Update on TLM Ban in Charlotte, The Steel Boot Descends!

October has arrived and the TLM has been deep-sixed except for one small chapel that cannot accommodate the 1000+ weekly attendees. For many, the Sunday Mass requires two-hour travel time to participate at the Mass of the Ages.

Clericalism is Alive and Well and Begins at the Top!

This is NOT clericalism!

If you're going to talk about something, you better define it. What exactly is clericalism? Modernists would have you believe that it relates to the laity giving the priests too much honor and respect merely because they are priests, when they are really just like the rest of us, just "one of the boys." Their antidote to clericalism is to drag them off the "high altar," call them Fr. Bob or Fr. Joe or drop the "Father" altogether and engage in back slapping camaraderie. They don't stop there, however. The next move is to divide up the priestly functions among the laity. After all, priests are nothing but "presiders" at the communal meal where the Eucharist can be distributed like appetizers by the lay wait staff. "Joe" can help if he likes or sit in the "presider's" chair until Communion is finished.

When Bishops Usurp the Laity’s Role: Now THAT is Clericalism!

Editor’s Comment: One of my objections to the Bishops Lenten Appeal is that it supports the Virginia Catholic Conference, a lobby group that continuously takes “Catholic positions” on prudential moral issues. Is opposition to uranium mining really an issue that the bishops’ have any expertise on AT ALL? Of course not! But they tell Virginia Catholics to come along to Richmond and push their questionable opinions on climate change, immigration, the death penalty, and a whole host of other prudential issues. Phil Lawler’s article raises the same questions I have often posed about the role of our bishops which is to teach, govern, and sanctify. Ironically, while sticking their noses in all sorts of things that are NOT their business, many bishops irresponsibly neglect what IS their business. If your bishops have a lobby group, there is something wrong! Ironically, many of the lay-run lobby groups defend intrinsic moral issues that the bishops treat with a ho-hum or even an enabling wink. It’s time to stop! Thumbs up to Phil Lawler!

A STATEMENT THE TENNESSEE BISHOPS SHOULDN’T HAVE MADE

Nabi Sayeth: Beware the Lavender Amigos

Nabi sayeth: The cover up and infestation by the Lavender Mafia is deep, thick and has been long-term. Nabi spoke with a clergyman who recalls a particular episode that occurred in 1984 at the seminary of choice for the diocese in WV that will illustrate vividly the cover up games that have been played.

Catholic Bishops: Are They Just One More NGO Liberal Lobby?

Chris Manion has a great article on the bishops and their call for immigration "reform," their buzzward for amnesty. Some bishops (Mahony comes to mind) paint anyone who disagrees with them or calls for securing our borders as a racist troglodyte fit for hell because of his (or her) lack of "social justice." They never consider the justice due to citizens losing health care access and decent education (Illegals in the schools cost taxpayers $52 BILLION a year!) because the system is overrun by the illegal invasion. When 84 hospital in southern California go bankrupt and close the community suffers. Is that justice? Well...don't get me started. Here's a bit of Chris' excellent commentary:

I'm With George Neumayer

Cardinal Wuerl's Continuing Crisis

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.

And Exactly Why Is This a Secret, Your Eminence?

A spokesman for the U.S. Catholic Bishops has accused Catholic News Agency of fabricating comments by Cardinal George criticizing the Catholic Health Association (CHA) for supporting Obamacare. (The cardinal gave a talk on health care at the bishops' recent meeting in Florida.) You can read the story by clicking on the link below.

US bishops' conference, news agency at odds over account of Cardinal George's speech

The question I have is why exactly was Cardinal George's talk a secret in the first place? Was he ashamed of something he was going to say? What was the point of making it secret? Haven't we had enough secrets? Was Cardinal George afraid to directly confront the scandalous actions of Sister Carol Keehan and the CHA and let the flock know it? Why? Shouldn't public scandals be confronted publicly? Has anybody got a good answer?

