Posted on 05/22/2009 5:53:39 PM PDT by markomalley
Just listened to Raymond Arroyo's interview with Bishop D'Arcy. One thing I wanted to comment on was that he gave a different perspective on Notre Dame and its Catholic Culture -- maybe softened my views on the subject
The one REALLY disappointing point is when Raymond asked the Bishop if he was going to take any action against Fr. Jenkins, he indicated that he was going to push Cardinal George (the USCCB president) to address this subject in June at the next USCCB meeting.
(The way i read canon law, and, again I AM NOT A CANONIST SO TAKE ANYTHING I SAY IN THAT CONTEXT, he has full authority *AND RESPONSIBILITY* to deal with the situation as the Diocesan Bishop)
So I see this as unnecessary wimpiness. (My thought was, upon hearing the comment, "Grow a pair your excellency")
The podcast of the show will appear on this link: http://www.ewtn.com/rss/wo.xml -- will likely not be available until Monday (if EWTN holds true to form)
The audio library repository is here: http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/seriessearchprog.asp?seriesID=-6892288
It might appear sooner there, but I doubt it.
Anybody else hear / see this interview? Your thoughts?
Yes, Bishop D’Arcy has full authority. But what happens when Notre Dame ignores him as it has again and again and again and again?
Until now, the rest of the bishops have ignored the problem. If Cardinal George could be persuaded to persuade a significant block of bishops to stand together regarding serious action against the universities, not just No Shame U, it might finally get their attention.
It’s a big if, but 80 bishops signing on against NSU was a significant change from the past. If D’Arcy acts alone, we already know the outcome. We don’t know the outcome if he tries to convince Cardinal George to do something because (1) we don’t know exactly what he wants the conference of bishops to do, (2) we don’t know if Cardinal George will agree, and (3) we don’t know whether, even if Cardinal George agrees, he can persuade enough others
but we do know the outcome if D’Arcy acts alone.
So cut him some slack and wait to see what comes of his plan.
No surprise there. The POPE should SPEAK FOR HIMSELF!!!
The bishop could do a hecj of a lot to make Jenkins’s life unpleasant. Jenkins could not say mass in any church in the diocese, nor take part in any other diocesean function. He could cut off all personal contact with the man. He could keep public masses from being celebrated on campuses. He could prohibt weddings from taking place in the Chapel. THAT would really sting the students because they love this showy stuff.
He could do a whole lot more than that:
Can. 683 §1. At the time of pastoral visitation and also in the case of necessity, the diocesan bishop, either personally or through another, can visit churches and oratories which the Christian faithful habitually attend, schools, and other works of religion or charity, whether spiritual or temporal, entrusted to religious, but not schools which are open exclusively to the institute’s own students.
§2. If by chance he has discovered abuses and the religious superior has been warned in vain, he himself can make provision on his own authority.
i.e. (if I'm reading this right), he could make a pastoral visitation and, if he found abuses (like what happened last Sunday), he could request that the superior of that order do something...or he could take matters into his own hands.
Can. 678 §1. Religious are subject to the power of bishops whom they are bound to follow with devoted submission and reverence in those matters which regard the care of souls, the public exercise of divine worship, and other works of the apostolate.
§2. In exercising an external apostolate, religious are also subject to their proper superiors and must remain faithful to the discipline of the institute. The bishops themselves are not to fail to urge this obligation if the case warrants it.
§3. In organizing the works of the apostolate of religious, diocesan bishops and religious superiors must proceed through mutual consultation.
Can. 679 When a most grave cause demands it, a diocesan bishop can prohibit a member of a religious institute from residing in the diocese if his or her major superior, after having been informed, has neglected to make provision; moreover, the matter is to be referred immediately to the Holy See.
Can 678 says it is the bishop's responsibility.
Can 679 says that the bishop could order Jenkins to get out of the diocese, if nothing else works.
So there's a whole lot that could be done...
Check this story out he could make Bishop quit the Pope he is one of them you know how things work out
I doubt that he has the stomach for this sort of thing, For good or bad, most bishops are rather soft men.
