first two paragraphs of the essay provide background for this argument and lead to the concluding sentence: “Change was and is needed. But not this change.”
Dr.Farrow introduces the subject of “Papalotry”. He quotes Roberto de Mattei, who writes in “Tu es Petrus”: “papalotry is a false devotion which does not see in the reigning Pope one of the 265 successors of Peter, but considers him to be a new Christ on earth …”. What is needed[again de Mattei] now is “true devotion to the Chair of Saint Peter,” not false.
Dr. Farrow observes that the Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium, attempted to compromise between the principle of the primacy of Peter and that of the collegiality of the bishops”. This attempt at “compromise” was also attempted in Gaudium et Spes, which placed on the same level the tow ends of matrimony: procreative and unitive”. But, Professor Farrow teaches that “Equality in nature does not exist. One of the two principles is destined to assert itself over the other. In the case of matrimony, “the unitive principle prevailed over the procreative”; in the case of the constitution of the Church, the principle of collegiality is imposing itself on that of the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff”.
Roberto de Mattei traces this attempt at a democratic transformation into the program of Francis and his advisors, “who seek ‘a renewed Papacy, conceived as a form of ministry at the service of the other churches.”
In “Tu es Petrus” author de Mattei contends the the “purely sacramental church of Pope Francis has no real place for the Petrine ministry…”. “It therefore dissolves the primacy of Peter and, with it, the visibility of the Church” thereby effectively erasing the “Preliminary Explantory Note” to Lumen Gentium; replacing its teaching with “a false primacy in place of the true … [an anti-Christ?] – a primacy of the man.”
On reading this, Catholic believers may begin to rend their garments. As we should. As we must.
Love the headline : The Pope fiddles.
Indeed I say. How totally apt.
Bear in mind that Nero burned Rome. Ergo….
How come we rarely hear about the clergy breaking their vow of celibacy? I really wonder about this aspect. It’s not all abuse of minors…we’re not stupid. Unless the secular media is just making it all up because they hate Catholics. Oh, how I wish we’d hear the truth, no matter how painful, from our leaders. Is that too much to ask?
The primary culprits are homosexuals.
They could not even bring themselves to pass a resolution to “encourage” Francis to cooperate in the McCarrick case! And it lost by an overwhelming margin. They let themselves get steamrolled by that thuggish mediocrity, Blasé Cupich. They even allowed the thoroughly disgraced Roger Mahony, who surely coordinated with Cupich ahead of time, have the microphone! How can they possibly expect any of the laity to take them seriously? It must be obvious to even the densest among the bishops that Francis has no intention of getting to the truth in the McCarrick matter because the truth is that Francis is guilty in it. The good bishops whom Mr. Olson writes of must publicly reject this naked attempt at a coverup. Anything less is dereliction.
The problem is not that Pope Francis does not want to get to the truth. The problem is he knows the truth but just wants to deflect everything till the dust settles down. But he may be out of luck as it could take may be even a generation to win back the confidence of the faithful laity even making the right moves but the way he has behaved it could be worse. God have mercy on us.
The best thing that has happened to us since the elevation of Pope Francis is the loss of liberals in the 2016 US presidential elections.
They are afraid to speak up or try to reform their own dioceses. When a former Papal Nuncio is in hiding. A priest from IL is hiding lest he be committed for indoctination. And, a holy Bishop in TN is removed from his position for trying to clean up years of neglect….. what are they supposed to do? Defy the Pope and vote? They will be removed at best. They can pray, bide their time and trust in the Holy Spirit . We know how the story ends; just not the part we have to live through.
Do we have a list of those who voted for (or against) the resolution to encourage Francis to cooperate? I’m pretty certain of where my Bishop stood, but confirmation of it would be appreciated.
http://www.churchtransparency.com
Here is the updated link:
https://churchtransparency.com/
It recently occured to me that one of the reasons P Francis does not want to proceed too far is the reality that he personally has effectively endorsed an sought the advice of Cardinal Daneels of Belgium, a person of outrageous reputation ‘s and one of the cabal that arranged P.F’s election. Is that not so?
