It's Been a Long Time and the Situation Just Worsens........

     My last blog entry was just about a year ago.  I had concerns that the blog was turning into an angry rant and that it had become too repetitious of the deteriorating situation in the Catholic Church.

     Since then, I have switched to a Mac and changed the blog name somewhat.  Apparently, the only good news in a year is the new iMac.  The Church continues on its trajectory to hell....Ireland has been repeatedly scandalized in the last year.....today, the Irish Papal Nuncio was recalled to the Vatican a millisecond or two before the Irish government kicked him out.....the Vatican continues to condemn Catholic theological scholars, while sheltering clerical/ hierarchical child abusers.....the Pope and his corrupt crony cardinals doggedly march the Catholic Church back to the time of Constantine while, imminently, saddling the faithful with an incomprehensibly awkward new version of the Missal.....Vatican II is a phantasm to be buried and forgotten!  The Catholic Church is returning, irrevocably and unremittingly, to pay, pray and obey!

     One seemingly good, but not hopeful, change, is that Archie. Kaput is leaving Colorado to boss around the faithful folks in (Fil)ladelphia, where the church is up to its steeples in legal problems arising from the ever-pervasive clerical child abuse.  Given the current zeitgeist, he will be replaced in Denver by an even worse cleric.  After all,  that's exactly what the Vatican did in my old stomping grounds of Los Angeles this year!

     Two must read books for concerned American Catholics that I finished recently are:

          "Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church"
                    by Jason Berry

          "The Pope's War: Why Ratzinger's Secret Crusade has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be            
            Saved"      
                    by Matthew Fox

     Read 'em and weep,  anxious Catholics.....The "sheep" wouldn't dare to crack the covers of these books......if they ever read any book about the Catholic Church, at all!

        

Timely Observations from Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and Mike Keefe of the Denver Post

From Maureen Dowd, on the Vatican's latest insult to Catholic women:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/opinion/18dowd.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=Maureen+Dowd&st=nyt

From Mike Keefe:

Cracks in the Hard-Boiled Egg of Roman Catholicism?

Is it possible?  Here are some recent forthright commentaries, actually published, on the sad state of affairs in the Roman Catholic Church:

                                                                                                                                                           http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/hierarchy-deeply-damaged-within


http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/catholic-social-teaching-finds-church-leadership-lacking


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-james-martin-sj/a-fear-based-church-why-a_b_640884.html

Thanks to the publishers and to Bishop Kevin Dowling and Father James Martin, SJ  for these courageous writings!

Circle the Wagons......

So here we are.....Now the Pope may be involved in the spreading clerical sexual abuse crisis!

Year in and year out, the lying and obfuscation continues and intensifies, not only among the American Catholic hierarchy, but, in addition, among the hierarchies of Europe and, even, the Vatican! Yet, yesterday, at the 11:30 Easter Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in Lakewood, Colorado, no mention was made of the mess the Catholic Church is in. Blythly the clergy goes on, as if nothing has happened, the idea being to gloss it over and forget the sexual abuses of the priests and others in positions of authority in the Church. Clearly, over the years, the clergy, particularly the bishops, archbishops, cardinals, et al regard the laity as completely stupid!

It's way past time for dramatic, radical and revolutionary changes in the Catholic Church.
How about this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-masters/james-carroll-the-catholi_b_524701.html

Furthermore.....On Dolan's "Anti-Catholicism"

By way of reinforcement.....From the National Catholic Reporter:

Thank you, Tom Roberts, for your angry, but accurate, view:

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/anti-catholic-cry-cheap-easy-accusation

and thank you, Joe Ferullo, for your clarifying perspective:

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/why-do-media-go-after-church

and from Clark Hoyt of the New York Times, the official response to Dolan:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/opinion/08pubed.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

Clearly, I am not alone, as a Catholic, in my annoyance at Dolan's unwarranted attack on Maureen Dowd and the New York Times......and my continuing disappointment in the American Catholic hierarchy!

New York's Dolan: Archbishop of Paranoia ?

Last week , Maureen Dowd wrote a marvelous commentary on the plight of American Catholic nuns:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/opinion/25dowd.html?_r=1

which precipitated an outrageous response from Timothy Dolan, the new archbishop of New York:

http://www.archny.org/news-events/columns-and-blogs/blog---the-gospel-in-the-digital-age/index.cfm?i=14042

Why is it that the American Catholic bishops seem to interpret every questioning or unfavorable comment about some aspect of the church as "anti-Catholic"? When will we of the American Catholic laity finally understand that no questions, no challenges of the Church are allowed? The bishops want us to forget about the priests' sexual abuse of children around the world and their widespread homosexuality and violations of the vows of celibacy. They are incensed that we do not blind ourselves to the continuing lies and deceit of the hierarchy. After all, they are the spiritual authorities, the so-called "magisterium"; they claim to know what is best for us, the mere laity, the "sheep"! How often must the bishops remind us that our duty is to "pay, pray and obey"?

Dolan's essay on anti-Catholicism is nonsense. It is disturbing that, as evidenced by so many comments following his diatribe, among the laity, there are still so many dumb sheep. Fortunately, Laurie Goodstein's thoughtful rebuttal stands out among the comments as fair and quietly, but justifiably, indignant.

Dolan missed the point of Maureen Dowd's column. Those of us who grew up with dedicated nuns as teachers and benefited from their sacrifices understand and applaud Ms. Dowd. Clerical misogynistic mandarins, like Dolan, view the women of the Catholic Church solely as servants. Their profound ignorance of women, presumably as a result of clerical celibacy and homosexuality, persists to the detriment of us all. This serves as one more example of the bishops, in their unChrist-like way, continuing their crusade to destroy the outcome of the Second Vatican Council and to subjugate the laity, once again, to spiritual serfdom, while driving the Catholic Church back to the Middle Ages.

Zero-Based Bishoping

Let's face it. There are too many Catholic Bishops in America. The Notre Dame 2009 Commencement episode demonstrated their malevolent oafishness: intellectually (if possible) bumping into one another and, repeatedly, getting in the way of informed laity. Let's initiate zero-based bishoping in the United States (and elsewhere, if it works): Eliminate all current bishops' positions and start, again, from zero; the laity to choose only the best, the most talented, sincerely pastoral and Christ-like of the men and women available (some hurdles to be overcome here, but keep the faith!).

By the way: Let's be realistic: many women religious would make far better administrators than many of the self-serving dolts now imposed on the laity. And, anyway, it's their turn!

We could easily get rid of eighty percent of the dioceses in the United States. Look at all the parishes that are being eliminated. Think of the savings in financial overhead! Think of how much the quality of Catholic pastoral leadership would improve. Zero-based budgeting, when managed well in industry, can be very effective. When it comes to the elimination of bishops, it could do wonders for the American Catholic Church. It's up to the laity to make it happen. Remember the old economic adage: You vote with your dollars!