Trahison des clercs

Kate, over at her blog Australia Incognita, has been publishing a hard-hitting if necessarily depressing series of posts (here is a link to her latest summary) about what ought be done to arrest the decline and fall of Catholicism in Australia, a series I have been following with interest if also with uncomfortable recognition of painful realities.

Here are some thoughts of mine on this topic, from notes I jotted down while walking...

Regarding both priests and laity, the collapse of the symbolic universe that was the Catholic Faith began at the time of the Council, when the world, and the Church also, were subjected to great cultural revolutions, the results of which are still being played out. In retrospect, one may wryly surmise, perhaps those who left at the outset of the changes (clergy and layfolk alike) were the most quick-witted: they saw the collapse of former verities and drew the appropriate conclusions!

The still-unfolding crisis relating to sexual abuse of children by priests is another bitter fruit of everything going haywire. Of course most priests are not pedophiles: but it would be simplistic to assume that the only moral failures among their ranks are criminal – for every one who deserves prison, there must, as statistics would suggest, be more who have arranged other compromises with carnality, whether concubinage or attendance at places of low repute.

Turning to matters spiritual instead, it is an open secret that many do not pray the Office; and given the low standard of preaching, they cannot spend too much time searching the Scriptures, let alone perusing the Fathers or approved authors. Doubtless weekend football has much to answer for; but as my mother once asked me, what do priests do all day? Laymen in professional careers attend meetings, as do those who are ordained; but here the analogy ends, for such laymen do in fact work full time, whereas even close contact with priests leaves me convinced that only a minority ever have.

The minority of Catholics who still practise their faith now see that their leaders and 'betters' were hypocrites and worse – we read daily in the news and see on our televisions unrebutted allegations of the utter moral turpitude of the very hierarchy Catholics once revered: we have the filth and wickedness of "men of God" paraded before our faces. No wonder non-Catholics fear and hate the Church! They have, alas, in all this mess good reason! After all, if some were moral monsters, that is bad enough; but to find out how hand-wringing, ineffectual faffing about, malign neglect and even winking at crime while covering it up was all too common is to discover how even priests and bishops have completely lost their moral compass.

Surely a man of common decency, upon learning of such abominations, would have stopped at nothing to have such evil ministers defrocked and excommunicated (as St Paul excommunicated the incestuous member of the church at Corinth; see I Cor. v, 1-5) – the commonsense deduction is that those who did little or nothing were completely indifferent. No doubt the purely passive virtues of jellylike uselessness and pretended compassion more for perpetrators than victims will be invoked by those who should have acted with manly vigour instead. What must be the judgement meted out to those prelates who have died with such matters on their conscience?

The symbolic universe of Catholicism has been destroyed. Without a coherent view of the natural and supernatural world, there is no future for Catholic belief – and such a coherent vision has been smashed. "My people is destroyed for lack of knowledge" says the Lord Almighty (Hosea 4:6).  If only, say, a woman believing in her right to ordination held otherwise to orthodox belief; but it transpires that any and all doctrines are up for debate, the mere fact that such-and-such used to be a dogma almost guaranteeing that it will be mocked and rejected in favour of arrant nonsense. Religious sisters of a certain age and dress sense, and their lapses into strange novelties, are a case in point: out with the kneelers, in with the bean bags, coloured candles and amateur arts-and-crafts.

Of old, the Jansenists claimed that a general darkness and confusion had crept in and obscured the true doctrines of the Church (such as, they pretended, a neglect of the stricter views of the great Augustine); that claim was rightly condemned, but it would be perfectly easy to assert the truth of this statement with regard to the general ignorance, not to say dissent and heterodoxy, that is common throughout parishes (and presbyteries) these days. I recall, as a humorous example, the laywoman who told me without a trace of a smile that Vatican II called for whole-wheat hosts... she appeared miffed when I rolled my eyes and speculated aloud on the likelihood that three thousand bishops met for three years to decide on that, but then again, given the usual importance of episcopal conference statements, I may have been assuming too much.

