The US ‘National Catholic Review’ is very interesting this week on bishops.
One writer points out that ‘Some of our bishops are determined to hunker down behind the battlements and dream of past illusory glories, praying for a holier church, even if that means we have to cast off a few members.’ He adds ‘I seem to remember a parable about a shepherd who leaves his flock of 99 to search for one lost sheep. How does that parable fit with the plans of those church leaders who want to bar the doors and draw the curtains ?’
Interestingly enough, his question is answered in the same edition by an Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia on October 19th.
Now our readers know our views on the concept of the Tridentine priest as an ‘alter Christus’ , and whether we should laugh or just cry. But here, articulated beautifully, is its logical enough conclusion, the Tridentine bishop as ‘supra Christus’
Archbishop Chaput , naturally, enough, is a St Pope John Paul bishop, although the point of view he expresses has also been an Emeritus Pope Benedict one.
He says ‘But we should never be afraid of a smaller lighter church if her members are also more faithful, more zealous, more missionary and more committed to holiness ’. He objects to a secularising culture and a political agenda that’ ‘leaches out strong religious convictions in the name of liberal tolerance’….True enough, but he then accuses them of transferring ‘our real loyalties and convictions from the old church of our baptism to the new “church” of our ambitions and appetites’.
Notice the skilful use of ‘real loyalties and convictions’ , ‘the old church of our baptisms’ the inverted commas round ‘church’ Loaded terminology is a useful weapon, but the last three or four words are in the shoot to kill class :‘Our ambitions and appetites’. Extensive teaching of emotive language and connotation in our English classes nowadays means that this kind of kidology no longer really works and worse still for its proponents, is easily seen as kidology.
We compliment him on not mentioning Canon Law directly. But what does he mean by ‘appetites’, if anything other than just being offensive? Could it be that ‘they’ have ‘appetites’ ; he has spiritual aspirations ? And is therefore not as others?
There is so much to comment on in his remarks, but all we’ll say is that it strikes us as being a classic example of institution vs. The Christian message.
The first writer in that edition quotes a sister in religion: ‘Leadership fixated on preservation may actually be losing the future.’
On the other hand, Bishop Robert Lynch of St Petersburg ,Florida was quoted in the ‘Tablet’ of November 5th, that he was appalled by Archbishop Chaput’s proposal for a ‘smaller, purer’ church.
Archbishop Chaput is a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi tribe, and the first Native American archbishop. His Potawatomi name is ; ‘the wind that rustles the leaves of the trees’
We will leave it at that