You make the same mistake a lot of people are making. This is not about Jenkins. It is about the entire university and the university’s constituency.
How many times do I have to repeat on these threads. University presidents serve at the pleasure of the boards of trustees. If they do not have the backing of their boards and their faculty, they can do nothing. If they lose the confidence of their boards and faculty and big-time donors, they get canned and replaced.
To target Jenkins in his functions as a priest in order to get at the board of trustees and the big-time donors is STOOOOOPPPPIIIDD. It would turn him into a victim and obscure the real issue: American Catholic culture, esp. at the affluent levels, has become pro-abort and pro-contraception.
Notre Dame and the other big Catholic schools long ago figured out that not enough Catholics with enough money give a damn about unborn babies and about contraception to affect things. Those who do care long since shifted to supporting the start-up Catholic schools.
Look, these universities are run as businesses. They do their market research. They know what “sells” to potential students and to big-time donors. And a “moderate” pro-abort, pro-contraception, pro-Democrat line sells.
If conservative Catholics want to turn this around, they need to get smart and learn about how universities are run, what motivates boards of trustees, faculty, administrators, where the real money is found and how these businesses market and sell their “product” (which product consists of the academic expertise of their faculty, including the amount of research money the prestige of their faculty pulls in).
I am sick and tired of people yelling at D’Arcy and calling for an interdict on the campus or Notre Dame or for throwing the CSCs out of the diocese. That would accomplish ZERO, indeed, would set your cause back big-time.
Fight smart. Be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.
Do you think Notre Dame gives a damn about a pastoral visitation from the diocesan bishop? Do you understand that Notre Dame long ago (in its own eyes) grew far beyond the diocese. No one at Notre Dame who matters (faculty—with a handful of individual exceptions—administrators, board members, donors) cares what the podunk (in their eyes) bishop says in terms of sacramental, pastoral regulations.
Yes, they would care—for about 35 minutes—if bishop D’Arcy withdrew from them the right to call themselves a Catholic university. Then they would crank up their PR machine and spin that decision to their favor by portraying the bishop as a two-bit Inquisitor from the long-forgotten Medieval Past and the national and international press would lap it up and broadcast it. And Bishop D’Arcy would now be totally powerless, having fired his last weapon and achieved nothing. With the media biased the way they are, a international multi-billion-dollar university in one of the smaller and least important dioceses of the country is an elephant compared to a chickadee. And Notre Dame knows it. Why don’t you know it?
D’Arcy’s only effective countermeasures have to come with the backing of the rest of the bishops. Is that so hard to understand?
Freepers are supposed to be savvy when it comes to strategy and tactics—whether military or political or social. Wake up and get off D’Arcy’s back and get onto the back of your own bishop and tell him to support D’Arcy and quit your own harping on D’Arcy.
My thoughts, Chris Smith, one of the few good things to come out of NJ,ought to run for the Senate.
Actually I was surprised that no one picked up on the baby in the audience that began to cry when Obama started to talk about abortion. That moment spoke louder to me than any platitude that Obama said since he has been president.
I also suspect that the campus police would have been putting the cuffs on the good Cardinal.
Cardinal O' Connor was a stalward of the March for Life in DC.
It is too late now for D’Arcy to do anything. Yes, I know that Jenkins is only a front man and now undoubtedly feels affirmed in his position, and as we saw at the commencement, downright smug. Any donations lost by the boycott will be made up by cronies of board members. What I mean when I say that D’Arcy is soft, I mean simply that like most bishops he as got ahead by being nice. And he wants to be popular. Sometimes we need a good old fashioned counter-reformation type who is hated by the clergy. Do remember how the reformer nuns hated John Paul II? One can be gentle, kind and good-hearted and be hated, because one takes unpopular actions. Words ARE cheap. The Gospel is about action.
No
Do you understand that Notre Dame long ago (in its own eyes) grew far beyond the diocese.
Actually, more than that. Since the 1967 Land of Lakes agreement and the subsequent adjustment of their bylaws, only a small number of their "Board of Fellows" and "Board of Trustees" are Catholic Clergy, whether CSC or otherwise.