The irony is that the great desire of many aCatholics, apparently – that Catholicism might by stages approximate to Episcopalianism – is a mirage; and even if it were possible (by going into practical schism from Rome to an ever greater degree, which to be honest has been a strategy employed fairly successfully over the last four decades throughout Australia and beyond), it would only speed the rate of decline.  After all, if our religion is reduced to pious foolery adorning secularism, what need is there for playing at church at all? Again, the honest ones gave up Christianity as ridiculous long ago, and the generations that have grown up have only given way to practical atheism more and more completely, to the extent that even in a Catholic school it is a rarity for many of either staff or students to, for instance, regularly attend Sunday Mass (or even think that doing so might be of theoretical importance for some strange reason).

Consider the former Bishop of Toowoomba, whom Benedict XVI noted to have lacked the theological and mental calibre to ever have been worthily appointed a bishop – and yet one assumes the official rescript of his appointment, as read out by the Nuncio when Morris was consecrated, contained the usual platitudes about his eminent abilities and virtues. It need hardly be stated that many of his peers would most probably fall in a like category, but merely have managed to keep their dafter opinions sufficiently quiet – I recall hearing of one of Australia's younger bishops, who upon first attending the Bishops' Conference was horrified by the low intellectual and cultural level.

And what is said of bishops is certainly true of priests: consider the one who in a homily in my hearing said that, when Our Lord died on the Cross, He didn't know He would rise again – what heresy! has the man (a "scripture scholar") never read the Gospels, wherein Christ clearly spoke of His coming death and resurrection? But I suppose I am succumbing to fundamentalism, and ought not fall into the sin of daring to criticise the Lord's Anointed (funny how clericalism never really dies, but is a truly hydra-headed monster)... 

Or again consider the typical sort of priest whose views on sexuality are rather at odds with Humanæ vitæ (as is the norm for Catholics and has been since 1968). When did you last hear a sermon against fornication (a rather common sin, yet strangely never criticised), or unnatural practices, or contraception, or anything of that sort? Yet surely the Magisterium still takes the age-old view that such things are rotten and gravely sinful. Of course, in "reality", this, and much if not all else that makes up the symbolic framework of Catholicism, is simply no longer believed. There is great cognitive dissonance between the actual objective content of the Faith, and the confused and subjective hold on it possessed by the average Australian Catholic – hence the paradox whereby the "liberals" who in fact hold much authority in the Church are yet still angry and afflicted with feelings of powerlessness to overcome nasty old Rome.

Recall Neuhaus' words: orthodoxy, if made optional, will sooner or later be prohibited; to which I add (from whereever I suppose I first heard it), doctrines not preached are not believed. I recall too what a Lutheran pastor mentioned to me: that he was sick of meeting self-hating Catholics who couldn't wait to tell him how proudly they dissented from the teachings of their Church, little realizing that he, as a zealous and orthodox Lutheran, was if anything closer to Rome and to more than mere Christianity than they were.

Catholicism, as played out in most parts of Australia, has no future. Evangelism, by a body not believing its own teachings, nor following even its most basic professed morals, but exposed to all and sundry as a nest of fools and perverts, is a sick joke, not a realistic hope. Looking around my own parish Mass – blessed with a good and dedicated priest, I hasten to add – I see very few children and young people, as Father himself lamented only last week. Our priest, though hale and hearty, is eighty; the congregation is fast catching up to him; I see a far healthier spread of ages at the monthly Latin Mass in Hobart!

Come, Holy Spirit, save us who cry to Thee! Descend with Thy Divine Fire and purge us of our unbelief and wickedness! Save us from ourselves!

