Archbishop Chaput says it's too hard to correct Abuses

He hopes people will believe him when he says that he does what he has to do, and that he just can't correct every single abuse out there, much less those that happen in other Archdiocese. What is meant to sound reasonable actually comes off as shirking.

In the organizational structure of the Catholic Church in America, the Province of Denver includes the dioceses of Pueblo and Colorado Springs in Colorado, the Diocese of Cheyenne in Wyoming, and the province’s metropolitan (or senior) see, the Archdiocese of Denver. That makes Denver’s bishop an archbishop. As that archbishop, I rarely see a year go by without at least two or three unhappy parishioners assuming I have the authority to “straighten out” their liturgists and principals and pastors or some other problem in their local parish—within the province but outside my own diocese.

They tend to get even more annoyed when they learn that I have neither the authority nor the foolishness to meddle in the life of a sister diocese. Nor will I intrude on the ministry of a brother bishop. The title archbishop does entail some rights and duties in the life of a province, but these are strictly limited.

In reality, each diocese is a separate, autonomous community of believers. Each bishop in a province is an equal. Each is a successor of the apostles. And each is the chief teaching and governing authority in his own local church. Of course, the bishop of Rome, who is also the pope, is uniquely different: He is first among brothers, and yet he also has real authority as pastor of the whole Church. But he is not a global CEO, and Catholic bishops are not—and never have been—his agents or employees.

We can see how the Archbishop would think that he really has limited options, since so many of the people he's allowed to be appointed aren't demonstrably Catholic-- why would it surprise him when they aren't pliable to direction. Since his own record in this regard of dealing with abuses and scandals has been a bit spotty, like when he allowed a Mass to be said in his own See for the benefit of the Pro-Abortion Governor, here.

But there are even still some people who will remember the Archbishop's endorsement of Stations of the Cross like these, here, when a woman took the part of Christ in a very strange portrayal of the Stations of the Cross indeed.