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Joint ownership of parishes is a terrible idea. For better or worse, the Church is not a democracy. It is not right for laymen and non-episcopal clergy, who do not have a complete understanding of the diocese's political/economic/spiritual situation, to have power over the bishop. I am not at all liberal, I adore the Latin Mass, and I respectfully question many policies of the bishops. But obedience is a principle that goes back the apostolic fathers and the apostles themselves.

From the epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch, martyred in 108 AD:

"He who acts in anything apart from the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons is not pure in conscience." (To the Trallians)

"Do nothing without the bishop. Keep your flesh as a shrine of God. Love union. Flee divisions. Become followers of Jesus Christ as He also was of the Father." (To the Romans)

"Avoid divisions as the beginning of evil. Follow, all of you, the bishop, as Jesus Christ followed the Father; and follow the presbytery as the Apostles. [..] Let no man do aught pertaining to the Church apart from the bishop." (To the Smyrnaeans)

(et cetera)

John

Welcome to Freerepublic, noste paire!

While I am heartsick about Holy Trinity closing down and the Indult being moved to nearby St. James, I have to agree with noste paire. To have each community maintain their own (or a group of parishes) parish is scary. I look around at the situation in Boston and see the parishes that are now running their own show and those parishes are not teaching Catholic doctrine, they are a community unto themselves. I know most traditional Catholics are not likely to set up big screen tv's (as they have in a few of the closed but parishioner protesting via sit ins parishes) and have 'communion services' but they are possibly apt to move away from the larger Catholic community due to a slight bunker mentality (which current circumstances tend to aggravate). In effect, both the traditionalists and the progressives end up in the same place - out of sync with the bishop and the larger Catholic community of believers.

The situation at HT is volatile - parishioners are filing a suit against the parish priest accusing him of mismanaging funds. This is falling right into the hands of the local VOTF and causing scandal as it is all over the news.

What a mess. I wouldn't want to be Archbishop O'Malley for anything.

Having joint ownership of title is not the conversion of the Church to a democracy. It is simply a different model of governance, and throughout the world there have been a number of different models.

Also, obedience is not a blanket you through over your head and say like a zombie, 'I see nothing, I can do nothing, I obey the bishop.' On the contrary, obedience means that there is constructive engagement of issues and ideas and assent with integrity to authority within its legitimate scope of canonical authority. Otherwise obedience may come to mean simply the "Yes, master." of an unwilling slave.