Disappearing Blog Posts: Poof, No Criticizing Cardinal Dolan Allowed!

I received the following forwarded email sent out by Christian McDonnell. I'm happy she copied the text of Msgr. Pope's blog article before it disappeared in a puff of incense! 

Here’s the full text of the post, copied from blog before it was apparently removed:

Time to End the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the Al Smith Dinner?
By: Msgr. Charles Pope  

The time for happy-clappy, lighthearted engagement of our culture may be nearing an end. Sometimes it takes a while to understand that what used to work no longer works. Let me get more specific. 

Decades ago the “Al Smith Dinner” was a time for Republicans and Democrats to bury the hatchet (even if only temporarily) and come together to raise money for the poor and to emphasize what unites us rather than what divides us. But in the old days the death of 50 million infants was not what divided us. We were divided about lesser things such as how much of the budget should go to defense and how much to social spending. Reasonable men might differ over that.  

But now we are being asked to raise toasts and to enjoy a night of frivolity with those who think it is acceptable to abort children by the millions each year, with those who think anal sex is to be celebrated as an expression of love and that LGBTQIA… (I=intersexual, A= Asexual) is actually a form of sanity to which we should tip our hat, and with those who stand four-square against us over religious liberty.  

Now the St. Patrick’s Parade is becoming of parade of disorder, chaos, and fake unity. Let’s be honest: St. Patrick’s Day nationally has become a disgraceful display of drunkenness and foolishness in the middle of Lent that more often embarrasses the memory of Patrick than honors it.  

In New York City in particular, the “parade” is devolving into a farcical and hateful ridicule of the faith that St. Patrick preached.  

It’s time to cancel the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the Al Smith Dinner and all the other “Catholic” traditions that have been hijacked by the world. Better for Catholics to enter their churches and get down on their knees on St. Patrick’s Day to pray in reparation for the foolishness, and to pray for this confused world to return to its senses. Let’s do adoration and pray the rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet unceasingly for this poor old world.  

But don’t go to the parade; stay away from the Al Smith Dinner and all that “old school” stuff that hangs on in a darkened world. And as for St Patrick’s Day, it’s time to stop wearin’ the green and instead take up the purple of Lent and mean it. Enough of the celebration of stupidity, frivolity, and drunkenness that St Paddy’s day has become. We need penance now, not foolishness. We don’t need parades and dinner with people who scoff at our teachings, insist we compromise, use us for publicity, and make money off of us. We’re being played for (and are?) fools.  

End the St Patrick’s parade. End the Al Smith Dinner and all other such compromised events. Enough now, back to Church! Wear the purple of Lent and if there is going to be a procession, let it be Eucharistic and penitential for the sins of this age.
For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!
How say you

Interesting, how priest's posts that either directly or indirectly (Msgr. Pope doesn't say a word about the cardinal) criticize the Cardinal of New York just disappear into the ether. 

Another disappearing act happened when posts about Fr. Justin Wylie and the situation at Holy Innocents disappeared from Fr. Z's blog. Fr. Z quoted from Msgr. Pope's article even though it was already scrubbed from the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.'s website. (Ah...how hard it is to wipe the internet and drop things down the memory hole -- one of its blessings!) We'll see whether Fr. Z's post disappears and the error message appears on his site as well. Dear me, I wonder what threats these priests receive, or are they just asked to remove the "offensive posts" and do it out of obedience to their superiors? 

Well, the laity is not as constrained as the clergy. We have not put our hands between the hands of bishops and promised obedience and, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, public scandals need to be addressed publicly especially when the faith is in danger. And surely these days it is in danger big time -- especially the faith of our poor children! Which is why mother bears and grandmother bears like me are doing our best to tree the heretics, especially the ones in Roman collars because they are the most dangerous.

Yes, indeed, it's long past time to end the debacle of the Al Smith Dinner and the St. Patrick's Day parade especially now that gay activists are marching publicly under their banner, heartily welcomed by the "Grand Marshal" of the parade, Cardinal Dolan. Perhaps he'll wear a green beer mitre for the parade, companion to the cheese mitre he wore in Wisconsin. 

What the cardinal is doing to New York reminds me of Fr. John Hardon's warning that entire Catholic dioceses in the U.S. would disappear. It's becoming harder and harder to find any faith in New York City under this prince of the Church who reeks of worldliness. Pray for Cardinal Dolan. He may not martyr his "troublesome" priests, but he certainly killed the ministry of Fr. Wylie in the Big Apple and at the U.N. And I suspect he is involved in "killing" columns he doesn't like when their authors are priests. 

I wonder what the morale is among the orthodox priests of New York as they watch his incredible antics.