Jesus had a right to call the pharisees “whited sepulchers”, because he is God and knew their hearts.
I don’t have that right-—or that divine knowledge.
As for the conversion you speak of (”And now we are supposed to be convinced that they are all converted”)....we are all in need of conversion every day of our lives. Each one of us could see our names written in the sand by the Lord. And if such needed conversions DO take place, our Lord said that it would be cause for rejoicing....not derision.
This isn’t a time to throw stones. It’s time to re-build with the “living stones” our Lord spoke of.
I don’t want negativity to be my “mission statement”.
I don’t want negativity to be my “mission statement”.
Negativity, as you label it, is entirely appropriate in certain situations. When looking to the next four years with Obama my viewpoint might be called one of negativity. However, intentional positivity in spite of overwhelming evidence is nothing more than naiveté. We are not called by the Gospel to be a naive people. Over and over we are encouraged and exhorted to be wise, aware and watchful of threats, both from within and without. Bishops are not impeccable or infallible, and it would behove all of us to judge the trees by the fruit.
These bishops, as a collective body, have been massively derelict, at best, in defending and spreading the faith. They have taken position after position which fails any possible smell test a person of faith could apply. Are there good ones? Sure, but that doesn't speak to the collective which was referred to in the earlier post and whose motives were implied to be so virtuous. We cannot ignore that the one time the bishops decided to break their consistent pro-democrat and liberal political position was when it actually affected them directly rather than their congregations. One would have to be very naive indeed to think they all just suddenly turned away from their errors over this one issue. The truth is they just don't have any moral authority anymore in these things, and until they take an unpopular stand in defense of the true faith which actually costs them money or people in their pews I will continue to be very skeptical.