The Oxford Dictionary has chosen ‘post-truth’ as the international word of the year. It refers to a situation in which objective facts are cast aside in favour of appeal to the emotions.
And here we have just the very word for the response for far too many of the world’s bishops to the needs of the Church , not to mention their response to Pope Francis.
Let’s ask the Bishops to look at their relationship with Pope Francis factually then in terms of emotion..
Fact: he is the Pope even if you don’t like him. Don’t ask us to choose- he hasn’t . Yet.
Emotions : Irritation at the way he seems to dance around various situations. Although you were irritated by him from the start , possibly although ridiculously because he came from a religious order. And it was the Society of Jesus. So don’t blame him now he’s got into his dancing stride , irritating though it may be.
Frustration, because he wasn’t Pope John come back to life to reward you again for the loyalty which you so clearly demonstrated to him before being appointed bishops .
Anger, because he may be a threat to the Code of Canon Law which has been such a comfort and support to bishops in 2016, even if it was put together in the very different world of 1917. Test this with newspapers. Find one dated 1917, and one of today’s.
Fear, because has allowed the Eastern Church to permit Extended Ordination to married laymen. The professional solidarity of the Tridentine priesthood is therefore revealed as just professional solidarity and quite irrelevant to Christ and the Incarnation itself .( And in any case,disturbingly similar to many other examples of professional solidarity) . He has made it clear, as Pope in the Apostolic Succession, that a taxi driver, a store manager or an IT technician of the Eastern Church can Feed The Flock just as well as any Tridentine priest.
Other emotions , and/or our interpretation of them might lead us to being uncharitable.
A simple answer to the post-truth episcopate versus the Pope –I know it’s boring, boring always banging on about them- can be found in the Gospels where Christ meets the Samaritan woman,.
Let’s take another post-truth Episcopal situation. There are now not enough Tridentine priests to continue the provision of the Eucharist for the Flock. There will not ever again be enough to do this. Neither should there be, objectively. The last two –or perhaps three- generations of Catholics and most tragically the youngest have repudiated the Tridentine priesthood, always now defined for them even more tragically in terms of pederasty first and foremost. But the post-truth mindset moves into emotional gear when ordained laymen are considered as the very obvious solution to the Flock being denied the Eucharist. What emotions are involved?
Nostalgia, surely, although it has been accurately defined as a form of intellectual cancer. Ah, those were the days when whatever drives the elderly episcopate was functioning freely. A world in which a look at the index of Canon Law could solve all their problems , if not those of the Flock , of course. Anger, at upset apple-carts ? And ,to be charitable, possibly even frustration at being here just before a time when the Church may change, and for the better .
It is here that Cardinal Burke’s Gang of Four may serve some useful purpose. Some may see them simply as old men who, after a lifetime of never being frustrated or contradicted, feel suddenly insecure. Others may see their activities merely as rancid and embittered politicking . Who knows? We have our view, but all Pope Francis has done , in an interview with the Italian Catholic newspaper ‘Avvenire’ is to speculate that rigidly legalistic thinking is driven by psychological needs, and is a way to ‘hide one’s sad dissatisfaction ‘.
He is, of course, well aware, of the intensity of feeling which any kind of change may lead to in the minds of an elderly Curia-based “opposition” , apart altogether from the Gang of Four, and may sense the possibility of a new schism, the last thing the Church needs at the moment. Try even moving the furniture a little- a very little- in an old person’s room, and you’ll see what we mean.
A real and valid emotion for the episcopate- possibly even world-wide-after the momentary exhilaration of Pope Francis’s death , must be fear. What will a new Pope, chosen by his cardinals, decide to get the Church back into touch with the Flock ? Many possibilities present themselves, very few of which, we venture to suggest, will not be welcomed by those of the Flock who are at present unable to receive the Eucharist.

Blog mother

The mother-in-law of one of us was wont to remark on occasion that ‘Catholics need a drink’. This, of course, has always been true, given the moral exertions so often demanded of us and ignored by so many others.
It is even more valid given how often and in how many ways the loyal Catholics of Scotland are let down by their priests and bishops. Our Cardinal’s sexual activities are self-confessed and known world wide. One of our bishops has run away with a divorced parishioner , although he did marry her, if in a registry office. In Lanarkshire, we have had the CurryPowderGate affair (see previous blogs), not to mention the disciplining of a priest by a church court for whistle-blowing, and his parishioners being forbidden to pray for him. Opus Dei- yes, Opus Dei !- can also be detected according to rumour in least one of the Scottish Episcopate.
There will be a short pause while some readers head to the cocktail cabinet.
If there are degrees of betrayal- let us not shrink from the word, even worse are some- a minority- among the parochial clergy, whose activities we know about through the agency of local media, thankfully meticulous in its presentation of these. These, of course, are the paedophile priests to whom our children looked up so trustfully as they were presented with the Eucharist on their First Communion, by those who were not reluctant to tell us they were acting as an Alter Christus, only to be betrayed by the very same priests and their sexually predatory appetites.
How many were there? ‘Aye, there’s the rub’
The McLellan Commission which looked into recent examples of paedophily among Catholic priests has complained publicly about the dilatory approach of the Scottish episcopate in carrying out the Commission’s recommendations. Also, if we are not mistaken, details of such cases since 1947 were to be provided.
One must ask why the Scottish episcopate has not been able to do this. .
Obvious explanations from our common human condition present themselves.
Is it pride ? Is it stupidity? Is it just, rather pathetically, corporate loyalty? Cynics will immediately suggest ambition, and that a full declaration of the failures of the parish priesthood might affect their promotion to good jobs in Rome. Oh, come on ! An episcopate led by the only Cardinal ever to have to refuse to take part in a Papal election?
Unfortunately, like many other bishops who were appointed by St. Pope John Paul II , they seem to live in the hope that they will outlive Pope Francis. Equally unfortunately, they seem unable to understand that a new Pope might be even more difficult to comprehend. Not to mention that even the most befriended member of the Curia is nowadays likely to move away from an ambitious Scottish cleric at speeds reminiscent of the Olympic 100 Metres .
Ironically- an expression sometimes used by journalists when they actually mean ‘ironically’- the only thing that really keeps the Catholic Church in Scotland going is anti-Catholicism in the bizarre social complex which is twenty first century Scottish life.
We know about the paedophile Catholic priests. Everybody knows about the paedophile Catholic priests. Catholic priests are defined in 21st century Scotland by paedophily, like it or not.
Smarten up, bishops. Get organised, then get everything out in the open air. Can it be any worse than we know, even if the names of beloved clerical figures turn up?
.While you can, give Catholics in Scotland a lead. And a good way to do so would be to give other equally dilatory bishops a lead by adopting the valid ordination of parishioners. The Apostolic Succession is based on valid ordination. Therefore, there is nothing which is done by a Tridentine priest that could not be done by a taxi-driver, newsagent or a/v technician
Catholics need a drink. If our bishops need a drink, let them take it , even to the point of alcoholic insensibility, if necessary. Order a special collection for its provision if necessary.

Blog bishops
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