Last November, Bishop Richard Malone of Portland Maine was the special guest of Bishop John Kevin Boland in Perry Georgia for Savannah's diocesan-wide “One In The Spirit” event, billed as a “Catholic Homecoming— the very same event where I was "strong-armed" off the fairgrounds during Mass.
Episcopal collegiality is a great idea and it certainly works well in instances where our bishops need to speak with one voice, especially on moral issues critical to our time. Apparently, Bishops Boland and Malone have found a new collegial issue to rally around:
How to get rid of Catholics who annoy them.
A little more than a month after my expulsion from the Perry fairgrounds (I was “dangerously” standing in the back of the auditorium holding my one-year-old on my shoulders) Bishop Malone warned a member of his own flock that if he set foot in Portland’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, he would be facing criminal trespass charges.
Businessman Paul Kendrick , a lay Catholic activist who has tirelessly lobbied for sexual abuse victims allegedly threatened to “disrupt” Midnight Mass last Christmas. Specifically, he wrote to Bishop Malone that he would be coming in peace to Midnight Mass:
"...but if you happen to look my way from time to time, you may see me shaking my head ever so slightly in disbelief, or my head may be in my hands as I pray for tolerance to remain seated in spite of your hypocrisy."
One can certainly understand the concern for the bishop’s safety, since those head-shakes of disbelief are known to be both “dangerous” and “incendiary”. Is it possible that last November Bishops Boland and Malone were comparing strategies?
But our two bishops have even more in common. While they have so far successfully used the legal system to bar “dangerous” Catholics like Kendrick and myself from Catholic churches, they also apparently have no problem with America’s best-known “Catholic” university inviting the most pro-abortion, anti-life president in history to speak at its commencement. The list below shows 42 bishops who have all spoken out against Obama’s invitation to Notre Dame, but don’t waste your time looking for Bishop Boland’s or Bishop Malone’s names. They are not there—although it would please me very much to be able to amend this list and add their names.
Notre Dame’s invitation of Obama
1. Bishop John D'Arcy - Fort Wayne-South Bend, IN
2. Bishop Samuel Aquila - Fargo, ND
3. Bishop Gregory Aymond - Austin, TX
4. Bishop Gerald Barbarito - Palm Beach, FL
5. Bishop Leonard Blair - Toledo, OH
6. Archbishop Daniel Buechlein - Indianapolis, IN
7. Bishop Robert Baker - Birmingham, AL
8. Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz - Lincoln, NE
9. Archbishop Eusebius Beltran - Oklahoma City, OK
10. Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Cantú - San Antonio, TX
11. Bishop Paul Coakley - Salina, KS
12. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo - Houston, TX
13. Archbishop Timothy Dolan - New York, NY
14. Bishop Thomas Doran - Rockford, IL
15. Auxiliary Bishop John Dougherty - Scranton, PA
16. Bishop Robert Finn - Kansas City-St. Joseph, MO
17. Cardinal Francis George - Chicago, IL; President, USCCB
18. Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger - Evansville, IN
19. Archbishop José Gomez - San Antonio, TX
20. Bishop William Higi - Lafayette, IN
21. Archbishop Alfred Hughs - New Orleans, LA
22. Bishop Joseph Latino - Jackson, MS
23. Bishop Jerome Listecki - La Crosse, WI
24. Bishop William E. Lori - Bridgeport, CT
25. Bishop George Lucas - Springfield, IL
26. Bishop Robert Lynch - St. Petersburg, FL
27. Bishop Joseph Martino - Scranton, PA
28. Bishop Charles Morlino - Madison, WI
29. Bishop George Murry - Youngstown, OH
30. Archbishop John J. Myers - Newark, NJ
31. Bishop R. Walker Nickless - Sioux City, IA
32. Archbishop John C. Nienstedt - St. Paul-Minneapolis, MN
33. Archbishop Edwin O'Brien - Baltimore, MD
34. Bishop Thomas Olmsted - Phoenix, AZ
35. Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk - Cincinnati, OH
36. Bishop Kevin Rhoades - Harrisburg, PA
37. Bishop Alexander Sample - Marquette, MI
38. Bishop Edward J. Slattery - Tulsa, OK
39. Bishop Richard Stika - Knoxville, TN
40. Bishop Anthony Taylor - Little Rock, AR
41. Bishop Robert Vasa - Baker, OR
42. Bishop Thomas Wenski - Orlando, FL
"Dangerous" Catholics who shake their heads in disbelief or try to take their children to Mass must be stopped!
To summarize the position of these two brother bishops:
“Dangerous” Catholics—stay out or face arrest.
Obama, the president who funds abortion, removes conscience protections and supports Planned Parenthood—who cares?
Collegiality.
2 comments:
Also among the missing are bishops from some of the largest dioceses in America, in California, the land of liturgical dancing, Barney Masses, and forbidden kneeling. :-(
It really is how they work. When Bishop Loverde wanted to silence Fr. Haley, he contacted a couple other bishops with reputations for silencing priests for orthodoxy/traditionalism and/or whistle-blowing and asked them how best to discipline a priest without resorting to a formal canonical process. Then, when he was forced to use proper procedures, he had a friendly bishop as the judge.
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