Feed the Priests, Starve the Bishops

By Father Celatus

Several years ago, one of my friends ended up in a bad marriage. He travelled a lot in conjunction with his work and he eventually discovered that his wife was carrying on an affair during his absence.

The marriage could not be salvaged and typical of no-fault divorce and corrupt courts, his wife was awarded alimony and custody of his children. Broken by the experience, my friend decided that he would quit his job and exhaust all his savings rather than pay her any money for support. He lost his home and ended up destitute and on welfare. There is an old proverb that fits this: Do not cut off your nose to spite your face!

There are many Catholics who, like my friend, may be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Not over the matter of an unfaithful spouse and a broken marriage, but rather over a matter of unfaithful shepherds and a broken church. I am speaking of a movement which garnered national attention and gained impetus this past summer to starve the institutional church, and bishops in particular, of their life source: money!

As sexual scandal after scandal broke during this past Summer of Shame for the Catholic Church in the United States, headlines in the mainstream media read, Catholics consider withholding donations amid scandals, and Catholics lash out at church leaders with their wallets. Who can blame the faithful for wanting to do something—anything—to punish predator prelates who ravage and fleece their own flocks?

The shame began early in the summer, with the June revelations regarding Cardinal (no-longer) Theodore McCarrick, who as a homosexual predator preyed upon seminarians, priests and teens for decades. Even more scandalous than the perverted predation of this one individual is the fact that Uncle Ted’s behavior was "an open secret" among high ranking prelates and yet his predation was allowed to continue unabated and he continued to be elevated to ever higher positions of power and influence in the Catholic Church.

The next shock wave of scandal came in August, with the long-awaited release of the report of a grand jury on sex abuse within six dioceses of the state of Pennsylvania. The 900-page report implicated at least 300 clergy of sexually abusing minors and accused multiple prelates of cover up. According to the report:

Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church [sic] have largely escaped public accountability. Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all.

For decades Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been protected; many, including some named in this report, have been promoted. Until that changes, we think it is too early to close the book on the Catholic Church sex scandal.

While still in the heat of August and public scrutiny, in an unprecedented act, a high ranking prelate and former nuncio to the United States released several pages of personal testimony which not only confirmed what had been revealed about the Mr. McCarrick cover up, but it incriminated Francis of Rome himself as having had first-hand knowledge of McCarrick as a serial predator at the time he restored him to positions of power and influence in the United States, in the Vatican and even in foreign relations, to include China.

Then the Summer of Shame gave way to the next seasonal change for the Church, the Fall of Failure.

With empty promises to Catholics and the secular world, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gathered in early November to discuss and approve policies that would hold bishops accountable for protecting predators and for predatory behavior themselves.

At the eleventh hour, on the eve of their assembly, a mandate came down from the Vatican that they were not to discuss such matters at all.

Wallowing in shame, the U.S. bishops sought to salvage their assembly with a recommendation that the Vatican would open an investigation into the sordid McCarrick scandal, most especially as to how such a known serial abuser could continue this behavior and rise to positions of power and prestige he attained. By a majority vote, the U.S. bishops failed to pass this recommendation and they went home as failures.

After all these scandals and so much more, we again ask the question, "Who can blame Catholics for withholding money from these miserable men?" The Last Word agrees: it’s time to starve the shepherds!

What are ways in which the faithful can starve the shepherds? A good place to begin, as traditional Catholics have long known, is to cut off donations to any of the many USCCB approved collections:

Collection for the Church in Latin America, Collection for Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, The Catholic Relief Services Collection, Catholic Home Mission Appeal, Catholic Communication Campaign, Peter’s Pence Collection, Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Retirement Fund for Religious, Pastoral Solidarity Fund for the Church in Africa, Black and Indian Missions, CRS Rice Bowl, Pontifical Good Friday Collection for the Holy Land, The Catholic University of America, World Mission Sunday, Collection for the Archdiocese for the Military Services.

No doubt many of you are astounded by the number of nationally approved collections. Count yourself blessed if your pastor has done you the favor of eliminating these collections from your church envelopes. In addition to these collections, dioceses have additional causes for which they solicit funds, to include annual diocesan appeals of various sorts. Withholding from these starves the local bishop of his income.

But some want to go a step farther and starve their bishop by withholding donations to their own parish. And this is where Catholics may be cutting off their own noses to spite their face. By all means, if you belong to a progressive parish with a modernist pastor, you should not financially support it. For that matter, you should withhold not only your money but also your presence. In other words, go elsewhere.

But if you belong to a parish at which you are provided with the traditional Mass and Sacraments and substance by a solid pastor, then please do not withhold your weekly offering with the idea that it will hurt a bishop. For every nickel on the dollar that may make its way to a chancery the other ninety-five cents is denied to your own parish and will have far greater negative impact at home than in the diocese.

The Last Word on this matter is this: by all means, starve the bishops; but support those who support you! ■