Posted on 09/02/2009 10:41:00 AM PDT by Pope Pius XII
That's the easy question. Bishop Joseph Martino was pushed into resignation at the age of 63. No intelligent observer can credit the official explanation: that Bishop Martino retired because of health problems. The outgoing bishop openly acknowledged to reporters that he "clearly" was not suffering from any grave illness.
Clearly Bishop Martino was under a great deal of pressure, and therefore it is not difficult to believe that he suffered from insomnia and fatigue: the only medical complaints that were mentioned in the press conference announcing his departure. But while those are serious problems, they are not ordinarily serious enough to compel a motivated leader to resign. And even if insomnia had risen to the level of a serious medical problem, the question remains: Why was the bishop under so much pressure-- the sort of pressure that could give rise to such serious problems?
If anyone had lingering doubts about the question of Bishop Martino's health, he had only to look carefully at yesterday's announcement from Scranton. Auxiliary Bishop John Dougherty's retirement was announced on the same day. The Dougherty departure, taken by itself, would have been completely unremarkable; at the age of 77, he was well beyond the ordinary canonical retirement age. But the fact that the two retirements were announced simultaneously leaves no doubt about what happened. It was a house-cleaning.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicculture.org ...
Yes, but I would have thought they’d have made an example of Chaput, Bruskewitz, Olmstead or someone else. Those guys seem more dangerous.
You don’t like Burke, Chaput or Bruskewitz do you?
I live in the Scranton Diocese. Bishop Martino was in a very difficult situation where he had to close many churches and close Catholic schools to save the Diocese from going bankrupt. Plus the growing priest shortage forced his hand. He had to make many difficult decisions
and thus made enemies in doing so. My family thought he was the best, but there were many people in our church whom stopped contributing money into the collection basket to protest his decisions.
.
WOW! Sounds like some people got their “precious feelings” hurt.
No, I love them. I’d be thrilled if the other bishops were replace by ones like them. But, I don’t get to choose. I would’ve imagined that the people who don’t like Archbishop Martino would dislike those ones even more. (You put Burke in your list, I didn’t actually mention him, because he’s not in the U.S. anymore. I sorely wish he was. Maybe his promotion to Rome was also an effort to get him out of the U.S.)
“It would have been MUCH easier if the bishops had stood fast earlier.”
I often think this too. Perhaps a lot of the jelly spined behavior is due to bishops thinking that they will have to explain why they weren’t towing the line all along, especially as concerns baby butchery.
Freegards
I doubt it.
**did he jump or was he pushed?**
I don’t think either happened.
Martino spoke out against abortion, against Obama’s election, against Obama appearing at Notre Dame. Many other bishops did too.
There is more to this than just speaking out about these pro-life issues. I haven’t figured it out yet.
Are you thinking that it came from within the USCCB? I doubt it.
Probably from the liberals in his state.
Last fall he said the USCCB did not apply in his diocese.
The libs don’t give money to the Church.
I take the Bishop’s resignation as it stated. I don’t deal with supposed reasons. We can get into trouble if we start looking for hidden motives in every action.AFAIK, only Popes can ask for resignations. Asking if "Martino was pushed" begs a couple of questions: Who else can push a Bishop into quitting? and also If no one else can push, then why would the Pope pressure a conservative, pro-life Bishop into quitting?
My guess is that administrative styles are coming under scrutiny. Last year's "removal", our very own Archbishop Raymond Burke, was a lightning rod on pro-life issues, but the general consensus around here is that he was Peter Principled up for reasons of job performance in the administrative arena. Now that he's been gone for a bit, the stories from the Chancery on leadership style are surfacing and they aren't pretty - from holding grudges, to denying promotions to men who are truly worthy, to really BAD personnel moves to fiscal irresponsibility. Get a couple drinks in the right people and all sorts of stuff comes out. My guess is Martino is more of the same.
Until you've been in a diocese with one of these guys who are MILITANTLY "orthodox," you have no clue how miserable it can be. I won't go into details, but I've heard stuff about Burke (provable, too) that curled my hair, made me furious, and told me a lot about him (humility is NOT one of his finer virtues) that was not at all flattering in a Christian perspective.
Just know that there is always another side to the story.
I guess you haven’t been paying attention. There were at leas two cases in which Pope John Paul II “fired” a bishop and he stayed as the bishop.
Jes' sayin' ...
Maybe the whole manner in which bishops are selected needs to be revamped.
It’s the administrative and management style in question here. Just because a bishop is orthodox doesn’t mean he’s good at it. No people skills whatsoever, if that means anything to you.
Ummm ... reminds me of a boss or two ... good in their technical disciplines, utterly unable to lead.
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