Philistines and Mockery

Too many are rather cruelly contrasting the simplicity of Pope Francis – especially his sartorial restraint – with what they caricature as the frippery of Pope Benedict's wardrobe: my ears had the nasty experience of hearing the latter described on SBS News this evening as a sort of ecclesiastical Barbie doll by their SBS Rome correspondent, who went on to mock poor Mgr Marini, a learned, devout and dedicated M.C., by claiming that, when Marini offered him the Papal mozzetta to wear for his first appearance, Francis replied (supposedly) "No more carnival attire".

Such a cruel remark would surely be unworthy of our new Supreme Pontiff, who by all accounts is humble, not rude; the offending phrase rather reveals more about those who delight to repeat it (I mention it in anger and sorrow only).

Australians of all nations are given to Philistinism, and scoffing at the appropriate and traditional vesture proper to officials of all sorts.

It is the sin of Judas to say "such and such should have been given to the poor", whereas it was for Christ Himself rightly to testify that the costly nard expended upon the veneration of His Sacred Body was a kindly and justified act given the special circumstances. The latter-day Judases who would celebrate the sacraments in rags tend not to be similarly self-denying in their secular lives; too often, they are self-satisfied middle-class liberals posing at playing poverty, and care not enough about God to expend much if anything when adoring Him.

Holy Church requires that the chalice and paten, as also other items used in divine worship, be of a certain quality, despite the cost thereof: for in determinate circumstances, it is justified and no sin to spend money on sacred things (and similarly in all the circumstances of everyday life).  St Francis, far from despising money spent on the upkeep of churches and on the liturgy, insisted upon careful regard for those things – while always serving the needs of the poor. One can – one ought – do both.

There is no absolute duty always and everywhere to give every last cent away to those needier than oneself – but in certain circumstances, there is indeed a duty to spend very much to help others, even at great cost to oneself: prudential judgement comes into play here. In general, it would be madness to sell all the goods of the Church, so that they fall into private hands and are never more seen by the public, in the false belief that to do so would (for a time) raise funds to advantage the poor, but – when prudence dictates – the sale even of the most valuable treasures may indeed be justified in particular circumstances, so as to satisfy pressing needs.

St Lawrence gave away the treasures of the Church to the poor, lest the pagans seize them; St Chrysostom reminds us to give alms to the poor, lest in giving a costly chalice we forget the beggar at church door; but neither the one nor the other would claim that the Church cannot morally possess good things, nor accept even precious vessels, provided the needy be rightly and fairly helped and aided.

But for a truly insulting display of mockery and hypocrisy, one need only glance (once is enough, I will not reproduce them here) at the twitterings of horrid Cardinal Mahony (how has he escaped prison?) – who maladministered his former archdiocese by sheltering pedo-priests, and thus occasioned payouts of hundreds of millions of dollars to their many victims (as fulsome online documentation reveals), rather than stop those evildoers before they molested, and with the money saved help the poor – a smug prelate who yet unblushingly affects joy at the "low church" arriving in place of the "high church" (the use of Anglican terminology is revealing in itself), and prophesies the disappearance of lace et al. 

If only such asinine whited sepulchres as himself would disappear! Hopefully the rumours about such proud and lying prelates being ordered to do penance in a strict monastery prove true.

Meanwhile, to attempt to "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness" is but to do as Pope Francis himself has said: it is to promote through the media of vesture and music, precious metalwork and rich tapestry the True, the Good, and the Beautiful – since God is all these in Himself, to try and reflect such is evangelical and God-pleasing, be it done unselfconsciously, without conceited self-regard or odious self-love. It would be vile to accuse the recently-retired Benedict XVI of falling into such traps.

Dear Holy Father, please justly punish all ecclesiastics who have by deed or negligence gravely harmed the little ones of Christ, and don't worry too much if your M.C. lays out vestments not entirely to your taste (though of course you may properly insist upon sobriety in their style). I am sure you would agree that the latter trial, if fault it be, is but an imperfection easily to be borne, whereas the former  duty incumbent upon you is most pressing, given the grave scandal it occasions, let alone the demands of justice that compels it.

