My husband posted this commentary on his site:
Waiting for episcopal reform? Nighty-night, baby.
Today the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal Tobin to the Congregation for Bishops, the Vatican body charged with choosing new bishops.
He quotes what our friend Fr. Mankowski SJ emailed to us on the occasion -- that as long as Tobin retains his miter, we simply know that no one in the hierarchy is serious about corruption in the hierarchy. I urge you to read it.
Fr. Mankowski was wroth. Here is what he followed up with, after a bit of further commentary on Rod Dreher's "put the best construction on the matter" post, and I think it's important to internalize what he is saying:
Remember the beginning of Bonfire of the Vanities, when Sherman McCoy slips out of his apartment to phone his mistress and hears his wife say, "Sherman, is that you?" He had dialed his home phone number by mistake, and even though he tried to bluff his way out of it, his marriage is on the rocks from that point onward.
Tobin's tweet is just as unequivocal and just as final. Rod misses the point by casting around to see if any of Tobin's sisters actually have Twitter accounts. We and the other 3.2 billion persons with internet access also understand perfectly well what the tweet was. [I am somewhat redacting here, as those familiar with Fr. M's style will know that he kept things salty and vivid.]
If the other bishops genuinely believed extra-marital sex was a sin, and if they genuinely believed that sin was harmful to the human person, they would have called Tobin's bluff.
He is saying that we can't ignore what we know -- at the cost of souls.
I am a (generally) upbeat person. A faithful cradle Catholic. I am struggling mightily to see WHERE we “hold fast” to the Church. I don’t mean that I’m leaving or that this negates Christ’s promises. What I mean is how do we know where our grip should be? We attend an FSSP parish in our archdiocese; even they are subject to our less-than-stellar Archbishop and his ridiculous mandates. We live very near an SSPX chapel and I begin to wonder....and that terrifies me.
ReplyDeleteWe hold fast to the 10 commandments, the sacraments, and the saints who have gone before us in many different political, economic, corruptive times in our past history.
DeleteI'm a new convert so take this for what you will. Do your research on the SSPX, I personally haven't found anything that has supported they are schismatic. Then go and check it out...don't pray with them and just sit in the back if you are concerned they are schismatic. Just observe. They recognize the pope. Their bishops were all reinstated by Benedict XVI if memory serves. Dr. Taylor Marshall does a very good introductory talk on Archbishop Lefebvre (I actually shared it with a local Novus Ordo priest who is very conscious of, but also complicit with, modernism... he was impressed with Lefebvre and intrigued..but he flat out said it was all new info to him, he's younger and had only ever heard bad). I wonder sometimes if the FSSP would even exist if the Church could have rooted out the SSPX in the 70's and 80's.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Jackson
I have always found this tweet interesting. I came into the church in July 2018. I was aware of this tweet then... What never made sense to me is why you would call your sister "baby." Is that a thing? Am I just that jaded (it has certain connotations to me)? It just never made sense to me. If it's a thing, please, someone, enlighten me.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Jackson
See the embedded article... and my post :)
DeleteAnd isn't he the Cardinal that had a male model/actor living in his rectory? Is that also a thing, non religious living in rectories??
ReplyDeleteAfterthought...sorry.
Mrs. Jackson
I'm thinking a realistic approach might be the way of the Buffalo in a blizzard:"head down and run into the storm." We can't avoid it, it's already here, and it's going to be miserable so we might as well push on through to the other side rather than try to out run it and prolong our misery in its midst! (Haha! My easily amused self is chuckling at the visual!)
ReplyDeleteBut really, I'm personally trying to come to grips with the reality we're just not going to "out breed the bad" as I was told growing up. Or maybe not in my lifetime at least. Whatever good direction I thought the Church was heading in has been seriously set back by the current Pontiff's reign and the younger generation's apparent embracing of a warped orthodoxy - two things I did not expect or see coming. It's definitely time for a "long haul" mentality.