The way some of the prelates behave the only thing they care is the collection box. Several charities have held back on their yearly charitable contributions to Rome till it puts its house in order. While tithing (which is very important and cannot be underestimated) one has to be very careful. One should see what direction ones Diocese is headed and also ones parish. I belong to a diocese that is at the center of the abuse scandal and I do not wish to contribute to the diocese unless I see it return to Christ. My parish is the opposite. I am proud to be a part of the parish but the parish needs to pay the diocese its dues. I am minimizing my exposure to the diocese by looking what the parish needs and buying and donating it directly to the parish. Recently we donated an altar cloth that cost about $450. We could also donate directly to religious like the Salesians who do a great job with youth and the underprivileged all over the world or to a soup kitchen or a food-bank (with onset of winter and coming holidays shelves in food-banks are often empty) run by Catholics like Missionaries of Charity. These are just examples of how we can make sure that our tithing goes exactly where our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ intended.
Vivat Jesus.
This is what I do. I have little to donate but when I do, it’s directly to the building fund or to organizations I trust. Our local priest is a good, solid teacher but I don’t trust the bishop so don’t want a penny going to his “tax” on the parishes.
A parish secretary told me that when you donate to the parish, if you earmark it for something in particular, say “utilities”, that canonically it must go there, and canonically it cannot be “taxed” by the diocese. Our diocesan tax is 10%, meaning each parish has to pay the diocese 10% of un-earmarked donations.
In our family, we also contribute to “Retirement for Religious” by sending our tithe to a particular retired priest that we know that has very little income.
Just some ideas as to how we can contribute to the welfare of the Church while avoiding lining the pockets of the squanderers.
Just look at this kabuki dance of a ‘conference’ in Baltimore. A useless, expensive nothing-burger meeting.
The pope nutered the American bishops with his eleventh hour demand for no votes. He informed Cupich ahead of time, of course, and Cupich responded like the shill puppet he is.
There will be more meetings. And meetings after that, also. Followed by…..
Look, fellow Catholics, and our many good priests and our very few good bishops; the tipping point has been reached. The situation is completely out of control and no one has the power or guts or a plan to regain control.
This, IMHO, could not be more clear: the bishop of Rome is part of the problem. Francis is not part of the solution.
The solution now rests solely with Our Lord and Savior in Heaven and His most Blessed Mother.
His judgement will come soon. It will be frightening and devastating to us all. Bet on it.
Get to confession soon. Get on your knees and pray.
+++ Thank you
The plot thickens. The good news is that in the cause of much-requested (doctrinal)”clarity”, some 200 bishops now clearly know beyond any lingering ambiguity that they–like abuse victims–have been used by cardinal Cupich.
More strong words for the “fuming laity” from Douglas Farrow:
“God the Father is the procreative principle of the Church, as of every family in heaven and on earth. (Eph 3:14) He is its first and its final cause. The incarnate Son is the divine and human ground of the Church, of the new humanity that will live forever in God, and the head of the mystical Body. He is its material cause. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives form and vitality to the Church and its counselor. (John 15:26) He is the efficient and perfecting cause of the Church, in its visibility as in its invisibility.”
The proper object of the Church’s faith is definitely not the Pope. The real object of its faith, we agree, is the Holy Trinity.”
“I am proposing that the reform we need is in the direction of simplicity, transparency, and integrity – which many thought we were getting in Francis, before discovering otherwise … whatever does not serve directly that task of the successor of Peter should be … eliminated. … It is the responsibility of the Pope to guard the faith and to protect the integrity of the sacraments …”.
Who can do this? “No one, if not a man like Peter, a man who knows that chains can fall away (even chains forged deep in the Vatican bureaucracy) and locked doors can be opened.”
