An Open Letter to the American Bishops

Gentlemen,

I almost don't know where to start. You are meeting, now, at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, in Orlando FL. Perhaps that's a good enough place to start. You are discussing issues that will affect the body of Christ in the United States for years, perhaps generations, to come. One would think that you would choose to do so some where more conducive to prayerful reflection that a luxury hotel in a resort city. Perhaps a religious house, where you could be under the same roof as the Blessed Sacrament. We have lots of them, and a good many stand mostly empty. There's room. Meeting in the Hyatt Regency seems more appropriate for a group of CEOs than for our Pastors.

Then again, when one counts heads, one notices that there aren't even enough of you to get a clean vote on the most pressing, to those of us in the pews, issue: The Liturgy. It's not really surprising to me. In the 33 years since I became Catholic, the Episcopacy has been most defined by it's absence, or it's silence.

This question of the Liturgy brings something I have long felt into stark relief: You have no respect for us, the laity. From all the debate I have been able to read, (difficult to sift out, considering that like so many things you are trying very hard to work in secret), you think we are stupid.

We're not. We are, collectively, the best educated laity in history. And we're tired of of being treated like ignorant children.

Bishop Galeone, the last time you heard the word "gibbet" may have been in 1949, but I assure you it has been more recently for me. In fact, I learned the word in fifth grade. I've heard it in lecture halls, it occurs in text books, popular fiction, even cinema and TV shows. I've even used it in conversation. Bishop Troutman, I know what ineffable means. In fact, that word to has percolated into popular fiction, and is even well enough known to be used in best sellers. As to wrought, well, I've worked wrought iron, I have marveled at what God hath wrought. I think your objections are overwrought. Perhaps we poor pew sitters, "John and Mary Catholic" have better working vocabularies than our National Council of Bishops?

And, especially for Bishop Troutman, when the Vatican has to say that your approach to language is unacceptable, that "inclusive" terminology doesn't reflect the Mysteries of our Faith, perhaps that's a sign that your brother bishops should take what you say with a grain of salt?

But your assumption that we will be unable to understand the liturgy isn't all that disturbs me. I must say that it looks, from the pew, like a significant fraction of you wish to make our liturgy something it has never been, and isn't supposed to be: horizontal. We are not congregationalists. The sacred nature of our liturgy does not proceed from us, it proceeds from God. If there is any doubt in your minds about this, put 1500 catholics together at a kegger--will it have sacred nature? No. In fact, it just might, at this point in time, be indistinguishable from a party thrown by atheists. Please, allow us to have an experience of the sacred when we go to Mass, please facilitate this for us.

But your disrespect for the laity goes deeper. I couldn't help but notice, when studying the Catechism, that a good many things are left to the prudential judgement of the people. And, that there are things that are left to the prudential judgement of the Civil Authorities. You seem to have no problem speaking forcefully on these things, even though they are part of the lay vocation. Yet on other things, you remain strangely silent. Even if you publish documents about them, as individuals you seem strangely timorous for the successors of the Apostles, who were filled with the Holy Spirit and whom, fifty days after the paschal event, boldly and loudly proclaimed the good news. You are, collectively, afraid of the secular powers and attitudes. Yet you expect us to took to you for leadership, when you steadfastly refuse to lead, when it might affect your popularity or social acceptability.

We are the best educated laity in history, but one of the worst catechised. A cursory look at statistics shows this. And whose fault is this? Well, as bishops it's your job--your vocation--and responsibility to teach, sanctify and rule. You're doing a pitiful job. In fact, in the light of your collective performance in the last forty years, if you were in the private sector you would have been fired. If you were soldiers, as you are supposed to be in the Church Militant, you would have been eliminated from the service. One American in ten is someone who has left the Church! some where between twenty and sixty percent of us do not believe in the Real Presence! Just over half of us feel that homosexual activity is morally permissible!
This is not the result of effective teaching. And, if we have not been effectively catechised, the fault lies in only one place--you.