Even I'm Scandalized

Cardinal O'Brien has resigned in disgrace, and won't attend the Conclave! I'd thought that I was unshockable by these scandals, but the contrast between his vocal stance against unnatural pretended marriage, and the accusations against him, makes for a particularly upsetting form of hypocrisy. Why, in this modern age, do priests and prelates still think they can get away with being less than simon-pure? The skeletons don't stay in the closet anymore (nor do the clergy themselves).

Yes, such scandals and worse have tainted the Church down the ages (think of the Borgias in the Vatican, or the Pornocracy of the tenth century) – but combine it with modern media coverage, and how pleasing to the devils must be the result. Note also that the very similar sins and scandals of the more "liberal" clergy do not attract such attention – presumably the hypocrisy is lessened, given that they have not even bothered to pretend to decry what they love.

If per impossibile we did not have any great motive to pray for the election of the next Pope, then surely the crying need for this cesspool to be mucked out would be motivation enough.

Lord, send us a Pope who will be a true and great Reformer.

"Empty and evil hearts... How much filth..." - even in the Vatican

So it has come to this: La Repubblica reports on what the three Cardinals tasked by Benedict to investigate Curial intrigues and worse informed him about – Vatican officials no better than whitened sepulchres, so corrupted are they by their continual breaking of the sixth and seventh commandments, that is, by homosexual vice, and theft of money, money laundering, and every sort of malfeasance courtesy of the notoriously dubious "Vatican Bank". Judases, not just selling their souls for thirty pieces of silver, but committing sacrilege against their bodies, bodies consecrated to celibate chastity, for the sake of carnal pleasure! What more can be said?

Exhausted, worn out, frail with age, and now informed that the among the men who ought work for him are slaves of the Devil instead, who can wonder that the Pope has decided to resign, having prudently and carefully adjudged himself unable to fulfil his Petrine ministry given his advanced age and incapacity, and thus in duty bound to beg the Lord to appoint a new Pontiff in his stead? Pray, as Benedict no doubt does so fervently, that the new Pope to be elected will be a man of steel, able and willing to purge out the Augean stables that the Roman Curia, hitherto ever resistant to all real reform, has proven to be. From corrupt and cynical prelates, priests of empty and evil heart, good Lord, deliver us. And send us, Lord, a truly holy man of God, be he a Cardinal or not, to be the Pope to do what must be done.

Those words of His Holiness, which he spoke while yet a Cardinal, at the Ninth of the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday in 2005, prove ever more prophetic and terrifying in their dreadful import:

What can the third fall of Jesus under the Cross say to us? We have considered the fall of man in general, and the falling of many Christians away from Christ and into a godless secularism. Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church? How often is the holy sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts! How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that he is there! How often is his Word twisted and misused! What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him! How much pride, how much self-complacency! What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall! All this is present in his Passion. His betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison –­ Lord, save us (cf. Mt 8: 25).

I turn now to the famous prayer for Christ's Church – now taken up for Catholic use, courtesy of the Ordinariates established by Pope Benedict – authored by the Anglican William Laud so long ago:

Gracious Father, we humbly beseech Thee to bless Thy holy Catholic Church, and fill it with truth and grace. Where it is corrupt, purge it; where it is in error, direct it; where anything is amiss, reform it; where it is right, strengthen and confirm it; where it is wanting, furnish it; where it is divided and rent asunder, heal the breaches thereof, O Thou Holy One of Israel, for Jesus Christ’s sake, who with Thee and the Holy Ghost now liveth and reigneth, world without end.  Amen.

Mahony - Stay Home!

No Mahony!

I am glad to learn that many Catholics throughout the world are now publicly urging Roger Cardinal Mahony to desist from attending the upcoming Conclave, lest the notorious scandal of his poor handling (to say the least) of so many clerical sexual abuse cases in his former see of Los Angeles further besmirch the reputation of the Church and even the yet-to-be-elected Pope.