Aside from stealing a line from a previous comment when I compared the Pontiff to Emperor Nero happily fiddling while Rome burned an excellent detailing of our dilemma. Returning to the Nero analogy the Emperor was an infamous deviate who committed suicide in Capri allegedly off a cliff after learning of his conviction by the Roman senate. Our Pontiff is certainly under volumes of fire from the Irate who, at least some ardently wish to convict. Unlike Nero the Pontiff is much too clever to leave himself vulnerable. Synodality performs his dirty work while he happily fiddles. Furthermore he surrounds himself with a buffer zone of ‘men’ who, here I correct the article’s author – are both seriously compromised and who openly lust after ecclesial power among other things.
I am going to make an educated guess as to part of the content of The Secret of Fatima based upon The Vision of Tuy, the omission of The Filioque from Dominus Jesus, and the existence of a counterfeit church that cannot subsist within Holy Mother Church, Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
“It is not possible to have Sacramental Communion without Ecclesial Communion”, due to The Unity of The Holy Ghost.
We now know, through both Faith and reason, that “ In Portugal, The Dogma of the Faith will be preserved…” but only by a remnant, due to a denial of The Unity of The Holy Ghost. (Filioque)
My Prayer is that our Holy Father’s intention in omitting The Filioque, was in order to hopefully, have a dialogue about how The Filioque affirms The Unity of The Holy Ghost.
“Well, a Scilian priest was speaking up against Francis as a false prophet, and was excommunicated today….”
Rest assured, a Faithful Priest cannot be excommunicated for recognizing the self evident truth, that can be known through both our Catholic Faith and reason; a false prophet cannot be, a validly elected Pope.
and the pope’s right hand man molested a boy over a long period and he is still a priest. And the laity are weeping.
Regarding: “What is clear is that Pope Francis has surrounded himself with men, including Cupich, who are either seriously compromised or who openly lust after ecclesial power.”
Well, Cupich has all the power he can have now: Cardinal, Archbishop. So the other option here just might be: “seriously compromised”. A third option: he’s a Hofferian True Believer in the Hegelian, historico-relativistic theology out of Europe. He’ll do whatever it takes to realize this agenda, because he truly believes in it and thinks it’s best for the Church.
In any case, I haven’t heard anything by way of any bishops complaining about the very likely advance notice he got that the Vatican was cancelling the vote.
Now for a radical proposal: laity take it on themselves to investigate Cupich. Let’s see what the Red Hat Report investigation of Cupich shows up. Go at it. But again, maybe Cupich is just a Hofferian True Believer, and that’s it by way of explanation.
In any case, the laity have the right to know why has so much power. Which apparently was quite on display at the bishops’ meeting. No one deserves so much power. Especially in these times, when so very much is at stake for the faithful laity.
My personal opinion is that Cupich really believes he can climb higher. And perhaps he’s right. I’m not sure how much of a true believer he is in a specific ideology, although there are suggestions he is fully on board. I know from sources that Cupich takes great care in not leaving his fingerprints, so to speak, anywhere.
I don’t have a personal vendetta against the Cardinal. But I think there are strong indications he is the Pope’s right hand guy in the U.S. And again, so much is at stake.
To that end, we need someone with the tenacity and drive of a George Neumayr to gather information about Cupich. He’s a key guy over here. Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. Without of course violating the law.
It is very important to recall the following.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal-cupich-launches-amoris-laetitia-seminars-for-us-bishops-38684
What a title: “New Momentum”. One of these sessions, if memory serves, was in a *closed* session at Univ. of Notre Dame. A closed session–at a university. The thing speaks for itself.
And unsurprisingly, Cupich’s subjectivizing views about the concept of conscience are deeply problematic. See the online archdiocesan newspaper for his material about this. Conscience for me but not for thee; recall how Cupich disallowed seminarians to protest at abortion clinics.
I was very happy that you observed the following: “It later came out that the directive to DiNardo had not come directly from Pope Francis but from the Congregation for Bishops, which includes two American prelates: the increasingly omniscient Cardinal Cupich and the retired-but-going-nowhere Cardinal Donald Wuerl. (There were some, via social media, who wondered if Pope Francis knew about the directive, which does not speak well of social media. He knew. He called it. Period.)”
