Bishops claim moral authority amidst widespread 'confusion'

Cardinal Francis George says that Catholics who have questions about some positions taken by the church heirarchy or hold different views from the bishops are "less than fully Catholic." I agree. If the Catholic church is the depository of "truth," there's nothing to discuss. Everything is clear and beyond question and closed to discussion. We need only await pronouncements from on high to know what to think. That must be what Jesus meant when he said to Peter (the first pope), "Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." (Matt 23:16) How come the church has never developed this aspect of Petrine theology? And when Paul disagreed with Peter, arguing that the Good News was meant, not just for the Jews, but for all humanity, the church should obviously have sided with Peter.

The only confusion I have is how the bishops think they can continue to claim moral authority and the right to teach with any credibility at all, when they continue refusing to deal transparently and with full accountability for their role in the abuse crisis.

About which we have abundant evidence, after all, and that evidence does not shore up the bishops' moral authority or authority as teachers.

The only "widespread confusion" is amongst the bishops themselves...

It seems as if, after years and years of near-irrelevance during the 70s and 80s, the USCCB is getting its act together and taking action on important matters of the day. At this plenary session the bishops have approved the final translations of the third edition of the Roman Missal (despite the impotent protests of Bishop Trautman -- a prelate that we can consign to a well-deserved obscurity, it seems). The bishops reiterated the centrality of the ordained priesthood to the Catholic faith and paid tribute to the men who have been called by God to this life of service in the Church during this Year for Priests.

On the pro-life front, the bishops took action to educate the faithful as to the reasons for the Church's long-standing opposition to in vitro fertilization; they revised guidelines for those who are "persistently vegetative," reiterating the Church's teaching that food and water cannot be removed so that the patient might be allowed to "die with dignity". The bishops also looked carefully at their excellent victory in making sure that the House's health care bill did not include a provision for taxpayer-funded abortions. And, they approved their pastoral letter on marriage and family life.

Of course there is more to do. The bishops heard a report regarding their successes in handling the sexual abuse crisis, citing, among other things, that the number of abuse cases have sharply declined since 1985 and the number of credibly-accused priests being returned to ministry has also sharply declined. At the same time, the report failed utterly to make the correct link between predatory homosexuals and the abuse of minors in the Church. Rightly the Jay Report notes that homosexuals are not necessarily abusers, but they missed the point that the vast majority of the abuse cases are instances of predatory homosexual priests (and laity) who preyed on vulnerable teenage boys in an effort to indoctrinate them into the lifestyle (as outlined in various books such as "Goodbye Good Men" and "AmChurch Comes Out). Clearly more research on this connection is necessary.

Additionally, His Grace, Archbishop Myers of Newark, correctly noted, "You only have to look at Congress, or any state in the country to see a number of Catholics who vote against the deeply rooted fundamentals of our faith...The fact that there is such very public confusion (on Catholic teaching) is a matter of deep concern for us." Cardinal George correctly observed on this front that those Catholics who choose or seek to believe their own way, in opposition to the bishops and the defined teaching of the Church, are "less than fully Catholic". One would assume that the bishops, at their next meetings, will address lack of faith in Christ and His Church.

On the whole, it seems our bishops (with a few exceptions) have done well this November and I applaud them for their efforts in defense of life and in the service of Christ's Holy Church. May God richly bless each of them now and always, and may the Lord Who brought this good work about in each of them bring it to fulfillment.

It is curious that the USCCB website offers a summary of the report from John Jay College of Criminal Justice but makes NO mention of the material presented regarding the lack of connection between homosexuality and sexual abuse.

It is curious that the USCCB website which offers a summary of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice's report makes NO mention of the lack of connection between homosexuality and sexual abuse.

So let me understand this: An institution of all males had for decades formally, consistently, routinely hid and shielded their ordained priests from any accountability for their multiple, egregious abuses of power in the sexual molestation of children. Then they formally pronounced and implemented a policy that attempted to weed out potentially offending newcomers to the ranks by barring those with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies." And now they presume to have any moral authority to speak clearly and convincingly to any other adults of the world about sexual/relational morality? And they need specialist-researchers, in the process, to tell them things like "don't confuse homosexuality with pedophilia..."? As institutional representatives, these "officials" don't get it at all. They need to take a break from pronouncements on pelvic-morality, and learn how to lead more by example than by formal letters that fall flat like so many empty words.