But I don't expect to hear even one of you say that. Because I can't seem to find even one of you who will accept responsibility. When we were racked by scandals from your collective failure--a failure of at least sixty percent of the bishops currently sitting-- to protect children from unworthy, predatory priests, you hid behind words, behind blaming the therapeutic community, passing the buck in ways that would make a bureaucrat proud. You know, if a bishop stood up and said that he was sorry, and that the problems ultimately stemmed from his failure to appropriately oversee the clergy in his diocese, most of us would think he was a hero. Instead, you cite "mistakes", "errors", "misinformation". No. You failed in your duty. But I have yet to meet a bishop manly enough to admit that.

Your duty to Sanctify? How do you tell Catholics from seculars? Well, you can ask, or you can follow them to Church. Of course, a great many of us go to Church so seldom that it might be a long wait. Sanctify? To set us apart for the service of the Lord? Gentlemen, we are slipping so rapidly into the morass of a modern consumerist, hedonistic society that it's hard to tell if a Catholic is a Catholic. We have substantially lost our Sacred identity. and you, as a group, not only allowed but facilitated this with moving solemnities to Sundays, doing away with public observances, and discouraging devotional practices.

You have, collectively, failed in your duty to rule. I can simply name a parish--St. Joan of Arc-- and ask, why has this been allowed to continue? the only two answers I can come up with are equally distasteful: Whether the ordinary is a moral coward, or believes such activities are perfectly acceptable, as long as faithful Catholics don't find out and raise too much fuss. Or perhaps I can name another Parish, most Holy Redeemer in San Francisco. Archbishop Niederauer, why did you ask them not to participate in the Gay Pride Parade? Why didn't you tell them not to? And how can you tolerate a man as a pastor--a man whose ministry is an extension of your own--who says that their not marching "..wasn't because of any request from the Archdiocese"? And will you turn a blind eye to their drink stand, supporting the Gay Pride Parade? This is especially galling to us pew sitters, in the light of the statistics gathered, at the bishops behest, by the John Jay School of Law, supported by the research of the American Psychiatric Association, that pointed out that the problem wasn't pedophiles, it was gay priests predating on adolescent males. And, didn't the Vatican send out something, a couple of years ago saying men who supported the Gay lifestyle were ineligible for ordination? So why is this tolerated?

But perhaps this failure in your duty to rule is to be expected, even as I write this many of you are trying mightily not to be ruled by the man you've promised obedience too,trying desperately to derail the intent of Liturgiam Authenticam--even though the translation under review has been accepted by four other bishops conferences. This attempt is part and parcel of the efforts of so many of you to undermine Redemptiones Sacramentum, to not comply with Ex Corde Ecclesiam. To evade any number of things. After all, Cardinal Arinze had to express the hope that Vatican Documents, Moto Proprios, guidelines and rules wouldn't just "gather dust on a shelf, or worse yet be tossed in the wastebasket." Too many of you have decided disobedience and rebelliousness is a positive value in itself. The rest are too timed to speak out.

Gentlemen, right now there is a protest outside your meeting place. The Catholics protesting are not advocating any change in teaching, or in disciplines, or even cash accountability: all they want is for twelve bishops, out of 250 to enforce canon 915, the enforcement of which documents issued by the USCCB call for. I don't expect that to happen. Especially when you consider the situation of Micheal Pfleger. Cardinal George, considering that persons who support material evil, specifically abortion, shouldn't present themselves for communion, and considering that the Pope, who holds your promise of obedience, has said that politicians who work to uphold and further abortion aren't to be admitted to Holy Communion--how do you justify the continued possession of faculties to preach, and the position of pastor, by priest who supports a politician who voted against protecting children born alive after a failed abortion from being murdered by physicians?

We have not been so poorly served by our bishops since the days before Nicea, during the Arian heresy. The USCCB reminds me of nothing so much as another national body of bishops--who with only one dissenter decided to schism from Rome to keep their positions of privilege and comfort. They let the King kill the only loyal bishop in the country: St. John Fisher.

The only way I can conceptualize what is happening in the church in the United States is in light of the message from an approved Marian apparition: Our Lady of Akita, whom you gentlemen never address.

Well, I've said my piece, so enjoy your stay in the luxurious Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, it's on us.

Shame on you all. Shame.