Yes indeed–thanks for the courage to say this. Good grief, does the Vatican think most of us were born yesterday? What a ploy: the Pope uses the College of Bishops as smokescreen to deflect criticism about the obvious breach of conciliarism and synodality when the Vatican, at the 24th hour, nixed the votes at the bishops’ meetings. Sorry, we laity aren’t buying these behaviors. Conciliarism for me, but not for thee.
Enough is enough. This is a time for vigorous lay opposition. There is a great line from Band of Brothers that applies to wayward prelates: salute the office, not the man.
The most sickening thing is that Cupich, who could not pass a seminary theology class. is naming bishops for the US.
Thomistica
There are laity already legally investigating Cupich. Check out Stephen Brady at
Roman Catholic Faithful (rcf)…they are concentrating on Chicago, and want to know who Blazing Cupcakes may be…
http://rcf.org/
Maybe not “fingerprints”, but maybe footprints–this time Cardinal Cupich surely used the entire USCCB as a stepping stone.
Macte virtute, Mons Cary! St Mary’s in Eugene’s loss, Baker’s gain.
God bless you, Mr. Olson. Realistic assessments of the current state of Church affairs are becoming more rare all the time. Thank you for yours. Please continue to provide them.
When is the validity of Bergoglio’s election going to be re-examined? See this December, 2014 CNA article:
Author, cardinals spar over reports of conclave campaigning
At the time most Catholics didn’t even want to think about the possibility that Bergoglio’s election wasn’t valid and that notion was quickly quashed. But as time goes on and Bergoglio becomes more and more outrageous and damaging to Catholicism, one has to wonder about the legitimacy of his papacy. Is he really a Successor of Peter? Or is the Church being sabotaged by a fake papacy fraudulently manipulated into power by a handful of heterodox prelates?
Juda$e$
Have we no heroic, saintly bishops?
Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese Fort Wayne/South Bend and his predecessor, Bishop John D’arcy, have been exceptional in these matters.
Bishop D’arcy came to us from Boston; reassigned here because he would not stop probing the abuses being covered up with the priests reassigned instead of defrocked and prosecuted. His devotion to righteousness led him to greatly tighten the standards for Seminarians (with the predictable result of increasing the number of vocations greatly; the real men we need as priests are drawn to the call for heroic virtue, not banal mediocrity; our parish alone has produced an average of two seminarians a year for decades now). It is worth noting that every credibly accused priest in our diocese was ordained prior to his installation as our bishop.
His successor, Bishop Rhoades, has continued those high standards for seminarians, has released the names of all credibly accused priests and has already established a lay-advisory board including psychologists and law enforcement personnel to investigate all abuse claims.
Though someone tried to accuse Bishop Rhoades of inappropriate behavior as part of the investigations in Pennsylvania, the district attorneies definitively cleared him of all wrongdoing; going so far as to say “This has been a case of a public airing of mere speculation of impropriety with no foundation. In this case, the leaking of what turned out to be an unfounded report did unnecessary harm. This has done a disservice to actual victims of sexual abuse. It has also caused significant and unnecessary harm to Bishop Rhoades.”
Our Bishop offered up the harm he’d suffered for abuse victims.
So, yes, there are saintly and heroic bishops here in the United States and the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend is privileged to have one of them (and his saintly predecessor).
Unfortunately this is all reading like a chapter out of 1984. Cupich is clearly the real president of the Bishop’s Conference. The Holy Father has gone all Big Brother with his Inner Party including Cupich, Wuerl etc. The rest of the Bishops maybe are in the Outer Party maybe. IF you stop believing in God but you seek the power this is where we end up. Listened to another cardinal speaking on his radio show about the people who complain never really supported the Church anyway. I will contribute enough to make sure our priest is able to eat but no more going to the hierarchy. One more speech about how the collection plate is not going to pay the legal settlements and I will literally puke. The money going to pay for the sins of these bishops and clergy would do a lot more good caring for the retired religious or renewing Catholic schools.