No one at Notre Dame who matters (faculty—with a handful of individual exceptions—administrators, board members, donors) cares what the podunk (in their eyes) bishop says in terms of sacramental, pastoral regulations.
And that's exactly why this podunk bishop needs to show some brass. The faculty, staff, and trustees of Notre Dame believe they outrank their own bishop.
Yes, they would care—for about 35 minutes—if bishop D’Arcy withdrew from them the right to call themselves a Catholic university.
Got some news for you, they are an entity unto themselves. If he were to do so (and, believe it or not, I'm not suggesting that he go to that extreme), it wouldn't be for the benefit of ND that he did so, it would be for the benefit of the laity who send their kids to be educated there. But as I just said, I am not suggesting he go to that extreme (yet).
Then they would crank up their PR machine and spin that decision to their favor by portraying the bishop as a two-bit Inquisitor from the long-forgotten Medieval Past and the national and international press would lap it up and broadcast it.
OK, so what. In case you haven't figured it out by now, the national and international press laps up any and every thing that they can spin negative about the Church. And people buy it without subjecting it to any kind of rigorous examination (including here on FR).
And Bishop D’Arcy would now be totally powerless, having fired his last weapon and achieved nothing.
Again, I am not suggesting he fire off the thermonuclear weapon at the onset. But he needs to show SOME kind of sanction, leaving himself options to ramp up.
With the media biased the way they are, a international multi-billion-dollar university in one of the smaller and least important dioceses of the country is an elephant compared to a chickadee. And Notre Dame knows it. Why don’t you know it?
I do know it. But the fact of the matter is that the local bishop is the ultimate lawgiver and teacher in his diocese. See Canon 381 § 1. The USCCB doesn't have that authority and the Holy Father, for the cause of subsidiarity, is not going to do anything.
D’Arcy’s only effective countermeasures have to come with the backing of the rest of the bishops. Is that so hard to understand?
D'Arcy is da Man (little Chicago lingo there, since the Chicago Democratic Machine runs that place). The most the USCCB could do is to back him up and say "we agree." It's not like Cardinal George has any room to talk: DePaul, which is in far worse condition than ND, is in his diocese. And Cardinal George is not a "podunk bishop."
Freepers are supposed to be savvy when it comes to strategy and tactics—whether military or political or social. Wake up and get off D’Arcy’s back and get onto the back of your own bishop and tell him to support D’Arcy and quit your own harping on D’Arcy.
D'Arcy said some VERY powerful words of warning before this incident (see a sample here. If he's not willing to back those words up with actions, then maybe he shouldn't have said those words to begin with. Likewise with the 2004 USCCB statement that everybody's citing, if he isn't willing to back those words up with actions (the diocesan bishop, even one of a "podunk diocese" is the only one with the canonical authority to do so), then those words become a joke. Can't you see that??
You said, Freepers are supposed to be savvy when it comes to strategy and tactics—whether military or political or social. Well, one of the things that this FReeper has learned through time is that if you aren't willing to back up your words with actions, don't say the words to begin with...and if you do say the words, you'd better back them up with action. As you say, Why don’t you know it? Is that so hard to understand? You've been around here for almost a whole year, I'd think you'd have picked that one up already.
I find this extremely disturbing. Christ’s Church is run by men, very weak men, unfortunately.
This is absolutely no different than a finger-in-the-wind politician, calling for a Commission or yet another Letter decrying the activity.
It’s the same as a weakened GOP saying we’ll have our Caucus look into this and put out a statement.
I’m no expert like many of you on here, but I know that it is time for rank and file Catholics to start putting pressure on these weak kneed men.
How? I have no idea. But surely Christ wants us to do something.
By your own tactical principles (don’t say the words unless you are ready to back them up), D’Arcy needs to enlist the support of the other bishops before doing anything (doing, for a bishop, involves saying things) to back up his previous words because in dealing with ND he’s dealing with the nation, not with his own diocese.