The Bishops would have us believe that they are guided by the Holy Spirit. Some of those responding to this article will also tout obeidience to the hierarchy as the ultimate virtue and as an aboslute requirement for Catholics. Unfortunately, the hierarchy is composed of human beings -- who are flawed, like we all are. The bishops believe that they are guided in faith by love. They apparently see the rest of us as being so hopelessly ignorant and clueless that we cannot recognize the essentials of faith, unless we are hit over the head. And how is prudence demonstrated in their actions?
It is amazing to me that the bishops would truly believe that priests and hierarchy are the only ones who are guided by the Spirit. How do they know that lay people (including professors) are not? Most of the bishops are not theologians, and perhaps, prudence would suggest that they might be guided by those professors who are just as likely to be guided by the Holy Spirit as are the priests and bishops.

Hopefully, but not likely,as the bishops reexamine the problems related to the controversial issues of marriage, same sex relationships, contraception they will look at all the concomitant issues and understand that the issues are not all black and white but shades of gray.

One only has to remember that it was not Vatican 2 that destroyed the church as some would like to propose but more likely the inability of the pope Paul to accept the recommendations of the committee appointed years ago by him regarding contraception. Increase and multiply in an overpopulated world is, in my thinking, as great a fault (sin?) as choosing to limit the possibility by using a contraceptive device. Of course, the standard answer to this is to be abstinent. Once again, the Church puts abstinence on the highest plain. Why not just come out a say that those who choose vows to abstain are on a higher level to perfection. Without the struggling laity, there would be no church and the bishops would end up just talking to themselves.

I do not wish to fault all the good that comes from their direction. But the animosity towards sexuality really isolates them from a substantial portion of the flock.

Let us remember that "In my father's house, there are many mansions".

As one who faithfully carried his St. Andrew's Missal to Mass prior to Vatican 2, I would love to see the practice encouraged again but in a vernacular that makes sense to the laity and not couched in theological niceties.

As usual, the bishops have no inspirational words for us. They merely repeat dogma. I feel their comments are designed to maintain their power structure, and not much more.

As usual, the bishops seek to control, not to inspire. I find their repeating of dogma tiresome, and lacking in insight.

RE: "Responding to scientific advances and widespread "confusion" among their flocks."

I just want to register publicly that I'm not "confused."

Disagreement over certain interpretations of church teaching or how it serves human life and dignity today is not "confusion."

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"As a general rule, there is an obligation to provide patients with food and water," even if the patient is in a "persistent vegetative state" and cannot take food orally," the bishops wrote.

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Catholics must delete from their living wills instructions about NO feeding tubes, NO hydration, NO artificial means of prolonging "life"?

Catholics (including bishops) must submit to being kept "alive" indefinitely, with respirators, feeding tubes, etc.?

Where will they "live"? Who will pay? Will the emotional damage to the families of these "living" corpses matter?

FEAR! FEAR! Fear! Sometimes I wonder if the only ones confussed are the Bishops. These dear mean need to take a year off and listen. They surely do not know how to celebrate what God has made, gay men and women.

Mary Smith of John Jay College must be a lawyer. Otherwise, how can one account for a nonsense statement as regards to sexual behavior and sexual orientation. No orientation, no behavior. We learn the societal rules and behave accordingly. When the behavior diminishes it can be because the cost of behaving exceeds to benefits. That is a basic understanding of how social processes work. Behavior is reward-driven.

What is the context surrounding these men: billions of dollars in payments, dioceses in bankruptcy, a culture of millions of Catholics ignoring them. This is just some of the context of what they are grappling with. They see themselves defending eternal Catholic verities, truths handed down from God in some way to them. Their view is that they have the truth and Catholics are to follow them, unwaveringly, never doubting their pronouncements. But another context is the explosion in recent years of educated Catholics who have been used to using critical reason. Do they ask these Catholics to leave that critical intelligence at the church door? Cardinal George proclaims that the bishops are the governors of the church. But is this a Potemkin church? What's behind the walls?
So the bishops go home, encouraged by their fellows, to do battle with the culture. These meetings are a heady time for them. What happens when they step off that plane in their own far away diocese and they face the every day reality of a dwindling priesthood, of closing parish upon parish and an increasing number of Christians who are nominally Catholic? What happens when Cardinal George is not at their side? What will it be like to wake up in darkness, in the middle of the night and there's no one there?

Has anybody noticed that the Bishops, Cardinals, etc. never mention the spirituality of the person. They are only interested in rules and regulations that have nothing to do with one's relationship to God.

Cardinal George says that without ordained priests, "the church would be deprived of the Eucharist, and her worship would be centered only on the praise and thanksgiving."

Using his (and the official) line of thinking, the primitive Christians, i.e., those ancestors in the faith closest to Jesus and his disciples in time and place, lacked a valid Eucharist.

