It occurred to me that I heard the opinion several weeks ago in the wake of the original Covington pile on that the bishops were in fact guilty of rash judgment, a specific sin, rather than a vague "racism" somehow implicit in wearing MAGA hats (the boys were too young even to vote for Trump, although I believe the Church endorses their right to do so when they come of age). I would certainly welcome the chance to address this in some forum with Bp Barron, though I'm sure it won't happen.
Another visitor made this comment over yesterday's post:
When I read the line about better bishops, it reminds me of the sentiment that is part and parcel of the problem of Our Lady Of The Atonement. Because it is true that we need better bishops, and have for some time. With the freedom available in the Anglican Use, it was possible to work around the Bishop. This freedom was taken advantage of, and the result was continuous problems - and most went unreported, with parishioners departing. I think the possibility of working around the Bishop, who is often lukewarm, is why there is a link between the Anglican Use - and now Ordinariate, and those who want orthodoxy. It also explains why most members of OLOTA are not Anglican converts.I think this also goes to the idea of the Anglican special rites as what my regular correspondent calls a "gated community" that's somehow not subject to the ordinary problems in the rest of the Church. Yeah, no gay clergy in the North American ordinariate, huh? But the idea of a special dispensation for a snooty elect, whether Anglican wannabes or other traddy separatists, sets these people up to fall for phonies in clerical collars, whether that be Fr Phillips, Fr Treco, Fr Reese, Fr Kenyon, the Frs B, or of course Dcn Orr.
What I find encouraging is that, although importuning errant bishops still isn't easy, faithful laity who pay attention and sincerely and prayerfully work on the problems do in fact make progress, and they've had an easier time than they had, for instance, when Cardinal Spellman and complicit Catholics in the media were able much more effectively to prevent references to Spellman's actively promiscuous homosexuality from reaching print. The decline of elite media and the rise of populist outlets like blogs and YouTube have contributed to this.
Confer the ability of laity to bypass received elite opinion over the Covington boys by overwhelming the phone capacity of their diocese and even the neighboring Archdiocese of Cincinnati, forcing Bp Foys first into making any public statement, which he'd resolved not to do, and then to issue a full apology for his own rash judgment, weeks before his own official investigation (which he'd originally meant to hide behind) was complete.
If people pay attention and are willing to make an effort, they can have an impact on their bad bishops. We'll have to see what follows the sex summit in Rome.
