What Do We Want to Know, Cardinal Wuerl? The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth!

Don't miss my show at the comedy club tonight!

Cardinal Wuerl could be a stand up comic, albeit a closeted one. The title of his soon Not-to-be-published book, What Do You Want to Know? A Pastor's Response to the Most Challenging Questions about the Catholic Faith, sounds like a joke in view of the Grand Jury report. Was the cardinal laughing up his sleeve when he titled it?

The fact is, Cardinal Wuerl has been a cover-up meister for years doing all he could to keep the coverup lid on evil and the duct tape over the mouths of his brother bishops who might be tempted to speak up and boldly condemn intrinsic evils. How embarrassing!

Did you know that in 2005, just a few short years after Dallas, Wuerl planned to introduce a Mechanism of Review via the USCCB. It wasn't, of course, a review of the bishops and their on-going efforts to hide their involvement in the sex abuse crisis.

Nope!

It was a plan to silence bold bishops who might think about enforcing the clear teachings of the Church.  What a horrifying and embarrassing idea! How would that impact Wuerl's relationships with the high and mighty?

Bishop Rene Gracida was appalled at the document and, with Fr. Patrick Serna, wrote a pamphlet they sent to all the bishops prior to the USCCB's 2006 meeting titled A Mechanism for Restraint: An Analysis of a Proposal to Rein in Activist Bishops. Here's how Fr. Serna describes their effort in the prologue of Bishop Gracida's biography:

In "A Mechanism for Restraint," we addressed and destroyed all the points of [then] Bishop Wuerl's "Mechanism of Review," and before Wuerl's proposal could see the light of day at the upcoming USCCB meeting of American bishops, our pamphlet was mailed to each and every bishop of the United States, Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger, and Cardinal Arinze. Cardinal Arinze later sent an acknowledgment letter to Bishop Gracida, in which he expressed gratitude for our arguments and points, which negated the points of Bishop Wuerl's proposal. As a result of this action, Bishop Wuerl's propsal to muzzle courageous and faithful bishops never saw the light of day, and the Catholic Church in America was protected from having its bishops lose of their apostolic authority.

This document could have been written to address today's crisis, and it clearly identified some of the root causes -- silence, disobedience, and dissent:

It is a sad fact of history that some bishops of the then National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) [now the USCCB], by their silence, tacitly rejected Pope Paul VI's 1968 Encyclical Humanae Vitae. Their silence taught and promoted disobedience among the clergy and laity. This disobedience set the trend for many current problems in our American culture, which was accurately referred to as "The Culture of Death" by Pope John Paul II on many occasions. 

The Catholic Church in America desperately needs for its bishops to not be afraid to lead, afraid of public scorn, afraid of the cross. This recent proposal for a "Mechanism of Review" is largely inspired by a fear of controversy and a fear of getting in the middle of St. Paul's "Good Fight of the Faith" (1Cor.9:26; 2Tim.4:7). Fear of doing the right thing got us into the wrong kind of controversy with the sex scandals… "If we look the other way it will get better." As a consequence, current day Herod the Greats who kill thousands of innocent babies via their promotion of pro-abortion laws and political machines are invited by "open minded bishops" to receive Holy Communion from the Altar.

What was going on in 2005 that instigated Wuerl's proposal and Bishop Gracida's response? Laity were demanding implementation of  canon law 915 to ban pro-abortion Catholic politicians from receiving the Eucharist. American Life League, Defend Life, and the Catholic Media Coalition (CMC) all actively addressed the issue at the annual Fall bishops' meeting several years in a row beginning, I think, in 2003. We held prayer vigils with signs urging bishops BY NAME to ban NAMED POLITICIANS like Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Barbara Mikulski from receiving sacrilegious Communions while they publicly advocated murder of the innocent. [articles here, here, here, and here]

I remember well one meeting in D.C. when the buses lined up in front of the hotel waiting for the bishops to board for transit to the National Shrine. When the bus driver got off the lead bus and no one was paying attention I got on and placed a letter from CMC on every seat. We continued to distribute it outside the Mass at the Shrine. As the bishops boarded the buses, the silence was deafening except for smiles, thank-you's, and thumbs up from a few good guys. Most pretended we were invisible.

Sound familiar?

Bishops like McCarrick and Wuerl were vigilant about protection, not the protection of the unborn, but the protection of their power and influence. They made sanctimonious statements about not making the Communon rail a battleground by refusing Communion to notorious public advocates of child murder. Can we really be surprised that those who winked at baby killing would not wink at child abuse? It's only "horseplay" after all.

It's prudent to remember here that McCarrick and Wuerl are good friends and that they were equally vigilant in keeping their brother bishops on a leash and in the dark. Remember the infamous event when McCarrick lied to the bishops about Cardinal Ratzinger's 2004 letter telling the bishops they "must" refuse Communion to pro-abortion politicians. McCarrick in a speech to the bishops lied saying, “I would emphasize that Cardinal Ratzinger clearly leaves to us as teachers, pastors and leaders WHETHER to pursue this path [of denying Communion]....The question for us is not simply whether denial of Communion is possible, but whether it is pastorally wise and prudent." What the Ratzinger letter really said according to an article in the Washington Times was:

...denial of Communion is obligatory “regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia.”
Cardinal Ratzinger also says a priest should warn “the person in question” of the consequences, including the denial of Communion. 

If “the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it,” Cardinal Ratzinger wrote. 

The letter’s last paragraph also takes on Catholics who vote for candidates because of their pro-choice stance. 

We make a great team don't we?

“If he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia,” that Catholic too “would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion,” it reads.

McCarrick lied and the bishops adopted a policy at their meeting that year saying it was up to the individual bishops to decide whether to implement canon 915 or not. The champion spinmeister, an expert at manipulation, accomplished his purpose, although the Vatican was not happy about it according to reports. Wuerl's m.o. is identical. He is a manipulator of the first stripe, a man who has no problem twisting and suppressing the truth and encouraging his brother bishops to imitate him. If the bishops are serious about accountability, then #Wuerl'sGottaGo!