Referring to sodomy as a siren call is either 1) a veiled accusation of Pope Francis' sexuality, or 2) whoever wrote that statement accidentally outing themselves.
I could also just see it as another example of Strickland’s lack of intellectual depth and precision. He often talks about the Deposit of Faith but I sense he would be surprised if I told him that it includes Scripture and the official teaching of Ecumenical Councils (including Vatican II). He and Altman are very clumsy in extrapolating the crisis in the Church.
I think many who have legitimate concerns and critiques wish they would sit down and let individuals more qualified and nuanced at a mic or letter.
+Strickland would be surprised to know that the Deposit of Faith includes Scripture and an ecumenical council? What a silly thing to say. A totally unserious position. Talk about clumsy extrapolation.
Brothers...this pope promulgated Fiducia Supplicans. He has received Father James Martin personally several times and written him personal letters of endorsement. He has appointed Hollerich and countless others who disent openly to the Church's teachings on sexuality to prominent posts. Guys...stop debating phrases such as, "Siren song". Wake up and smell the rainbow flag.
I think one problem is that there is a very legalistic version of theology being taught in American seminaries and as a hyper political country it’s easy to turn into a congregation that picks sides. The Church has been raising alarm about the USA concern for quite some time. Bishop Strickland wants unity and to defend Church teachings. I can sense that and applaud him for it. In a country with so much religious competition between faiths, it’s really hard to keep the family together unless you constantly lay down the hammer. Bishop Strickland is trying to do the right thing. BUT here is the theological approach that most moral theologians outside of the USA agree on (seriously, it’s almost at consensus if you ignore American theologians), and it not only accompanies people in situations that are not fully Catholic (please note, I’m acknowledging that the situation you reference cannot be fully Catholic), it refuses to reject what the Church has and always will continue to teach. Theology on this explained here https://www.avvenire.it/chiesa/pagine/omosessuali-libro-fumagalli-prefazione-semeraro
Thank you Dan. I can't read your link because it's in Italian and my Google translate function isn't working. Despite that, I'm not terribly interested in the theological gyrations of, "the rest of the world" if they are aiming towards heterodoxy and modernism and relativism. Most of the world succumbed to the Arian heresy at one point. Half of Europe left the faith in 2 centuries after Martin Luther and Calvin rebelled. Men shooting their sperm onto other men's feces is just never going to be a thing God likes. The debate was over before Noah built the ark.
No certainly nothing can be thrown out. The problem is we learn the rules here but not the theology behind them. There is a danger of practical relativism on the two extremes of Catholicism: the kind that only takes into account the theology and knowledge within their country & the kind that is willing to throw things out. Martin Luther suffered from both.
The above 2 possibilities is not even close to exhaustive. I can think of several others. It appears that your charity towards Bishop Strickland is quite limited.
There is a third option. It is a siren call because there is enormous political pressure to accept it, especially from Western governments and bishops.
With the Vigano excommunication, it seems that the Vatican's line is questioning Pope Francis' legitimacy as Pope, at least for now. I hope that Bishop Strickland doesn't go down that path. I generally agree with what he says even if I strongly question the effectiveness of his methods. At the same time, there probably is no earthly method that could change the Vatican's trajectory until there is a new Pope, so I guess it probably doesn't matter what Strickland says or does.
Growing up, if you ask me one thing I learned in the Catholic Church, it is living secrecy. The importance of keeping secrets. My sins will hurt my ability to proclaim the truth! Having truth doesn’t mean being open about everything. My desires must live safely hidden behind walls and in public denounced.
The tone of creating a fraternity of prayer and truth is oddly familiar too. In college ministry, the campus ministers felt very proud of their ability to accompany people but a lot of us were holding things deep deep down. Deep down. There was also a bizarre idea that organically emerged that chastity could be imposed through Exodus 90.
I think we need to reflect on the way Americans treat one another right now. The way we perform. The way we are suddenly not concerned about emails when it’s Hillary, but very concerned when it’s messages on Signal. Our values have become performative.
