Rush Weighs in on the Catholic Bishops Being "Infected with Leftism"

I didn't hear Rush Limbaugh's comment about the Catholic bishops yesterday, but a friend of mine did. Here's the email he sent to Rush:

Dear Rush,

Toward the end of your show on Monday you mentioned the leftism of the Catholic Church. You may be criticized for that but you were 100% correct. I'm a Catholic who has gone to Mass practically every day for the last 35 years so I think I qualify as a bona fide Catholic. I'm absolutely sick with the leftism/socialism of Catholic clergy. You are absolutely right that the Catholic Church, as represented by the United States Catholic Conference (USCC), campaigned for Government-run health care including for illegal aliens and continues to campaign for amnesty for illegal aliens. Anyone who doesn't believe you just has to look at their web site. (http://www.usccb.org/) Stupak's "cave in" was inevitable because of the USCC propaganda.

It is not the Catholic people of the USA who are socialists. We work for a living, pay taxes, and suffer oppression under the Government. It is not even the Catholic Church herself, that is, the official teaching that is leftist. Authentic Catholic teaching actually condemns socialism. However, our clergy, most of whom have never had a real job, live in a socialist world where everything is provided for them by the money of the laity and they get the same perks whether they are good, bad, or indifferent. Our clergy, especially our Bishops, have no concept of the tax burden. In some ways they are like politicians; they spend other peoples' money and generate no wealth by their own activity.

If the rank and file American is angry because their elected officials do not listen to them and do not represent their views, how do you think rank and file Catholics feel? The Bishops use our money and put forth their opinions as if they are morally superior but also represent Catholic citizens. Their opinions are not supported by authentic Catholic teaching and they represent nobody but themselves. Americans can always change political parties and vote for "the other guy" but we believers are stuck with the clergy we have.

Thomas L McFadden (Sr.)
McLean, VA 22101

Tom is absolutely right. We are indeed "stuck with" bad bishops, bishops who destroy the faith, advance homosexuality (if they aren't active homosexuals like Weakland), and use money collected for the poor to promote organizations that support abortion and other evils. A short list of the bad guys would include the obvious faith-killers: Mahony, Gumbleton, McCarrick, Weakland, Law, Bernardin, Imesch, Matthew Clark, Ziemann, Symons, Robert Lynch, Walter Sullivan, Thomas Kelly, and Daniel Ryan. Some are gone, not because their brother bishops took action to fraternally correct them, but because their scandals were so egregious they finally got caught. Ziemann, Symons, and Ryan are in that category. Despite his successor knowing the kind of man he was, Ryan, after retiring early, was allowed to give retreats to seminarians and perform confirmations. Finally a domestic dispute between two of his homosexual boyfriends brought in the law and ended his priestly career. Robert Lynch helped secure the murder by dehydration of Terri Schiavo. Sullivan and Kelly a decade earlier enabled the similar murder of Hugh Finn.

Yes, we have many bad bishops today, but it is nothing new. The Church has suffered under evil "princes" since her early years. Few are like the angelic fictional Bishop Myriel in Les Miserables. When he took over the diocese he looked at his grand bishop's house and the humble hospital next door and insisted there was a mistake and they must trade. In the novel, he lives an austere life and is so generous and present to the poor he becomes known as Monseigneur Bienvenu.

Have there been bishops like him? Of course, the Church calendar is full of them: the familiar ones like St. Patrick, St. Nicholas, and all of the apostles except Judas; the less familiar like St. Udalric and St. Hugh. It would be an interesting exercise to make a list of all the bishop-saints. If the floor of hell is littered with bishops' mitres, the halls of heaven echo with the voices of good and holy bishops. Let us pray that we get more of them in the U.S.