Goodbye! Bad Men: Rochester Bishop Clark Resigns

Earlier this month, Bishop Matthew Clark of Rochester reached mandatory retirement age and submitted his resignation. Thank God! Let's pray the Vatican accepts it quickly. During his 33 year tenure in Rochester, the bishop advanced homosexuality, supported dissenter theologians like Charlie Curran, promoted women's ordination, welcomed Dignity Masses, destroyed vocations, and closed about half the Catholic schools in the diocese. Talk about decimating the faith! The Vatican ordered him to remove the imprimatur from a sexuality handbook, by Fr. Matthew Kawiak that distorted Church teaching. A timeline of some of his other disgraceful acts is posted here. And another post here. One of the most public scandals to his discredit involved Fr. Jim Callan at Corpus Christi. Callan regularly "concelebrated Mass" with Mary Ramerman for years, Clark finally ordered him to stop and Callan was excommunicated when he left taking much of the parish with him. While the bishop claimed he took action on his own, Callan publicly stated that he believed the bishop was sympathetic and was ordered to act by then Cardinal Ratzinger at CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith).

 An atheist could hardly have done more to damage the Church in Rochester than Bishop Clark over the past three decades. And to think he took over the seat of one of the greatest modern bishops in America, Fulton Sheen. You can read about Clark's exit  and the "indelible mark" he left in the local secular paper. The gushing article basically canonized him. But at least a few faithful Catholics like Jim Likoudis were quoted as well. As for the "indelible mark" Clark leaves, it is a deep and ugly scar on the Church in Rochester. Orthodox Catholics are shaking his dust off their feet as he wraps up his Beavus and Butthead show. They are praying for a true shepherd as a replacement. May God give them one in line with a former bishop of Rochester, a true shepherd.

And here's a video about that true shepherd. Please pray for Fulton Sheen's cause for canonization and ask his intercession for the restoration of the faith in Rochester.