In his book Nothing to Hide, Russell Shaw, former communications director for the bishops, describes the ill effects of secrecy on the community:

Secrecy, deception, stonewalling, spin, rejection of accountability, repudiation of shared responsibility and consultation -- these are deadly foes of internal communication among members of any group. They subvert and eventually destroy community and "horizontal" communion in the Church. Systematically practiced by leaders at the expense of the led, the abuse of secrecy creates an us-versus-them mentality on both sides of the relationship.

Hmm....Us vs. them -- yes indeed. Unfortunately, the them identified as enemies of the bishops are often those laity who defend the faith with courage and conviction. Preeminent theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand pointed this out in The Devastated Vineyard. Those who should be the bishops' pride and joy are often dismissed as troublemakers.

Shaw says most of what happens at bishops' meetings should be open. "The presumption ought to be in favor of openness, with the burden of proof resting (the seal of confessional excepted) on those who wish to argue for secrecy in particular cases that 'involve the good name of individuals, or that touch upon the rights of people whether singly or collectively'".

But the opposite is actually happening as the bishops close more and more of their sessions to the media. There is still a "circle the wagons" mentality. Put it down, at least in part, to the on-going problem of clericalism in the Church which, as Shaw says, is "something like the pattern in the wallpaper: it's been there so long you don't see it any more". Shaw defines clericalism as:

an elitist mindset, together with structures and patterns of behavior corresponding to it, that takes it for granted that clerics -- in the Catholic context, mainly bishops and priests -- are intrinsically superior to the other members of the Chruch and dexerve automatic deference. Passivity and dependency are the laity's lot. By no means is clericalism confined to clerics themselves. The clericalist mindset is widely shared by Catholic lay people.

Combine the elitist mindset with the attitutude that boatrockers are enemies even when they are loyal to Holy Mother Church and are working feverishly to bail the floundering ship. Wrap it all up in secrecy and you have prescription for a Church leadership out of touch with the flock and indifferent to the damaging impact scandal has had on the faith.

I'm not talking only about the sex abuse scandals, but the inaction in the face of dozens of other scandals: The Vagina Monologues showing on Catholic campuses, heretical speakers at Catholic events, homosexuals and dissenters teaching in Catholic schools at all levels, pastors allowing Church property to be used for homosexual and pro-abortion events, celebrity Catholic dissenters in photo ops with bishops laughing and making nice as though nothing is wrong. The list of scandals goes on and on and on.

The bishops' trust index with the people is so low at this point that one ponders who the average Joe in the marketplace, not to mention the average Jane in the pew, is likely to believe when he or she sees the bishops "at odds" with a news agency or anybody else for that matter? My money, sad to say, is not on the bishops.

The Irish Report and the Murder of Innocence

As more and more revelations come out of Ireland about the systematic abuse of children, we see once more the devastating impact of homosexuals in the priesthood. The greatest abuse occurred in the boys' schools. Many victims were raped and beaten. The girls did not experience sexual abuse from the nuns, but were vulnerable to outside placements and from workers in the schools. Most of the children appeared to suffer from physical abuse, neglect, harshness, and deprivation. The report (and I only read the Executive Summary and selections from the 1,000+ pages) is a little shop of horrors - enough to petrify the heart.

Victims, however, have criticized a serious flaw in the report -- the failure to inquire into the courts that sentenced so many of these children to the homes -- in some cases because their mothers were unwed or their fathers were out of work and had difficulty making ends meet. If you want to get at least a small understanding into the complicity of the Irish court system, get the film Evelyn based on the real-life case of Desmond Doyle who lost his children after their mother abandoned the family and Doyle lost his job. It is a compelling story.

Pray for poor Holy Mother Church, betrayed, not only by the abusers, but even more by those in authority who put the institution above the well-being of the little ones. (See The Devil's Triple Play: Clericalism, Secrecy, and Dissent.)

Executive Summary of the Report

Irish abused "cheated of justice" video comments of victims' spokesman, John Kelly

Former mayor shocks Ireland with revelations

'Endemic' rape and abuse of Irish children in Catholic care, inquiry finds

Abuse report - a catalogue of horror

Church ignored sexual abuse