Francis Dumps U.S. Cardinal Who Is Outspoken Critic Of Abortion, Gay Marriage

[rustbeltvoice]

21. ¡Viva el Papa!

¡Viva el Papa! As i said in another thread, "Burke pegged the meter"

In some analog meters, there is a needle behind glass; to the left is '0', and the gradations continued to the right, at the end of the scale there is a measurable limit value. At times, the input could be so strong that the meter is destroyed. Raymond Burke pegged the meter in several categories. Politically, he was very active in promoting the Republican Party and attacking the Democratic Party. This went outside any pastoral activity. Within the church, he was an "Americaniser", by this i mean, he wanted to control the diocese as a corporate capitalist and tyrant. The bishop was a Leviathan. Burke was an enemy to the nationality parishes, they were only a source of income; only the bishop's opinion mattered in all matters. This country has many such bishops, Burke was the most flamboyant in the display and presentation of his person. He dressed himself in the most extreme, and extravagant regalia. How could that alone not suggest how ill suited he is to be a priest?

Pope Francis is addressing an internal problem of the church in this country. There is an extreme imbalance between the ordinary (the presiding bishop) and the People of God. Here in Cleveland, we have an horrible bishop in this regard. Richard Lennon has caused much disharmony, and ill feeling. His chief endeavor was the reduction of parishes in a cold, calculated, vicious way. People are quite parochial, they can not see much outside of their parish. And there is the great problem of church governance, which the local press would never allow to be discussed, and few parishioners would speak on.

Burke was such an extremist. With his removal from this curial position, such individuals such as himself, and Lennon, and other tyrants will not become bishops. The problem is these individuals. They act as pharoa of old, they consider themselves the only Catholic in the diocese.

So a basic question of polity is what constitutes the church in an area, what is the unit? The diocese (a political sub geographic borrowed from the Roman empire), or the parish (constituted by Jesus, when he speaks of "two or three gathered together in my name").

The average Catholic only relates to his parish. The sacramental, and communal life is done within the parish. He has little interest or concern of another parish. So the parishes are not in the practice of joining together to challenge a power (and money) grabbing bishop.

We, in Cleveland and Akron, successfully appealed to Rome (and Rome with a stacked curia, not very receptive to parishioners) and had eleven of eleven appeals against Bishop Lennon's non-canonical suppressions upheld. Lennon was even too much for the church structure to bear. We are still stuck with him, but he has little respect here, and in Rome.

With this humbling of Burke, and his loss of influence, future supreme jerks may not be inflicted upon people. These incidents are lessons for the learning.

¡Viva el Papa!