Nabi Sayeth: The Health of the Flock Depends on the Shepherd!

Obvious Answer! 

Editor's Note: Our shepherds are spiritual physicians. If they dispense a healthy prescription --an example of truth, virtue, goodness, beauty and respect for others -- they encourage a healthy flock. If they dispense poison -- an example of lies, corruption, greed, lust, pride, and contempt for others -- they create the diocese from hell. Even in those dioceses, however, one can find faithful shepherds, but it is much more difficult. 

The moral? Pray and fight for orthodoxy and support faithful and holy priests! And don't tolerate bishops who hide the truth and cover up the corruption. It needs to be exposed. McCarrick could only continue living his double life because his activities were hidden -- Pope Benedict failed us by not publicly admonishing McCarrick and letting the faithful know he had levied sanctions against him. Shame on them all!

Nabi Sayeth:

To understand the health of the flock, one must examine the quality of its shepherd. A good shepherd produces a secure and productive flock; a bad, careless shepherd produces an insecure and confused flock. 

In what was once a unified group of shepherds working as caretakers of the flock entrusted to them by Jesus, the Good and True Shepherd, and united with the universal shepherd, the pope, the bishops are now anything but united and some have proved themselves to be wicked wolves in shepherd’s clothing.
The following quote found in wiki illustrates this point well:

After the publication of Humanae Vitae in 1968, several problems emerged with the notion of collegiality promoted in the document. The fact that several episcopal conferences would openly rebel against the Pope had been unthinkable during the papacy of Pius XII. Prominent members in the Roman Curia deplored the fact that conference leaders appeared to behave as if they were regional popes. This complaint is notably found in the 1985 Ratzinger Report, a series of interviews where Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger deplores the lack of structure, organization and coordination between Rome and the local assemblies of Catholic bishops.

(Please note: Cardinal Ratzinger would go on to become Pope Benedict XVI.)

The lack of unity among the bishops and the pope has caused confusion and harm. They were called to be visible signs of the world-wide unity of the Catholic Church (remember the credal words, “ONE, holy, CATHOLIC and apostolic Church?).

Some examples will help:

So many bishops behave as “little popes” in their own dioceses. For instance, In West Virginia, when St. Patrick’s day fell on a Friday during Lent, a day of fasting and abstinence from meat; Bishop Schmitt would dispense the Catholics of WV from the Lenten obligations. But across the river in the diocese of Steubenville, the bishop did not dispense the obligations. Catholic from the Ohio side of the river would chuckle their way across the river to party up in “honor” of St. Patrick in West Virginia. 

The age for the reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation depended on the disposition of the bishop of the diocese in which the child lived. It could be middle school age or high school age or when the child as an infant was baptized.

Both Popes Benedict and Francis mandated that homosexuals were not to be admitted to seminary, and therefore,  to the priesthood. If one lived in the diocese of Pittsburgh, the mandate was published in the Diocesan newspaper for all to see. But if one lived in West Virginia, the mandate never made it to the Diocesan press, even though the secular news had reported the mandate! 

The national sexual abuse prevention program was put into place in some dioceses and the oversight of the program was delegated to a competent non-ordained lay person. In WV the program was under the control of an ordained deacon who answered to a chancery priest who himself answered to FORMER Bishop Bransfield. How’s that for transparency and accountability? Unfortunately, protecting our children against perverted sexual abuse is only as effective as the people who oversee the program.

Nabi asketh: Art thou confused? Dismayed? Shocked? If the shepherds are confused and confusing...what about the members of the flock? When will the confusion, the disunity, the abuse of power and of our young come to an end?

Read and take to heart these words of the Prophet Jeremiah in Chapter 23:
1
Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the flock of my pasture—
2
Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds.
3
I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have banished them and bring them back to their folds; there they shall be fruitful and multiply.
4
I will raise up shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear or be terrified; none shall be missing—oracle of the LORD.

May we see the word of God spoken by Jeremiah fulfilled
soon….stay tuned....