Why Aren't American Bishops Resigning?

Ok, we write about this all of the time, we write about the moral and intellectual incapacity of most Bishops to reign their Diocese. They live in an environment of not so benign neglect, and the welcome deaths of the Theologians of the Vatican II generation, notably Fr. Schilebeecx a few days ago, and Fr. Godfry Dieckman OSB, has us thinking about how people compartmentalize things to the point where the emotional attachments exist without any rational justification.

A lot of people would get arrested for practicing surgery without the need or requisite training and certification, but in Theology, you can botch all kinds of souls and no one says anything. Even the state turns a blind eye when professional Clerics, under the seal of the confessional, or in the capacity of mental health care workers, take young people into their conference to guide and shape them in a way completely inconsistent with Catholic teaching. The government even turns a blind eye when these unprincipled charlatans seek to take liberties with their charges, like a priest out of Boccaccio's Daecameron, for illicit and forbidden pleasure.

The Scriptures are astoundingly clear, even where civil justice and modern post-Vatican II theologians with their notions of easy virtue and a debased theological perspective and deliberate liturgical chaos fail. Such men should have a milestone tied around their necks and they should be cast into the sea, but quite often, such men will challenge a seeker of justice and the layman so ill-advised to challenge the prelate or priest on his quest for illicit pleasure, had better have a lot of documentation before the Vatican will be forced to act under the pressure of public opinion to remove a man like Archbishop Weakland, who even today, shakes his self-rightous fist at his accusers and justifies his gay-friendly approach. Perhaps such self-righteous homosexuals, publishing words by which we can hang them legally later, is a great ally? These men are brash, and like individual roaches in a plague of roaches, fearless.

If Scriptures are clear, the history of the Church is quite clear. Homosexuals, the kind who nowadays abuse children, would be sent to the scaffold or the stake after a fair trial by the Inquisition. We favor the restoration of this. The Vatican should, in collaboration with existing governments, send independent fact-finders to investigate abuses and try the guilty in ecclesiastical courts where excommunication will be invoked; then the state can try and convict these monsters and ship them to maximum security prisons where they can enjoy the tender mercies of convict justice.

Anyhow, like Fr. Z, we digress, and we've already mentioned the possibility of American Bishops resigning, of course, they have resigned for some right reasons (+Weakland and +Law), but no one, even most of the Catholic press, is addressing the Bishops' failings with regard to teaching and upholding the Catholic Faith. Many Bishops seem to think that supporting Marxists causes such as CCHD and Catholic Charities will save them and sometimes it isn't enough, but in Cardinal Mahony's case, he seems to lead a charmed life. Will no one rid us of this troublesome priest? No one?

Four Irish bishops have now resigned within weeks of a scathing report that they knowingly sheltered sexual predator priests from the laws of church and state.


The 720-report into abuse cover-ups in Dublin from 1940 to 2004 became public in late November. Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin (shown above), who was brought in after the period dealt with in the report, made it clear that the old ways of protecting priests, not children and teens, were inexcusable.

Two bishops resigned earlier this month. Two more resigned during Christmas Mass, offering apologies to victims and all Dublin's one million Catholics.

Here in the USA, however, only one bishop resigned in acknowledgment of mismanagement.


U.S. Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned in disgrace as archbishop of Boston over his role in the clergy sex abuse crisis, prays during a Mass at the St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, Sunday, April 10, 2005.

CAPTIONBy Anja Niedringhaus, APCardinal Bernard Law resigned as Archbishop of Boston, where the scandal erupted here in 2002, in the face of demands from his flock and his priests. Two bishops were ousted because they themselves were credibly accused of abuse -- Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee and Anthony O'Connell of Palm Beach, Fla.


But while the abuse crisis on US shores has largely subsided from the headlines, groups such as BishopAccountability.org continue to call for scores of bishops to do more than apologize for mistakes.

They call for individual accounting for all the records of how abusive priests were dealt with and for bishops to face the canonical and legal consequences of their mismanagement, above and beyond apologies.



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