As a kid, I wanted to be a priest, not just your run of the mill parish priest, but something with a little more heft. I was raised Boston/Irish Catholic in the 1950s, went to a Catholic elementary school, and was an altar boy, so the idea was natural.
For high school I entered a Junior Seminary, something in the church that seems to have gone the way of the Latin Mass, that was run by a religious order of priests headquartered in Turin, Italy. Over those years, being as this was not too far after World War II, many of the faculty were not only from Europe, but some had fled first the Nazis and then the Communists as the Iron Curtain fell. These men knew from experience what was wrong with dictatorships, fascist governments, and the ill effects of brainwashing a population to become compliant in their own suppression.
They spoke of their experiences often, and this made studying Twentieth Century live.
I had one teacher who arrived from his assignment in Palestine because the signs showed there was a build up for a war in the area, and a few months later the Israeli/Arab war of 1967 broke out.
We met clerics from around the world who would visit either specifically or as part of a larger visitation trip.
Being assigned to make up the room in which one visitor would be staying, I was in the process of making the bed when in walked Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez SDB of Chile who, as an Archbishop and then a Cardinal, advocated for social justice and democracy and was a vocal critic of the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, driving him crazy.
As Cardinal he gave parcels of land from large estates owned by the Church to the peasants who worked on them, and explained his action simply,
“There are more of the Gospel’s values in socialism than there are in capitalism.”
He issued a statement on behalf of Chile’s bishops denouncing Pinochet’s regime for political persecution and economic policies that burdened the poor, and calling for the restoration of democracy. He initiated legal assistance for the growing number of political prisoners and helped victims of political persecution find employment.
While ministering to political prisoners he collected the names of more than 3,000 Chileans who were killed in prison or disappeared.
The response from government supporters was to desecrate his parents’ graves and shoot at his house.
When Cardinal Silva died, Pinochet’s widow proclaimed that prayers had been answered. He died at 91, so God works slowly.
Also, at that time, the Archbishop of Boston was Richard Cardinal Cushing, a story in himself, and the strongest advocate of Vatican II, its modernizations, and for social Justice. He is the reason that in Boston Special Ed kids were referred to as Exceptional Children that removed the less complimentary terms at the time and initiated better care and education for these people.
My Parish priest had made our parish one of the first to have mass facing the people in English, and when the old church was found to be in need of extensive repair, found it better to replace it and included in the new structure’s plans the configuration of the sanctuary to reflect all the changes to the liturgy.
So as old fashion as the era might have been, the clerics from Cardinals to parish priests with whom I had been familiar were moving the church forward while also respecting the pope and putting people over politics.
When I see the Catholic Bishops acting more like politicians than spiritual leaders while they put politics over people and Christ, I see an attempt to bring society back to the Middle Ages when the Church was an earthly political power equal to or better than secular powers.
Bishops in the United States seem to be more concerned with aligning themselves with conservative ideology, no matter how misguided, creating Catholic beliefs to do so.
Ignoring their own history of participation in dictatorial governments, not denying any sacraments to any of the worst rulers in the past, supporting rulers in distorting Christian teachings to justify even their most un-Christ-like behavior, and after praising Trump as a gift from God who will defend traditional Christian beliefs when he is not lying, stealing, or playing the field, They want to deny the Eucharist to Joe Biden, a man who lives his faith, because he is able to separate his personal religious beliefs from his civil and secular obligations.
The American bishops are attempting to make the Body and Blood of Christ into a political tool.
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“No, I have never refused the Eucharist to anyone, to anyone. I don’t know if anyone in that condition came, but I never, never refused the Eucharist. As a priest, that is. Never. I have never been aware of having a person like the one you describe in front of me, that is true. Simply, the only time I ever had a bit…an interesting thing, was when I went to celebrate Mass in a rest home and we were in the living room, and I said: ‘Raise your hand if you want to receive Communion,” everyone, the old men, the old women, everyone wanted Communion, and when I gave Communion to one woman, she took me by the hand and said to me: “Thank you, Father, thank you: I’m Jewish.” I said: “No, the one that I gave to you is Jewish, too…”
He went on,
“Communion is a gift, a present, the presence of Jesus in his Church and in the community. This is the theology. But the problem is not the theological problem—that is simple—the problem it is the pastoral problem: how do we bishops deal with this principle pastorally. And if we look at the history of the church we will see that every time the bishops have dealt with a problem not as pastors, they have taken a political stance on a political problem. Think of St Bartholomew’s Night: “Oh, heretics, yes. But it’s a serious heresy…let’s cut all their throats….” No: it is a political matter. Let’s think of Joan of Arc, about that vision, let’s think of the witch-hunt…. Let’s think of the Campo de’ Fiori, of Savonarola, of all those people.”
He also recalled the history that the American bishops in their scramble for political standing need to recall,
“if we look at the history of the church, we will see that every time the bishops have not dealt with a problem as pastors they have taken sides politically.”
He gave some examples where religion and the persecution of people for heresy had more to do with supporting the powers that be over religious teachings. Who can forget all the religious upheaval in Europe when many denomination of Christianity that did not bolster the power of the state were declared enemies of it and the bishops went along with the subsequent carnage.
He continued.
“When the church defends a principle in an unpastoral manner, it acts on a political level. And this has always been the case, just look at history. What must the pastor do? Be a pastor. Be a pastor and don’t go around condemning, not condemning… God’s style is closeness, compassion and tenderness. The entire Bible says so. Closeness is already there in Deuteronomy where he says to Israel: “Tell me what people has its gods as close as I am to you?” Closeness, compassion. The Lord has compassion on us as we read in Ezekiel, in Hosea. Tenderness was there already in the beginning. It is enough to look in the Gospels and the things of Jesus. A pastor who does not know how to act with God’s style, is slipping and does many things that are not pastoral.”
And he is right about this when it comes to America’s Catholic bishops. To the pope they are ceasing to be pastors who reach out and pull people to Christ, but are looking for reasons to push them away, and becoming promoters of political viewpoints.
A so-called Catholic cable station has been freely condemning Francis based on politics, and the Catholic bishops who should be loyal to the pope and should be explaining why the claims on the channel are not in accordance with Catholic teachings and are, therefore, the ones in correct have been silent.
The main complaint has been that Pope Francis criticized unrestrained, free market capitalism and the Catholic elite who want both the things of God but more importantly those of Caesar do not like that. These are the ones who support the station.
The thing, though, is that the pope, not being an elected position with a tenure that requires reelection campaigns, is free to speak as the leader of the Church without worrying about the popularity of his words no matter how difficult the theological concept is to grasp or whether it is what people want to hear.
Sadly, many bishops and cardinals in the United States are looking to be the U.S. Version of Cardinal Wolsey by cozying up the politicians and ideologies that will bestow power by association.
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are God’s” has become contrary to the goals of conservative, American, power-seeking bishops.
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