As synodality looms, a bishop-in-charge-of-a-diocese deploys traditional language that never passes the lips of his international superior . . .
Strickland of Texas is the one . . .
. . . in his recent pastoral letter.
As your spiritual father, I feel it is important to reiterate the following basic truths that have always been understood by the Church from time immemorial, and to emphasize that the Church exists not to redefine matters of faith, but to safeguard the Deposit of Faith as it has been handed down to us from Our Lord Himself through the apostles and the saints and martyrs. [Emphases added throughout]
Tell me when you heard that sort of talk from the incumbent bishop of Rome.
The incumbent bishop of Tyler continued . . . :
. . . hearkening back to St. Paul’s warning to the Galatians, any attempts to pervert the true Gospel message must be categorically rejected as injurious to the Bride of Christ and her individual members.
Notice, none of “journeying” and other OK language regularly used by Pope Francis, who was recently criticized for it in this blistering commentary:
Cardinal Raymond Burke has issued a detailed critique of “populist rhetoric” often “attached to language used by Pope Francis,” which he said are “slogans of an ideology replacing what is irreplaceable for us: the constant doctrine and discipline of the Church.”
This cardinal, once a heavy-hitter, has long since been relegated to the minors by the reigning pontiff, bounced unceremoniously at the unripe age of 66 from head of the Vatican's highest court and sent off to a “largely ceremonial post” as “cardinal patron of the Knights and Dames of Malta.”
This was shortly after he had told a newspaper of “a strong sense that the church is like a ship without a rudder.”
It was increasingly important, Burke added, to “have a healthy spiritual leader” in the Vatican and “give powerful witness to the faith.”
Instead, he said, recent church legislation was “clearly outside of the canonical tradition and in a confused manner” questions that tradition.
Over the past few years,” he said, “certain words . . . ‘pastoral,’ ‘mercy,’ ‘listening,’ ‘discernment,’ ‘accompaniment,’ and ‘integration’ have been applied to the Church in a kind of magical way . . . without clear definition” — sloppily, he might have said.
“Pastoral care” was regularly discussed “as if in conflict with doctrine,” he said. And caring about such matters was characterized as “pharisaical,” geared to respond “coldly or even violently” to believers “who find themselves in an irregular situation morally and canonically.”
Burke:
Mercy is opposed to justice, listening . . . to teaching, discernment to judgment . . . The perspective of eternal life is eclipsed in favor of a . . . popular view of the Church in which all should feel ‘at home,’ even if their [lives are] an open contradiction to the truth and love of Christ.
As for Strickland in Texas, guess what he’s in the news for now, in addition to standing up for Tradition. He’s being investigated by Francis, who sent two of his people to quiz him, about what we do not know.
There’s no word from Rome at any rate, though one of Strickland’s priests rapped him soundly — and anonymously — citing fiscal and administrative matters. Strickland, on the other hand, is not holding back, has called the investigation a result of his willingness to “preach the truth,” adding that it is possible he could be removed from his post as a diocesan bishop.
A reader noted astutely that Francis is less a protector of doctrine than a pastor, and that’s fair enough. Trouble is, he’s not a pastor, he’s the pope, and his job is to tell the truth and only the truth, so help his God.
The truth includes mercy, but there’s also judgment, Burke argues. Strickland too, for that matter. At issue is the whole shmeer, with which Francis is playing hob, playing around, devil take the hindmost, you decide. Too often unserious, is our Francis.
Keep in mind when all is said and done, the words of wisdom called up by Father Z about whether there is “something wrong in Rome,” quoting Hilaire Belloc:
“The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine — but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.”
In the words of the immortal Porky Pig, th-th-th-that’s all, folks. For now.