Your Eminence – for the good of the Church and souls, don't go to Rome: stay home.

Another Week, Another Missa Cantata

Off to Hobart again!  I plan to leave a little earlier than last Sunday, so as to have a more leisurely drive down – about 7:15 am should do.  Our February Missa cantata, for Sexagesima Sunday, will be at the usual time and place: St Canice Church, 11:30 am.

I note that the 15th anniversary of our Archbishop's consecration is coming up (I recall attending that occasion with my friends Ben and Jane – Ben, alas, is now departed this life, God rest him). He is now over a year past his expected retirement date: a friend mentioned recently that thirteen other dioceses around Australia are in a similar position, with bishops either about to retire or awaiting their replacement – surely some succession planning could have put coadjutors into place several years ago? While nuncios come and go, it seems a bit slack to let dioceses go years without a new bishop being appointed.

Given the impending Royal Commission, a good many ordinaries must be rather hopeful of retiring... not that they have much to answer for; it was their predecessors, most of them indeed deceased now, who it seems must bear the blame, either through neglect or collusion. I am unsurprised to learn that the vile Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles, now at last retired, has been suspended from all public functions by his successor now that the damning evidence of his easygoing treatment of pervert priests has been put online by that archdiocese: hopefully the Pope will degrade him from the cardinalate pour encourager les autres.

Episcopatum ejus accipiat alter

What a surprise was St Patrick's Cathedral, Toowoomba — an elegant Gothic edifice, which even retains its altar rails! and statues! not to mention a handsome pulpit!  Evidently the table of the high altar has been moved forward, but the old reredos remains, with the tabernacle still in the centre!  Evidently not much architectural harm was done during the tenure of the recently-dismissed Ordinary.

It was also good to see a church largely devoid of useless clutter: no parish bulletins, no piles of pamphlets, and only a few items on display beside the side entrance to the north transept.  If I didn't know otherwise I would have given the administrators high praise for neatness and lack of foolish modernizing zeal.

The only evidence of strange goings-on was a large copy of a "covenant" between the "Roman Catholic" diocese of Toowoomba, the "R.C." archdiocese of Brisbane, and the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane, prominently displayed in front of the Sacred Heart altar.  I forget what this document involves, something ecumenical I suppose.

Coming in to the cathedral, I looked with gratitude on the portrait of our Pope; there was none to be seen of Morris.  As I read in None a little later in the day, episcopatum ejus accipiat alter, "Let another have his bishopric".

To Holiday in Partibus

Off to Queensland to-morrow: where the episcopal sees are in partibus infidelium, at least insofar as their occupants are concerned!

I'll have three days in Brisbane, then a day in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast, before driving further inland, visiting Toowoomba for two days (though I daren't go to Mass there, for fear of what I might find), and then gratefully returning to Christian lands by crossing the border into New South Wales, first visiting Armidale (where I plan to catch Mass at the Cathedral on Sunday evening, so as to fulfil my obligation licitly and validly), next Coffs Harbour, and then Lismore, before a final night on the Gold Coast.

At least, as Cardinal Pell observed some years ago, given the current holders of the sees of Armidale and Lismore, "The northern frontier is secure".

Intercommunion in Queensland

While some Catholics now access the Traditional Rite unimpeded, and the Benedictine Reform proceeds, what with the newly retranslated Missal coming in and even Eastward facing celebrations occurring, in other corners of the Church abuses fester.

Years ago, I heard tell of the long-term plan of the Catholic episcopate and clergy in Queensland: to foster "Eucharistic sharing", or rather purported intercommunion between Catholics, Anglicans, Uniting Church persons and other Protestants.  At the time, I rejected this as unbelievable, but now – hearing that such may have occurred in Toowoomba – I am not so sure.