I think virtue has tragically reduced to some sort of legal definition (with a theological appearance) and a discipline that could be weighed, rather than a way of life fostering encounters. We should lovingly and respectfully pray for people trapped in their own secrets, especially doing so in the name of defending truth. And we should help them understand the beauty of dining with others and allowing the messiness of real life to transform us into better Christians. The same way the Pagan helped Peter become a better Christian after he finished protesting the angel’s instructions to go dine with him.
I have been wondering about what a more healthy approach would look like in my life. I see people try to correct the problems you mention and go in the opposite way - toward a prideful display of their weakness and failings. I think it can be a preemptive defense mechanism. How can someone criticize or correct me if I have already acknowledged my failings to them? Too often it ends there, as we identify with our weakness and resist any call to repentance and improvement.
I have pondered what living in the freedom of children of God would look like in the middle of the two extremes.
I am extremely eager for a non political, more theologically grounded version of natural law to make a comeback in America. I’ve learned from other countries that not all Catholic cultures suffer from our extremism. Our issues happen in countries where there is a lot of Protestant-Catholic and other religious competition. It’s hard to keep the family together when there are so many choices unless you constantly lay down the hammer. In that sense, Bishop Strickland is wonderful because I can sense he wants unity.
But in natural law, one is called to live exactly precisely as God made them. And so the trick is a very difficult and often painful search for a Catholic authenticity. Discerning where in our lives we are rebelling or choosing to be different, vs. being how God made us. There are a lot of examples of how psychology has helped the Church stretch its formation by elevating teachings on human dignity. Are we called to simply not abort babies or are we called to do something really hard, like make it possible for Christian communities to support moms without all of the judgement and guilt we often impart.
Of course, this will bring about the knee-jerk reactions of "oooh smells schism-y!" but what if... just what if... +Strickland is right? He's saying the same things that we all kvetch about and lament over, in both the comment sections and around the table of like-minded company.
+Strickland is right. Entirely right. He is 100% justified in his statements, and I cannot cast a stone, because people like you and me and the majority of us Pillar-readers already agree with him, and have said the same things right here every time we saw a headline about the Synod, or about +McElroy, or about Traditionis Custodes, or about McCarrick, or about Amoris Laetitia, or about the personnel being promoted in various Curial departments, or about every other thing that has rightly elicited our passions to righteous indignation.
So before I hear any sighs and faints over things like "schism" let me present this to you: we can either recognize the true things in what he says, or we can push him away. And if anyone needs a reminder of the last time we all repeatedly pushed a cleric away for strong statements and clarion calls in defense of sound doctrine and adherence to the continuity of Christ's Church? How about Father James Altmann? Carlo Maria Vigano? Ring a bell?
Strickland's patient endurance and continual primacy of love/charity/fidelity for and towards the Pope and enduring desire to remain in communion is heroic, utterly heroic, and if you or I were in his circumstances and what he's been put through, it would have already broken us into sedes. Everybody wants a bishop that stands up and speaks boldly... until a bishop stands up and speaks boldly. Oh but then, we all whisper and murmur about schism and canonical censures.
I think a problem in this situation, and others like it, is that the bold speakers tend toward hyperbole in a way that is unhelpful to their own goals.
Strickland says things like the pope “refuse[s] to reject the siren call of sodomy.” Or “Pope Francis no longer teaches the Catholic faith,” or "the diabolically inspired new structure of ‘synodality,’ which in actuality, is a new Church that is in no way Catholic.” Many of us would partially agree, but disagree with how far Strickland goes. For example, there are lots of things to be concerned with over synodality, but to say that it is in "no way Catholic" is false. It has some things that are Catholic. A lie has to have some element of truth to it in order for it to be believed.
I can't go along with much of what he says because he seems to be exaggerating to make his point. His exaggerations lead to errors and are ultimately unhelpful, in my opinion. His boldness tends to over-correcting from the first errors and falling into opposite errors. I want to avoid all errors.
I see your point, and it is indeed a common refrain of objection. But I just don't buy it, that claim doesn't make sense when held up to any scrutiny. If using hyperbole for rhetorical effect is wrong or bad, then I just don't know what to make of all of human history (which is permeated with maxims and aphorisms of wisdom passed down through the ages), let alone the words of the Holy Church Fathers, the Apostles in Scripture, and the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, just because a Church Father did something does not give every tom-dick-and-harry the free reign to do likewise (otherwise every American Catholic would be throwing fists with atheists and tearing down Mormon temples and living in trees).
