I expect somebody will take issue with the paragraph below, but I agree. Go, George!
It amazes me that a clericalist culture of toadying and flattery still exists in American Church circles, given the scandals into which the bishops have routinely plunged the faithful. I have no desire to participate in this worldly game of ring-kissing in which the Cardinal Wuerls wallow. They enjoy the trappings of their office without actually exercising it for the good of souls. They demand 13th-century obedience while behaving like 21st-century flakes who play church in costume and staff.And Cardinal Wuerl has plenty of company. Clericalism needs to be trashed. A roman collar or a crook and mitre may be symbols of the bishop's authority, but that doesn't mean he's exercising it.
A bishop is only as good as his fidelity to the deposit of the faith. Bishops who advance homosexuality in the Church like Wuerl did in Pittsburgh need to be outed for their treachery. Bishops who fail to preach the truth about abortion and contraception need to be outed for their treachery.
The reason Catholics are fighting on so many fronts in the United States today is thanks to dereliction of duty on the part of so many bishops who have loved the world and toadied to the world's powerful. They need to remember where the "kingdom, the power, and the glory" really reside.