"[F]acts, as history teaches, carry greater weight than pure doctrine." So wrote a future pope more than forty years ago (Joseph Ratzinger, HIGHLIGHTS OF VATICAN II, Paulist Press/Deus Books, 1966, p. 17).

Fact is Jesus and his disciples knew only the Jewish priesthood. Fact is ordination to the presbyterate and episcopate was a historical development removed in time from the Lord's ministry by more than a hundred years, maybe by more than two hundred years. Fact is Paul taught fellow Christians that every man and woman was a priest by virtue of his or her baptism. Fact is the earliest, i.e., original, Christians were led in worship by the presider whose liturgical presidency was based on his community leadership. Fact is these presiders --- presbyteroi or episkopoi (same functions, different title depending on particular community usage) --- were not ordained to their ministry. In this fact-based scenario, the "lead priest" led his fellow priests, male and female, in worship to God through Jesus the one and only High Priest. There was no so-called "ontological difference" between presider and fellow priests.

The word 'eucharist' means "act of (community) thanksgiving." The primitive Christians believed they received the body and blood of Christ, i.e., "the Eucharist," at their liturgies.

Now we have a prince of the church telling us that such cannot be the case since only an ordained minister can consecrate the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. In other words, he is effectively telling us that his (and our) ancestors in the faith did not receive the body and blood of Christ when they were assembled at community worship.

What hogwash!

If "the Eucharist" received by primitive priests lacking ordained ministry was valid "back in the day," so to speak, then "the Eucharist" received by Catholics today in the absence of an ordained minister is just as valid. It may be nice to have an "ordained" priest at the mass, but the legitimate needs of a eucharistic people --- all of them true priests --- must, of necessity, take precedence.

"[F]acts, as history teaches, carry greater weight than pure doctrine."

On this most essential truth of our Catholic faith, I for once agree with Joseph Ratzinger who is now Pope Benedict XVI!!!

It's well past time we pull out the weeds of tradition in order to rediscover our primitive ecclesial roots.

I don't want to oversimplify the issue, but as a heterosexual husband and father, and once a well- taught and obedient Catholic, I am continually amazed to think that 228 bishops [most of whom have never been married] will continue to believe they are morally superior and deemed the experts on marriage and family life. As any culture will evolve, it is best for true leaders to listen to their followers or be doomed to run screaming "...hurry, I must run for there go my people and I am their leader...." Bill

"You only have to look at Congress, or any state in the country to see a number of Catholics who vote against the deeply rooted fundamentals of our faith," said Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J. "The fact that there is such very public confusion (on Catholic teaching) is a matter of deep concern for us" states Archbishop Myers. Who is confused? I disagree with some of what they say or do (some of them as they do not all do the same or teach the same) but I am not confused. This is part of the bishop's problem. They don't credit us with knowing what we think.

So those with one idea out of sync is "not fully Catholic"? Actually this falls apart in the conference themselves. Unless each vote was 100% for, then the case can be made that so and so bishop is not "fully Catholic" based on his vote for this or that. That is even before you would try to extend it outside the conference. What a foolish statement, I expect it to fall by the wayside in widespread day to day life.

Also, same gender marriage "harms both the intrinsic dignity of every human person and the common good of society." is extremely over the top and really passes the blame of general day to day relationship responsibilities on a scapegoat, same-gender marriage people. What an easy way out. How about taking responsibility for your own relationships/marriages. No relationships or marriages are hurt by what someone else does with his/hers. Marriage is just as dignified as it always has and two people of the same gender marrying will not change that one bit. I do that day to day with my relationships, one is going strong now, others have fallen apart, but not due to anything use but the two of us, not what the neighbor down the street decided to do or not do. The bishops are so far out of touch it is amazing.

"...the bishops here have forcefully asserted their role as moral arbiters for the nation's 67 million Catholics. In fact, church members who seek independence from the Catholic hierarchy are "less than fully Catholic," Cardinal Francis George, the bishops' president, said Monday.

The public today is not the same public as in medieval times when clerics were afforded a higher level of education than virtually all the public. This isn't true today. Clerics are deficient, perhaps even as much and more so than the general public, in areas of science that very much relate to moral judgment. Gross failures of judgment by bishops regarding sexual abuse, genetic science and evolution have caused them to lose public credibility in critically important areas of moral judgment. Bishops need to be guided by the "sensus fidelium" and they need to respect the moral competency of the Church of the People of God, and honor the primacy right of personal conscience.

Is this a typo?

"Without ordained priests, he [George] said, "the church would be deprived of the Eucharist, and her worship would be centered only on the praise and thanksgiving."

And this priestless praise and thanksgiving is a bad thing because__________________?