Sunday 5 May 2013

....and the Bishops snored on....today's top post

An excellent post on the state of the Church and on the Cardinal O'Brien affair may be read at The Eye Witness - the subject matter may be sad but the recognition and 'hope' is heartening.

In particular I like the reference to St Thomas More's quote:

 "The Bishop's of England my Lord, would have snored through the Sermon on the Mount"

I would, of course, like to add 'Wales' to that quote.

You may read it HERE

32 comments:

  1. "The Bishop's of England my Lord, would have snored through the Sermon on the Mount"

    It is a good line from a play but I doubt whether St Thomas More would have actually said it. For all their faults many of the bishops at the time appreciated St Thomas's stand and had a whip round to help him.

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    1. Shouldn't that be "The Bishops of England", rather than, "The Bishop's of England", or do you Brits use the Saxon possessive for the plural?

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  2. Patricius, St Thomas also described them (factually) as being "a weak clergy lacking in grace". The speed at which they caved in to the Protestant heresy also bears that out. I think that, given a modicum of poetic licence, he might well have said something similar.

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  3. "But for Wales, Richard...!"

    (Sorry, couldn't help it)

    - Mack in Texas

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  4. That's OK Mack, as an Englishman (or Sais) I often use that phrase with my Welsh friends.

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  5. In the midst of bishop bashing, let's have a few other home truths. It could be said that the laity get the bishops they deserve - one way or another. Let me explain. I have been a priest for coming up to 39 years. During that time I have seen much dishonesty and hypocrisy - amongst the laity. Let me explain again. When some (I say some) bishops, priests and sisters took the wrong kind of license from Vatican 11, lay "experts" opinion-makers, teachers and catechists jumped in with both feet and became part of a subversive movement which spread to the parishes so that many (I say many) ordinary lay people took the opportunity to - stay away from confession, go to Holy Communion as and when they liked, argue against the priest when he was too slow to effect some dubious post-conciliar or diocesan "reforms", supported either by attending talks and meetings, or by otherwise agreeing with, heterodox guest speakers in our dioceses, and...generally failed to pray the Rosary and (after being encouraged to do so by...guess what? Vatican 11..) failed to read the Scriptures regularly. I could go on. Yes, complain about bad bishops, but these men came from families, parishes, communities and were supported, feted, congratulated by who? Many of the laity...many of whom wanted freedom to use contraception and to generally enjoy themselves, escaping or giving no thought to real spiritual advancement (holiness). There have been, and are, many fine lay people in the British Isles and many of them are my friends. I admire them immensely, BUT there are also MANY here who are not living the faith (except their own version of it) and who would not thank you for a bishop like St. John Fisher. Time will tell how long they will stomach Pope Francis. As a good bishop (well-intentioned but who failed in my estimation, through fear or human respect) said to me in private, "There's a lot of ground to recover"

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    1. Thank you Father you make me face my own failings.

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    2. Yet, Father, as someone once said:

      "If the priest is a saint, his people will be holy.
      If the priest is holy, his people will be good.
      If the priest is good, his people will be fair.
      If the priest is fair, his people will be mediocre.
      If the priest is mediocre, his people will be bad."

      You are surely correct that holy Catholic families form the normal source of holy priests. But once ordained, how many of the clergy resolutely fail to care for those entrusted to them? We are more dependent upon the clergy than they upon us.

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    3. A bishop who "failed through fear or human respect" is not a 'good bishop' by definition. No-one forced him to accept his position and he should not have done so if he lacked the courage to exercise it properly. Of course laypeople share a responsibility for the mess that is now the Church but that of a priest or bishop is of a totally different order to that borne by any layperson no matter how influential or aggressive.

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  6. Fr John....yes, but the lead came from the clergy. The thing about most laity in the 1960s was that they were obedient, even to going over the cliff after their Bishop.
    Since then we have indeed seen the laity indulge in the falling away that you mention.
    If St John Fisher came back tomorrow, the laity would, indeed classify him as a fundamentalist.

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  7. Living in the diocese of Liverpool I was able to witness at first hand the role played by the bishops, priests and religious in implementing the revolution that followed in the wake of V11. Think back to the notorious Easter People. Yes there were many lay people only too willing to jump on the bandwagon but they were aided and abetted by the clergy.There are seven parishes where I live and a good number of years ago I wrote to each parish requesting a traditional mass ( all the priests at that time had been ordained in the traditional rite).All replies were in the negative. If I wanted a mass of any other kind eg: folk,youth,childrens or charismatic you had no trouble.Eventually you find out just what is going on and seek out places where you can get to a traditional mass. There is a lot of ground to recover and the best place to start is at the very centre of our faith which is the mass.The sooner the novus ordo mass is consigned to history the sooner the recovery will take place.

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  8. the reason the Latin mass was replaced by vernacular was so the people could be more a part of the service. Now, however, it's the choir who cheat the laity out of their involvement, their responses, and hence, their active participation. Same difference as before!

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    1. Anonymous, we were part of the Mass (not service) when we only had the Latin Mass as were medieval peasants who had no trouble with the Latin.

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