Posted on 05/01/2002 6:24:00 AM PDT by history_matters
CARDINALS AND BISHOPS, PLEASE LEAVE THE CHANCERIES AND COME AMONG US TO HEAL
Dear Cardinals:
We wrote the American bishops a month ago. At that time we suggested (hopefully with adequate humility) that the current crisis in the Church could be resolved in large part by a return to tradition -- by a return to basic Christian holiness.
If you would so allow, we'd like to extend that argument. We write you again with what we hope is obedience. But we write with urgency. There is revolution in the air. Lay groups are forming. Radical nuns are expressing rage. The average Catholic wants an entire overhaul of some basic Church teachings, and the majority polled by secular media now even want women priests.
The only way to avert this -- the only way to prevent a deepening crisis, and perhaps even a split (at least ideologically) with Rome -- is to get back to the example of the apostles.
What we mean is that instead of a bureaucratic approach -- instead of the current aloofness -- our leaders should be evangelical. They should be mystical.
This is not a criticism; it is a plea. Please, bishops and cardinals, come out of the chanceries. Pray with us. Recite the Rosary. Adore the Blessed Sacrament in public. Heal. This will solve more than a dozen national meetings or trips to Rome or press conferences.
Dear cardinals, deliver us. You have the authority. You have the power -- as did the apostles -- to cast out demons and there are demons all around your flock. They engulf us. They engulf you. Cast them out. Send them away as Peter sent them away in the Acts of the Apostles -- a part of the Bible we all need to revisit. Cast evil spirits out of the priests and seminarians and theologians who have caused atrocities -- who have harmed our young.
Exorcise, dear cardinals. You do not have much time left. Deliver us. We are under assault and need the hand of your high anointing and this is what Christ left: the legacy of His Holy Spirit. As in Acts, show us the wonders, the miracles, the force of God. We know you can tap into that because you were chosen and have unusual gifts. Use them, dear prelates. Move with those gifts. This and only this will bring us above the crisis. Only with prayer and the special charisms you have can we heal the Church and prevent what may otherwise be a yet greater disaster. The Church will survive -- we have no doubt about that -- but it is going through a purification and during a purification there is the need, the urgency, of the Spirit. The media and the lawyers and the enemies of the Church -- so encouraged at this moment -- will never know what hit them!
It is what the apostles and disciples did: When they were in trouble they asked God to stretch "forth Your hand in cures and signs and wonders" (Acts 4:30).
Are we any different today? Has God changed? The apostles prayed so hard they sent demons out shrieking (Acts 8:7). They shook the place (Acts 4:31)! They went to the streets of Tyre and Derbe and Phoenicia as we need you now to come to the streets -- the homes -- of Boston, Los Angeles, Phoenix.
We look at Scripture and what we see is that the apostles were not bureaucrats or academics or politicians. They established the Church through signs and wonders and now we must re-establish it in the same way. We will come out of this not with intellectual dissertations, not legislative remarks -- but faith expressed with the love of Jesus.
We realize that in the modern structure of the world there may be the need for diplomacy and certain trappings of power but worry that in this regard modern chanceries (limos, palatial rectories) have become too worldly. It is in simplicity that we best convey the truth and in poverty that we find true power -- which will bring us out of situations that seem to have no exit.
Call on Jesus. Call on Mary. Call on Joseph!
This is the Church. This is what the earliest bishops -- the apostles -- did. This was the work of the disciples. Come out of the chanceries, dear cardinals, and pray with us into the night. Lay your hands on us. We need you! This month of May, pray the Rosary.
Dear cardinals, you have been at too much a distance. We need you as apostles. We need you to come among us. Heal us, Your Excellencies, Your Eminences. Pray with us. Lay your hands on us. Speak to us of the wonders of Jesus. If you do that, a new and vital Church will grow. If you do that, nothing can come against you. If you do that you will beats all odds and the Church will be saved (as it says in Acts 2:40) "from this perverse generation."
Cardinal Law, for one would have to start like Henry the Whatever at Canossa -- three days barefoot in the snow first (though we don't get much snow in Boston in May). If Law did this, he would look like an even bigger hypocrite than he does now. Anyway, with the current state budget crunch (pace Howie Carr, who prefers "crunch"), we can't afford the state troopers to protect him, seeing as "the average Catholic" here wants his head on a pike.
I don't mean to sound as if I question the power of prayer, but don't I recall something about making your peace with your brother before you offer your sacrifice?
I can't think of anything else to say about that picture. It looks like the Walls of Jericho.
I've seen snow in May! "If you don't like the weather right now, just wait a minute..."
You are right about Cardinal Law, I've heard he has to have 2 bodyguards at all times. I honestly believe if Cardinal Law entered any church aside of his own (Holy Cross) most people would leave.
How extraordinarily ugly! What is it? (I'm afraid I know.)
So true. We need apostles, not CEO's. It was expressed pretty well recently in a FR post that the bishops are too concerned with money and *ss-covering and not concerned enough about spirituality.
They should be mystical.
We here in America (and perhaps the world over) need to be reminded what mystery is. We've been robbed of it by the literal-mindedness that is mistakenly perceived as the genuine search for real truth. Hopefully we will see some leaders soon who understand mystery and can convey its meaning.
Me neither.
I was pretty afraid that's what it was. But do you call it a "cathedral" if it's dedicated to Mammon? Or Baal? Or Moloch?
I think its over for the current crop of Bishops and Cardinals, since they see themsalves as above Prayer.
They at least would have to be put on a short leash and made to toe the line.
They have been to insulated in their Bastions of Power, that the poor have helped pay for, to remember their roots.
Right now Laws' response to the pleas of the people is that of a Dictatorial Despot,intimidation,supression and vengeance.
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.