Reflection on past Bishops:
Adalbert was promoted to holy orders by Deithmar, bishop of Prague. That prelate fell sick soon after, and drawing near his end, cried out, in a manner that terrified all the by-standers, that the devils were ready to seize his soul on account of his having neglected the duties of his charge, and pursued with eagerness the riches, honours, and pleasures of the world. Adalbert, who had been present at that prelate’s death in these sentiments, was not only terrified with the rest, but being touched with the liveliest sentiments of compunction for whatever he had done amiss in the former part of his life, put on a hair-shirt, went from church to church in the habit of a penitent to implore God’s mercy, and dealt out his alms with a very liberal hand. An assembly was held a few days after for the choice of a successor, and Adalbert’s opposition proving ineffectual to prevent his election to the vacant bishopric, he received episcopal ordination at the hands of the archbishop of Mentz, in 983. From that day he was never seen to smile, and being asked the reason, made this answer: “It is an easy thing to wear the mitre and a cross; but it is a most dreadful circumstance to have an account to give of a bishopric to the Judge of the living and the dead.”
[St. Adalbert; From Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume IV: April. The Lives of the Saints. 1866]
Our Bishops are to be the direct successors to the Apostles, but any comparison between the two leaves one very discouraged. Our Bishops appear as weak and frightened bureaucrats.
“A new code of conduct” for bishops?
What the…? is this a joke?
These people need a “a new code of conduct” that states that priests shouldn’t be allowed to diddle boys and girls and seminarians?
Anybody who doesn’t, like, kind of have a suspicion of that already shouldn’t be within viewing distance of a bishop’s crozier, let alone wielding one.
Unbelievable.
This has gone far enough.
If something hasn’t been done to sweep out the Lord’s sanctuary by the end of the year, Catholics should organize and boycott the Sunday collection baskets en masse on January 1.
My guess is nothing short of cutting off their funding will get the attention of these PR hacks, bureaucrats and accountants. Ninety percent of them appear to have not a semblance of a clue.
God help us all.
Why wait until January? Now that the “summit” has come in gone it is clear no meaningful change will occur on a voluntary basis
The fact is, the only way a man could possibly have been elected pope, who prior to his election, publically denied Christ’s teaching on the Sanctity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, by condoning certain same sex sexual relationships that he defined as being private, did not include children, and were not called marriage and thus society is not affected, is if we were living in the midst of A Great Falling Away.
One can only have an apostasy from The True Church, Christ’s
One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
Private morality and public morality cannot serve in opposition to one another, due to The Unity of The Holy Ghost.
We are called to be “Temples of The Holy Ghost”; our Call to Holiness, has always been a Call to be chaste in our thoughts, in our words, and in our deeds, in private, as well as in public.
It is not possible for a counterfeit church to subsist within Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, and for this reason, I fear for the safety of all the Faithful, especially, our Holy Father Benedict, who, no doubt, is surrounded by wolves in the Vatican, who deny Christ’s teaching on sexual morality.
Our Lady at Fatima, Destroyer of all heresy, who through your Fiat, affirmed The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, and thus affirmed that there Is Only One, Jesus The Christ, Hear our Prayers for the Triumph of your Immaculate Heart!
Time for married priests who enter vows later in life, with established marriages and no scandals.
Everything is simple to those who know nothing.
And you would expect a better outcome when a former defender of the faith sells out to a fool of a pope promoting the profound death dealing evil of moral relativism in Amoris Laetitia? Nothing personal Mr. Olson. Okay, I lied. It is personal.
You lost me. What’s your point?
History teaches us many lessons, and in this case the clearest of them is this – in times of crisis, reform in the Church reform comes from the bottom – the laity, aka us. The clearest example of this is, of course, that of St. Francis.
From Rome to the U.S. Congress (Pelosi, Kaine, Biden, Kerry, Collins and all spots in between – We no longer listen to you because you have betrayed us and you have betrayed the faith.
Recommended reading – Michael O’Brien – Fr. Elijah and the Apocalypse, Ignatius Press, 1996.
“A new code of conduct for Bishops”.
What more need be said about the state of the Church?