And since when do you get to decide the timetable for him backing up his previous words and actions? Since you recognize he is the lawgiver in his diocese, might you not grant him the privilege of setting the timetable? Or does he dance to your tune?
And yes, all the bishops need to take further steps with universities in their dioceses. The 80 who supported D’Arcy suggest that more of them are finally getting it. Before jumping on them, you might wait to see what they decide they will do as a follow-up.
But you cannot treat Notre Dame and the diocese of South Bend-Fort Wayne as simply a bishop and his diocese. That’s why we’ve got such a problem—you can cite canon law about the authority of a bishop in his see, but Notre Dame as a university long since ceased to “know” that. And sanctions on Jenkins as a person simply do not address the university as a whole, indeed, they are tailor-made for a counterattack in which those personal sanctions against a priest can be encircled, isolated, made into the issue as a way to sidestep the real issue about the university and Catholicism.
Notre Dame, more so than DePaul or Fordham or even Georgetown or Boston College is a national problem. You can shout about Church Law saying otherwise, but in political, cultural, marketing, public relations, and all other factual terms, it’s a national problem. It can only be solved at that level and to do that, enough of the bishops have to awaken to the enormity of the problem.
But beat up on Bishop D’Arcy some more, if it makes you feel better.
That's the problem we've been dealing with for years (decades) with AMCHURCH. Groupthink. And, apparently, that's what you're advocating here. Groupthink.
The Bishop is the highest level of ecclesiastical authority in a particular Church. D'Arcy has 80 bishops who have already backed him up. He doesn't need anything else.
And yes, all the bishops need to take further steps with universities in their dioceses. The 80 who supported D’Arcy suggest that more of them are finally getting it. Before jumping on them, you might wait to see what they decide they will do as a follow-up.
Problem is that all of these bishops want to be in the "supporting" role. None of them want to be in the "supported" role. (using a little military operations planning lingo, there, for those of you in Rio Linda)
But you cannot treat Notre Dame and the diocese of South Bend-Fort Wayne as simply a bishop and his diocese. That’s why we’ve got such a problem—you can cite canon law about the authority of a bishop in his see, but Notre Dame as a university long since ceased to “know” that.
Why can't I? DePaul is a problem for Cardinal George. Georgetown is a problem for Archbishop Wuerl. Etc. The other bishops should speak in unison supporting the Ordinary of the diocese in question, but the person who must be at the tip of the spear is that local bishop.
And, if you haven't noticed, bishops have no problems speaking out against the voices of tradition and hyper-orthodoxy; they likewise shouldn't have a problem speaking out against the liberal voices.
And, yes, there is ample precedent. Look at Bishop Martino in Scranton as an example.
And sanctions on Jenkins as a person simply do not address the university as a whole, indeed, they are tailor-made for a counterattack in which those personal sanctions against a priest can be encircled, isolated, made into the issue as a way to sidestep the real issue about the university and Catholicis
He's got to start someplace. The trouble is that if he doesn't do anything, then his authority is compromised by the fact that he spoke loudly and carried a small stick. And, again, the best you can expect to see come out of a USCCB meeting is a set of norms or a policy statement. That will sure make a truly important entity like Notre Dame cower in fear, won't it?
Notre Dame, more so than DePaul or Fordham or even Georgetown or Boston College is a national problem. You can shout about Church Law saying otherwise, but in political, cultural, marketing, public relations, and all other factual terms, it’s a national problem. It can only be solved at that level and to do that, enough of the bishops have to awaken to the enormity of the problem.
The way to solve it is for each diocesan bishop to act like he is a diocesan bishop and for the other ones to back him up. That's the only way.
And if the universities and the liberal cafeteria CINOs don't approve, then that's life. Shoot, if the media and the CINOs were the deciding factors, AMCHURCH would have formally separated from the Vatican and made themselves an autocephalous Church, and a wing of the Democrat party, including being pro-abortion and pro-homosexual.
And we knuckle-draggers would be excommunicated.
But beat up on Bishop D’Arcy some more, if it makes you feel better.
And feel free to try to undermine his authority as a bishop, if it'll help you feel better.
No, I’m not advocating Groupthink. Think this through.
Let me try a slogan on you:
Use it or lose it.
The bishops failed to use their authority to discipline dissenting politicians, theologians, and universities back when it would have made a difference—in 1968 and the years immediately following. At that time enough Catholics would have backed the bishops and the dissenters of all stripes, who were like little children, testing Mom and Dad to see how much they could get away with, would have backed down.
But the bishops did not use their authority. If you want to be mad at bishops, those are the bishops who deserve your wrath.
But having failed to act, they cannot now act effectively, certainly not as lone wolves. And they know it.
The culture is 40 years down the road. All the CINOs—whom you and I know to be CINOs but whom the MSM treat as real Catholics whenever it suits their purposes—have been give their head and have reverted to unbroken wild horses. They represent a huge manipulable reservoir for the enemies of the Church.
So, when a bishop today exercises the authority that you correctly state that he possesses, it has no effect because authority (and legitimate government) cannot be exercised unimlaterally. Our courts and legislators and presidents have authority only so long as the people they govern recognize it and obey it. We may reach the breaking point on secular government authority before long.
We have already reached it in the Church. (1) The bishop’s authority which you cite at length requires (2) faithful Catholic subjects who respect and obey the bishop’s authority.
(1) is not being exercised and has not been exercised for decades. True.
But (2) no longer exists because of the failure of (1). Exercising (1) won’t suddenly created (2), once (2) has been destroyed. Sorry, it just won’t.
The CINOs are in effect a huge block of Protestants who have removed themselves from the bishop’s authority while insisting that they are the true Catholics. Surprise! That’s exactly what Protestants did in the 16th century. If someone removes himself from obedience and loyalty and subjectedness to an authority, the authority cannot make him return to faithful subjectedness. Only the subject can do that by his own choice.
The number of Catholics who respect and are willing faithfully to obey their bishops is a minority among those who self-identify as Catholics (and the media don’t bother distinguishing between CINOs and faithful Catholics and you can’t by wishful thinking get the media to change that).
Thus the bishops only actually exercise real authority over a small percentage of those who call themselves Catholic.
You and I both believe it should not be this way. But citing canon law at this situation won’t change the situation. Nor can the action of a bishop change this situation. He either has to persuade, teach, form, shape a larger enough percentage of supposed Catholics to return to obedience to him or convince them to stop calling themselves Catholic.
But if they no longer believe that he is the God-appointed authority over them, even if he tells them they have left the Catholic faith behind (excommunicates them or declares a university no longer Catholic), THEY WON’T ACTUALLY OBEY HIM ON THAT EITHER. They will insist that no matter what Bishop X says, I’m still Catholic.
Now you and I know that they are not. So the bishop’s excommunication or “no longer Catholic declaration” carries weight with you. But we are a small minority. With most people, including most self-described Catholics who send their kids to “Catholic” schools and donate money to them, the bishop no longer is the one who gets to decide who is and who is not Catholic. Individual Catholics, in their view, get to decide that.
They’ve become their own bishops to themselves. No, that’s not Catholic. Yes, they’ve become Protestants. Yes, they are exercising private judgment in disobedience to Catholic faith and Catholic canon law.
You know that and I know that.
BUT THEY DON’T KNOW THAT. And that’s the problem. So, by declaring Notre Dame uncatholic or excommunicating Pelosi, you will not get the result you hope for.
You say that it should be done for the sake of parents who would otherwise send their kids to Notre Dame.
Look, be realistic. Catholics who are in the know and faithful to their bishop and Church, the ones for whom such a declaration would have weight, already know that ND and BC and DePaul are no longer Catholic. And those who don’t know that yet are exactly the ones who will yawn at such a pronouncement by the bishop and say, “who sez?” “Who are you, bishop pedophile protector, (insert whatever other scurrilous epithet du jour), to tell us what’s Catholic and what’s not?”
Granted, a thin sliver of the “Catholic” public might be somewhere between these two groups and might be swayed by the bishop’s pronouncement. But they are such a small group as to be virtually meaningless.
The bishops threw away their ability to govern effectively years ago when they failed to employ it.
They will have to employ it in order to get it back. They will only get it back for a very small, tiny portion of the so-called “Catholic” world. And they will earn it back only through leading that small remnant flock through blood and martyrdom. They will not get it back by grandiloquently hurling anathemas tomorrow.
One-third of the American bishops have begun to realize the enormity of the struggle they face. No one bishop can do this by himself. We are in a deah-struggle.
You should be glad that 1/3 of the bishops are beginning to “get it.” As far as I can see, that includes Cardinal George but also Dolan, Carlson, Chaput, Burke and others in smaller sees—Benedict has spent his first 4 years moving guys from the farm team minor leagues, where John Paul placed them for training, into the major sees. There’s a ways to go but events are heating up and that may mature them faster.
But it’s time for traditional, conservative Catholics like you and me to cut out the bitching anti-clericalism and back those bishops who do get it and who are struggling in the reeds trying to get their act together instead of lying in wait for them with shotguns to blow them out of the water the minute they don’t do what we think they should do tactically.
Yes, traditional Catholics like you and I got a raw deal from bishops over a period of 3 or 4 decades. They were malfeasant. And their malfeasance has put them between a rock and a hard place. But traditional and conservative Catholics need to ditch the habits of thought built up over those 30 or 40 years in the wilderness—the instant and ubiquitous whining complaining about their shepherds no matter what their shepherds do. There are still plenty of ringers among the episcopate but they are on the losing side of history. Stop assuming that every bishop is a ringer, every bishop is a toady, every bishop is a fool.
Let them awaken, watch them for leadership and then follow, instead of telling them what to do. Your job as a lay Catholic is to bring your family and friends along as faithful Catholics, to win back those who have drifted, to steel those who haven’t for the battle that lies ahead.
You concluded: “And feel free to try to undermine his authority as a bishop, if it’ll help you feel better.”
You are the one who undermines the bishop’s authority. I respect it. I also know enough history and culture to recognize that the bishops themselves have thrown away the possibility of effectively using the authority that I agree they possess. They need to recover it. They need your support to recover it. And together with them you and I will pass through the fire as they recover it.
But they will not recover it simply by mouthing the words you have prepared for Bishop D’Arcy to say. Sorry. The words you would like to see in his mouth would be effective with you but you are chasing pipedreams if you think they would be effective with Notre Dame or the other CINOs.
The sifting out of the CINOs will come, to be sure. But not at your timetable or mine. It will come at God’s timetable and He will employ Bishop D’Arcy and others to do it. But the outcome will not be glorious and clearcut. It will be messy and confusing and bloody.
Just today a friend who was visiting our family, who is Catholic as we are,are just plain disgusted with so much disgrace that has been done to the church and those who have authority to do something choose to do nothing. If only our Lord could bless us with another Saint John the Baptist. Our church leaders have no moral courage. They talk and talk while the church is being scandalized. And for Catholics who love our Lord and his gospel to see that no one will take action to defend the church is disheartening. While we see Obama making a scandalous acceptance of honor at a Catholic school,we at least understand him. But as Catholics we can’t understand our leaders being such cowards as to do nothing but talk. We need shepherds. In the beginning of the birth of the church,those first Christians were killed for what they believed. The blood of those martyrs were the seeds of faith. To see a person die for their faith made others believe that God truly was with those who chose faith over life. For the sake of his sorrowful passion,have mercy on us and on the whole world.
I agree that the bishops (individually and as a group) have been squishy since the 1960s. And, because of that squishiness, they have condemned their successors to having only a minimal amount of persuasive power that they once had.
The bottom line, though, for the bishops to regain that power is to start exercising it (each bishop exercising, his colleagues affirming him in his exercise). Are there going to be folks who blow him off? Yes. There are corrective actions that can be taken. Are there going to be folks who go into schism? Yes. A lot of them. But if they do, were they ever really Catholic in the first place or did they just stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night?
This is so important because 80 of them put their names on the line supporting Bishop D'Arcy.
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