Posted on 07/03/2008 3:26:15 AM PDT by livius
Our recent coverage of the scandal at Richmond Catholic Charities ( CCR) tells a sordid tale of tragedy, secrecy, and subterfuge. But this incident, sorrowful as it is, also reveals a deeper and more pervasive problem that has plagued the Church in America for decades. That problem is the power of rogue bureaucracies that have hijacked the work of the Church and secularized it. In many cases, like that in Richmond, they have totally corrupted it.
Sometimes we have to wonder if the chanceries have learned anything from the clerical abuse scandals and cover- ups that have so damaged the Church in recent years. The Richmond chancery, flouting the Dallas charter’s requirement for transparency, covered up this latest scandal for months. Their method is marked with familiar signs — secrecy, expensive lawyers, denials, and finger pointing. The only tactic missing is “ blaming the victim” — which is impossible, in this case, because one of the victims is dead, killed last January 18 by an abortion arranged and authorized by employees of Richmond Catholic Charities ( CCR)...
The bishops must wonder, how did this come to pass? Well, while they weren’t looking, those church bureaucracies have become solidly entrenched and radicalized. They are now virtual clones of the federal bureaucracy — where government unions demand “ gay days,” castigate anyone caught praying on the job, and mock pro- life presidents like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush as though they were temporary “ political appointees.” For the past thirty years, many USCCB bureaucracies have faithfully reflected the policies of the pro- abortion, Democratic left in Washington. The small (and good) prolife office at the USCCB is a lonely island in a sea of left- wing attitudes...
(Excerpt) Read more at thewandererpress.com ...
Ping to some people I have been discussing this with - and, of course, to the tireless NYer!
Gramscian Marxism wins again!
The ranks of the Catholic bureaucracies are likely filled with Liberation Theologists who have more faith in Marx than they do Christ.
The editors suggest that readers print out a copy of this and send it to their bishops, just as a reminder! I think I’ll do that, since my bishop (the one who led the charge against the new translation and the TLM at the bishops’ bash in Orlando) is also instituting a program here called “Just Faith,” which seems to be weekly small group (”base community”) indoctrination in the values of the Democratic Party and touts Catholic Charities and the other “Catholic” government-controlled social services agencies as the summit of Christian practice.
It is time to call these people what they **really** are: COMMUNISTS and MARXISTS!
They believe more in the perfection of man through Marx, than they have faith in the redeeming grace of Christ.
That's exactly what it is. This silent take-over of all institutions has been going on for a long time, and it seems to have been pretty successful in the case of the Catholic Church. I keep hoping this is the last gasp of the horrible bishops who were imbued since their youth with the sort of "Liberation Theology lite" (the "lite" just means no guns and bombings) that was circulating in the Church in the 70s.
That’s exactly what they are. I hope that some kind of an investigation of Catholic Charities will come out of this. Someone suggested that an audit be done of every one of their offices, to see what they spend their money on and what their real policies are. I think that would be a good start. It’s not fair to good Catholics to collect their money to support stuff like this.
The author suggested sending a copy to my Bishop, I would except that he is the cause of it, Bishop DeLorenzo.
This whole thing is making me sick to my stomach.
It was just a communist front for providing aid to the guerillas.
My aunt is a radical, union, democrat, liberal filled with an anger that has been there since I've known her.
I've had problems with the church and always am in conflict when I go to church. I love the message but hate the messenger. Just sad.....
BUT, leaving aside the problems, I suspect it is very true that a thorough house-cleaning is the only thing that can keep things like this from happening more often.
My guess would be that there have been any number of Catholic Charities enable abortions and that CC often provides contraceptives. A bishop like DiLorenzo inherits a bureacracy. He also inherits problems. And one of the tough jobs in starting up is getting information, even getting reliable sources of information. In related news: here's an observation: In '07 I took a convert I was sponsoring to the "Rite of Election". DiLorenzo preached an wonderful sermon. It was in every respect a tour de force and it laid out with enthusiasm the wonderful call that had been issued to the catechumens and candidates and the joy which had been offered to them.
This year I sponsored a catechumen and at the Rite of Election, the bishop seemed totally bummed. It was an okay sermon, but if I were asked, months later, to summarize it, I'd say it said,"This may not be what you wanted, exactly. Despite the perfection of the Church qua Church, what we live with is massive imperfection and deep and grievous flaws. Yet this IS the Church, and HERE is where Christ will richly enter your life, and you His."
I think that what I was seeing was Bp. DiLorenzo realizing what this article says. He may have, maybe naively, thought that the staff he inherited was loyal to the Church and obedient.
For a minute, stipulate that he tried to do the right thing, and trusted his subordinates. Think of the sense of betrayal he would then feel. He cannot do his job without assistance he can trust, as regards both their moral probity and their competence. Now He is learning what it is to succeed a notoriously liberal bishop who cultivated by example a culture of disobedience.
I know most of you have him sentenced and hung. I'm not ready to reach a verdict. If half of what this article says is true, he dithered and concealed. I'm waiting to see if he comes out of this broken or energized to do the right thing and clean house.
It’s one of those things that shocked me when I read about it first, and then the more I thought about it, the more upset it made me.
That he would do this in the first place is simply disgraceful, but of course, Judas was one of the Twelve, so things like this can be expected, I guess. Still, once he realized he was Judas, DiLorenzo should have gone and thrown himself down in repentance.
And of course, the other shocking thing is that after all the problems the bishops brought on for the entire Church with their “stone-walling,” evasion and legalisms in the clergy cases, they’re doing exactly the same thing in this case.
You have my sympathy for living in his diocese. I’m going to send this to my bishop. When he first came here, he was good on pro-life things, but now that he’s been a bishop for a few years, he seems to have wandered away from it. Or rather, he has developed the usual mish-mash of left-wing ideas (ranging from opposition to the military to favoring stupid environmental stuff to being opposed to the death penalty) which he seems to regard as the moral equivalent of oppostion to abortion, and he’s pushing these now.
It would be wonderful, just once, to see the bishops rise to the challenge and do the right thing (in this case, a complete audit of every single Catholic Charities or other Catholic social services organization controlled by the bishops).
I don’t think that this was DiLorenzo’s policy or that he knew or even suspected that it was the policy of the local CC until this happened. Maybe his predecessor did, maybe not; but I doubt that it’s the sort of knowledge that would have been written down in a folder on his desk when he took office.
However, it’s pretty depressing to see that they - not only DiLorenzo but, apparently, all of the bishops - are handling this in a way that is so wierdly out of touch with the fundamental moral and ethical problem and its implications. Instead, their words seem to be coming out of a law office little better than one of those personal injury firms that advertises on billboards near the highway.
What is it going to take to make them wake up and act as shepherds (or even as Catholics) again?
My bishop spent some time in Peru with a leftist social services “missionary” group there and now is attempting to “build base communities” and prepare for priestless parishes, as well, of course, as instituting a program called “Just Faith” which seems to have the Democrat Party platform as its articles of faith.
That's one way to look at it. Another is that Bp. DLorenzo is one of the victims of it.
How long was Sullivan Bishop? For how many years was a barely hidden pro-artificial birth control and pro-abortion ethos in the ascendant in Richmond?
A few years back I was, briefly, pastoral coordinator of a congregation. It took me months to find out that the chair of the Pastoral Council, the Deacon, and the book-keeper were — no paranoia here! — calling each other and discussing how awful I was, how my friendship with conservative Dominicans and my conservative politics AND my being an NRA member and a Reserve Deputy sowed that I was just awful to the core and needed to be resisted at every turn.
And one of my worst crimes was that I was trying to run an entirely open administration!
It was the deacon who had suggested to the Bishop that I be pastoral coordinator! Did I feel set up? YEAH! These people had all smiled and applauded when it was announced that I had been given the job which I CERTAINLY did not want, but took at the request, the pleading, of the deacon. (I much prefer running real sheep to serving a congregation. Sheep don't want to have 3 hour meetings to discuss grievances over the altar flowers.)
I had a choice. I could ask the bishop to take care of the deacon, who was slowly dying of cancer, and I could dissolve the pastoral council, or I could resign. I resigned. I took the job only because I was asked to bail them out.
So part of my tendency to side with DiLorenzo is that I think I know how he feels. I know disorienting it is to discover suddenly that those who greeted you with smiles and pledges of cooperation are being thoroughly manipulative, are withholding information or presenting false information, and are blocking communication AND have started out with the intention to resist both candor and cooperation, while pledging both.
Some are calling for his resignation. I bet he has considered it. He's 66. He doesn't need the aggravation. And while some call for him to resign, maybe it would be good to consider what sort of advice the Pope would get on his successor. And what assurance do you have that his successor would be any better or would be given any more cooperation and honesty than what Bp DiLorenzo has been given?
It DOES seem that their first response in every case is “duck and cover”. Conspicuous candor and frankness are needed. Full and boringly detailed accounting would make trouble, but not as much as information given out in dribs and drabs.
Well, in a few minutes I'm going to go to the Tabernacle and say a full rosary for DiLorenzo.
Rosaries IMHO brought down the USSR. Surely they can clean up the USCCB.
See ya later.
Good idea.
Ping to read later
I agree with every point you have made, but the all to human part of me keeps thinking that the Bishop signed off on it.
I realize that he had been told in error that everything was in place and there was nothing he could you do. Instead of contacting the girl, instead of going down and standing in front of the abortionary, instead of standing up like a man and saying "Hell no, He chose to sign, and then after that he engaged in a cover up.
The only thing stopping me from demanding his resignation is that the bureaucracy will still be in place and his replacement might be worse.
I am still sick about it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.