The project intended to solve the shortage of clergy by having Catholic Mass said in a given place only a few times a month, but to arrange with the local mainstream Protestants to do likewise, staggering the times so that all local Catholics, Anglicans and so forth would indiscriminately attend Catholic Mass on one or two Sundays (this being the only service for all groups), and on the other Sundays go to an Anglican Eucharist or even a Uniting Church Communion service.

I repeat, this idea seemed to me so outré that I refused to countenance such a scheme existing, but now I fear it may be true.

Recall the strangeness of Morris' notorious Advent pastoral letter in calling, not merely for having married clergy (which all know to be a disciplinary matter most unlikely to be changed) or women ordained (which the Church declares impossible), but for recognizing Anglican and Uniting Church holy orders?  To recognize Anglican orders would of course be impossible according to the decision of Leo XIII (which itself but reaffirmed the constant practice of the Church), and as the Uniting Church (derived from the amalgamation of Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians) has no threefold ministry, there is no chance of their orders being ruled valid by Rome.

However, given the mindset and the heterodox theological education of most clergy in Australia, they simply would not regard these in truth insuperable obstacles as serious issues.  Hence this madcap plan.

I am sure aCatholics would have little trouble with such intercommunion: indeed, if they will not join the Anglican Church despite their utter agreement with its ordination of women and allowance of divorce, remarriage, homosexual liaisons, contraception, abortion and so forth, what better than to be in full intercommunion with it?

Morris was simply so great a fool and so arrogant that he made public, in writing, what subtler and more knowing clergypersons preferred to discuss and work towards on the quiet.

I have myself seen, at the Catholic funeral of a friend of mine in country Victoria, a Mass celebrated in presence of the local Catholic bishop, the local Protestant clergy come up and receive communion!  This friend was no friend of them, nor a lover of the new rite (indeed, I arranged a Missa cantata of Requiem for his soul back in Melbourne as some sort of making up for this hideous abuse at his funeral), so I can see no pretext for this illicit intercommunion.

Illicit intercommunion for Protestants at Catholic services, and invalid intercommunion for Catholics at Protestant services: as I say, I thought this simply impossible to believe, but I have heard of cases of both.

In all this, there is no understanding nor acceptance of the Catholic practice of closed communion: only those in full communion with the Church may receive Communion at Catholic altars (with certain exceptions made by recent Canon Law, which do not extend to such abuses as mentioned above – as if a Catholic could validly, let alone licitly, receive Protestant communion: it would be bread-worship; or as if a Protestant, not believing Catholic doctrine about the Eucharist, could receive It).  Bizarrely, Lutherans understand this better than some Catholics!

Good Riddance - II

Kate Edwards has written an excellent opinion piece, "Bishop Bill Morris was guilty of false advertising", which I recommend to all.  My own tiny contribution thereto was suggesting the relevance of Stockholm Syndrome, whereby those brainwashed by hijackers can come to side with their abusers against their would-be rescuers.

Good Riddance

It was a pleasure to read that the Holy Father has finally started doing something about  bad bishops: Boo hoo, cries Bp William Morris of Toowoomba, the nasty old Pope and those conservatives have forced me to give away my diocese (see the front page of to-day's Australian).  We expect the Vatican to release a formal statement to-night, Australian time.  About time, too: ever since his notorious Advent pastoral letter five years ago, calling for women priests and the usual collection of liberal nostrums, he's been justly examined, and in due course found wanting.  While I have no direct evidence, I would assume, given my own experiences of such men, that he is the usual intolerant liberal, suppressing those who would want doctrinal and disciplinary and liturgical correctness – "Scratch a liberal, find a fascist".  Good riddance to the whinger he's proven himself to be!

