Send In the Clowns

LarryD has put up part of Fr. Richard McBrien's latest column on his blog today. Instead of commenting he has provided the appropriate music to listen to as you read it. I highly recommend that you go over there & read Sob Story (with the music of course). When you are done, please come back here for the rest of my comments. I'll be waiting. & no peeking at what is below, read Larry's post 1st.

WELCOME BACK!!!!!

Dick is trying to raise sympathy for his plight by bemoaning the fact that, istead of what he defines as a good bishop, a real "pastorally healthy bishop" has the courage to stand up & just say "NO!" to Dickie Bird's heretical rantings. & even worse for McB, after the priest attempts the real end-run around his priestly vow of obedience to the Bishop, the Bishop again shuts him & coconspiritor McBrien down. The whole aura of the article is 1 of a pity party for someone who knows he is on the loosing side of history as well as being called for the heretic he is.

IMHO I think that the next time McBrien has a post like this instead of his usual picture he should be dressed up as Canio playing Pagliaccio at the end of the scene in Ruggero Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci where he sings Vesti La Giubba:

I say that because all Dick is doing is showing how big a clown he really is. & the spiritual damage he is doing is a tragedy of operetic proportions.

In answer to Dickie's question at the end of his screed: "The question is, what would happen if a majority of parishioners complained to the bishop about a conservative pastor who celebrated Mass in Latin, harangued the people in homilies about their sinfulness and urgent need for the sacrament of penance, eliminated all forms of consultation, fired the staff, and made abortion the only moral issue mentioned from the pulpit?" If the Bishop is the true shepherd he should be & thus a real "pastorally healthy bishop", he would probably congratulate the priest for teaching what the Catechism says we are supposed to do in paragraph 827* (among others). & then show up himself at the parish & deliver a similar sermon. Also, apparently Dickie Bird hasn't heard of, or more likely is ignoring, the Pope's moto proprio on the use of the TLM, let alone the fact that the documents of Vatican II as well as the rubrics in the GIRM for the Novus Ordo allow the NO to be said in Latin as well, without the Bishop's OK.

Finally, I have to tell you Dickie Bird, that it is time to wake up, smell the coffee & realize that in another diocese, for you & your heretical rantings, the fat lady has sung.

"Don't be a McBrien" poster borrowed from Fr. Erik Richtsteig @ Orthometer

*"All members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners."