By Victoria White Berger
Here in the West, ‘regular’ Catholics in the pews are worried about and baffled by Pope Francis, who regularly pounces on and ‘takes sides’ on secular and political subjects, far more than did any of his predecessors.
The Pope’s recent salvo (while not against traditional marriage, but not for it, either—which marriage is a Catholic Sacrament, holy, inviolate and unique between man and woman) is his most recent upset. His highly ambiguous recommendation of the ‘blessing’ of gay couples within the Catholic Church is now, predictably enough, in fierce debate. The disputes came only a day after the Pope’s public statement approving (later, partially disavowing) the ‘blessings.’ Francis seems to enjoy poking the bear. His popularity in the U.S. is beginning to falter.
Disrespect towards, and ignorance of, Catholic Canon Law — promulgated long ago to regulate the behavior of the whole Church, as loyal to Christ alone — is in full view and coming from the top at the Vatican, and from the liberal, D.C.-based Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and from the ‘consecrated’ priestly and religious bureaucracy in many Catholic orders and schools — all in historic decline.
There are recent questions regarding papal abuse of canonical law, as coming out of the Vatican, among the case of the pope’s removal of Bishop Joseph Strickland from his office in Tyler, Texas, where he was outspokenly orthodox and quite popular.
According to Catholic Vote:
Fr. Gerald Murray, an expert canon lawyer and commentator on EWTN’s “The World Over,” told CatholicVote on Monday that “we do not know why Pope Francis removed Bishop Strickland, because he did not give any reason for his action. That omission leads to speculations as to the reason[s], which are then taken by some to be facts.”
Catholic Vote suggested that the move appeared to be personal, and vindictive, which was not consistent with canonical law.
Murray explained that “removal is ordinarily a penal measure,” although
“it can be done in the case of physical or psychological impairment. The Holy See has not published a decree for Strickland’s removal, which is required in canon law, unless the pope exempted himself from that requirement, in which case that exemption should be made by a decree. That decree should be published.”
“The removal of a bishop from office without specifying if he committed a canonical crime or if he was found to be impaired offends against basic justice and charity,” Murray argued. “He is deprived office without, it seems, the benefit of due process, including an appeal, and his good name is called into question.”
United States Catholics are, as in bowing in the past to the COVID lockdowns, which shut down church services and later mandated vaccines to attend, not infrequently confused by the radical messages of the USCCB, a famously bureaucratic D.C.-based organization. During COVID, for two years plus, the USCCB effectively closed, by ‘recommendation,’ almost all Catholic masses — and Christian charitable services generally — the most essential Eucharist was not available.
Catholics, including parish priests, felt that they could do nothing about losing the Mass, a lifeline for their faith, during the COVID years, primarily on the USCCB sayso.
Catholics generally are given to understand that the USCCB oversees their local bishop. This is simply not, and never has been, the legal case. The COVID decisions were made in contradiction to the subsidiary nature of Canon Law, that clearly dispenses this sort of authority to the local level, the parish priests.
The unfortunate irony is that the pronouncements/opinions of the USCCB, as communications to the faithful — except when voted on unanimously and even then, with restrictions — have zero formal standing in the Catholic Church.
In Pope John Paul II’s, “Apostolos Suos,” paragraph two, the Holy Father states that bishops’ conferences may only publish doctrinal declarations when they are “approved unanimously,” but “a majority alone” is not enough for publication without the approval of the Vatican.
In the same document cited above, the pope also maintained that a bishops’ conference cannot hinder an individual bishop’s authority in his diocese “by substituting themselves inappropriately for him, where the canonical legislation does not provide for a limitation of his episcopal power in favor of the episcopal conference.”
Earlier, Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, issued some similar statements:
“Cardinal Ratzinger, who in the same year expressed his changed view on episcopal conferences in a book-length interview with V. Messori (The Ratzinger Report, 1985), insisting that episcopal conferences lack a theological basis, are not part of the unalterable structure as willed by Christ, and have only a practical function.”
Catholic churches are still closing permanently, mostly credited to the COVID closures and parishioners not coming back. Now, post-COVID, we have reports of mounting Catholic persecution at many levels, to an extent never seen in this country. There have been reports of FBI intimidation of Catholics by threating visits to their own homes; and, recently in Massachusetts, the reported denial of foster care parent-applicants to access the state’s foster care program, expressly due to the fact the applicants are Catholic; the prioritized violence against Catholic pro-life centers; the arrests of people silently praying the rosary in public; the growing desecration of Catholic statues and churches, etc.
Catholic parishes, along with their schools, are closing or being ‘consolidated;’ this tragedy in the quality of accessible primary education is blamed on everything except the real source of the problem: the sorry state of the Catholic Church itself.
Catholic seminaries are failing, too.
What will happen when we have under-educated priests who don’t know the faith, or too few priests to serve the people?
There is one bright spot that gives many Catholics here reason fo hope: The vibrant, growing, Catholic Church in Africa will soon greatly outnumber the Western world’s Catholic membership.
The leading African bishops, by their words and actions, are seriously loyal to the teachings of Jesus Christ in founding His Church. Obviously, this truly faithful enthusiasm and growth is not what’s happening here or, worse still, in Europe. The politicization and Biblical, exegetical, and catechetical corruption of Catholicism now narrowly escapes heresy, once again.
But back in our country are currently no practical routes for communication and reasoned argument available to Catholics who are suffering from what amounts to theological, political, spiritual, and vocational discrimination and abuse from members of the Church hierarchy, from those in authority at each step of the ladder. Those Catholic laity who do follow, or try to, the Scriptural, uncorrupted teachings of Christ, who do attend the Mass and rely on the Holy Eucharist for perseverance, who enter the Catholic orders, who honor vows and sacraments, including marriage, and who work vocationally for the Church’s charities and schools in lay capacities, both men and women, are increasingly in a state of quiet near-despair.
Those in the pews are looking for goodness and light from the Catholic Church in its fidelity to what finally matters.
Instead, they find themselves in dread of the next unexpected deluge of internal opposition to themselves: via ideological, legal, moral, and practical meddling.