I rather hope that the similarly-wretched priests backing him, who are apparently contemplating resigning en masse, take their own advice.  Given the lack of vocations for Toowoomba, one suspects they are the sort of priests having a contraceptive (even an abortifacient) mindset as regards vocations (in other words, they are self-hating priests) – I recall meeting a young bloke, Joseph, from that accursed diocese, who was pursuing a vocation, but after attempting to swim against the tide in Queensland, he gave up.  No doubt the aCatholics and their clerical wing, SWAG readers all, will be wailing; I just hope they get the message, and other bishops, too.  Will CathNews even attempt to be objective, as opposed to siding with Morris?

I have long been sick to death of priests, yes, and bishops too, who take the pay-cheque and tyrannize their congregations, all the while teaching and living, not the Catholic Faith, but alien beliefs.  Let them go the way of South Brisbane (why is Queensland the locus for all this, I wonder?), or join the Anglicans, and let those who actually believe and accept the doctrines of the Catholic Church have priests and bishops who also share them, rather than shitten shepherds, as Chaucer put it.

Significantly enough, Morris was ordained a priest in 1969, meaning that his formation occurred during the years when, drunk on change, the Church was in uproar, and the decisions of the Council were used to legitimate all manner of madness.  He demonstrates in his writing, both of that infamous pastoral and of his letter of resignation, what Pope St Pius X long ago diagnosed as the skilful Modernist manner of advancing misbelief by dissembling, always protesting that deliberately ambiguous words should be taken in whatever sense seems expedient, while by those words seeking to corrupt and pervert the Faith.  Such men are cowardly: if he really and honestly wants women priests et al., let him defy Rome openly, ordain them, and lead off his followers into what he would regard as the true Church.  Again, good riddance.

It's about time the mediocrity and heterodoxy in the Church in Australia gets rooted out.  Canon Law has been ignored too long: it's taken the secular courts to pursue those guilty of sexual abuse; now I hope Rome will start repairing the damage caused to the faithful by doctrinal and liturgical abuse.  Sad to say, in both cases the damage has resulted in an epidemic of Stockholm Syndrome, whereby the victims, brainwashed, side with their abusers, and reject those who would deliver them.

Shitten Shepherds

For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste,
No wonder is a lewed man to ruste;
And shame it is, if a prest take keep,
A shiten shepherde and a clene sheep.
Wel oghte a preest ensample for to yive,
By his clennesse, how that his sheep sholde lyve.

— The Canterbury Tales, The General Prologue, ll. 503-8

Chaucer indeed put it best: there is something wrong in the Church when there are "shitten shepherds and clean sheep".  I was very pleased, therefore, to read over at The Anglo Catholic, that Pope Benedict is, it seems, now making clear his intention to clear out the corrupt episcopate, riddled with mediocrity and malfeasance, with incompetence and bad will.  All power to him!

Allowing matters to slide, Popes since Paul VI have lamely presided over the most atrocious collapse in standards.  A bishop ought be an example of holiness and orthodoxy (the two being inseparable), and, moreover, possessed of a sure grasp of good order.  Where are the bishop-saints of old?  Too many bishops are a joke.  And guess what happens when fools are promoted above their station?  Now all the chickens have come home to roost: in many places gross maladministration, complicity even in crimes, has reached such a pitch as to be intolerable.

How comes it, by the way, that such a deviant as Rembert Weakland, emeritus Archbishop of Milwaukee, has not long since been degraded from the episcopate, ever since it became known that he paid off his male lover (catamite? or sodomite?) with diocesan funds?  He covered up for other evil priests who committed sexual abuse too.  Unblushingly, now he openly declares his perversion.  Quite rightly Pope Benedict has spoken about the need to purge out all such filth in the Church.

As the then Cardinal Ratzinger said when leading the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday 2005, just before his election, when reflecting upon the third Fall, at the 9th Station:

...Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church? How often is the holy sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts! How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that he is there! How often is his Word twisted and misused! What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him! How much pride, how much self-complacency! What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall!...

What a herculean task is before our agèd Supreme Pontiff: to wash the Augean stables clean... as he prayed then, leading us in prayer, let us all pray now:

Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered. But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up. Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all.