If anyone has a claim to use the same hyperbole as the Church Fathers and the Apostles and Our Lord, it is +Strickland, who is a brother bishop to the Church Fathers, a successor to the Apostles, and possesses the fullness of the priesthood of Jesus Christ... and has consistently demonstrated near-impeccable moral conduct and fidelity to Jesus' Church and its teachings.
And really... so what? Is the hyperbole really that detrimental? Or is the greatest of the Theological Virtues in our modern age now simply "don't say something that could bother someone"
What can he possibly say otherwise? The evils and offenses of both the secular World and maleficent persons within the Church are so egregious that it seems to warrant a proportionate rhetorical response. There's plenty of people out there who are accommodating and hand-holding, which has its place. But if the only people we can support are the ones who dare not say anything spicier than restrained timidity... idk.
This point of criticism just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny IMO.
The Catholic Faith is the fullness of truth, without any lie in it. That's the point of it. Every heresy is the Catholic Faith with something omitted, something added, or something altered - and it therefore is not the Catholic Faith at all.
You might as well say we can satisfy our Sunday obligation by going to an Anglican service because it has some things that are Catholic and therefore it kinda is Catholic.
I think it indeed defends the teaching, but the approach sounds political or maybe legal, but not theological. Consider that the Christ who died and resurrected is an eternal being. Jesus is the physical incarnation of that truth, way, and life in the sense that all things come from God. He was not simply a blood thirsty sacrifice for an angry angry father. I am so sad when someone tells me that Jesus died for my sins but they somehow separate that as a different event from the resurrection. It is the resurrection that makes me curious, how did Jesus live his life and how does he want us to live? A couple of things: 1) Jesus spent much of his ministry bucking religious leaders who insisted that God belongs to a small family. 2) He spent much of his ministry with people who had separated themselves from the way due to sin (enticing their own interests of money or pleasure). He earned himself a horribly scandalous reputation. Eventually, he was sacrificed. Dead. Really really dead for 3 days. The religious leaders celebrated that through his death they had reinforced the impervious boundaries of religion. Typically, for all the people that were like Jesus in that they bucked religious tradition and were put down as rebels, that was the end of the story. But in Jesus resurrection, he had the last say and dissolved all the man made efforts to put up walls around the synogague. And for the sinners, he continually offers himself as the bread that feeds and transforms. For the sinners, he called them back. There are both stories of Jesus telling someone to sin no more, and stories where presumably that happened but the Gospel did not record it in order to emphasize something else (John 4 woman at the well). But for the religious leaders he refused to let them call themselves victims or be political leaders. He demanded a spirit of encounter and mission.
To attempt giving Dan's comment the steel man treatment [insert "Steely Dan" pun here], I suspect he is trying to contemplate simultaneously (atonement theology a.k.a. Jesus' death) and (the Resurrection a.k.a. Jesus' life). Dan seems to be distinguishing Jesus' treatment of lay sinners and religious leader (presumed) sinners, in that the former are healed and told to sin no more, and the latter are called to transform their approaches to said lay sinners. I'm... not following exactly how the second sentence is related to the first sentence, except perhaps as analogy, possibly to holding justice and mercy in tension. But charity demands that I at least try to engage with the argument.
Completely agreed. I don't necessarily agree that he has the best strategy for communicating his points, but as far as the substance of his argument goes, he is completely correct. I find it a bit perplexing that he gets a lot of flack here in the comment section; maybe not the fact that he is getting criticized, but the type of criticism he is getting. I don't think he's shown any "schismatic" tendencies thus far. His criticism of Pope Francis is harsh, but not inaccurate. That doesn't make him "schismatic". That's the argument that Pope Francis' sycophants use, that any criticism of the Pope = schism.
I get that people are wary of Strickland because of the path that Vigano went down, but I would hold off on the "schism" accusations unless he actually starts questioning Pope Francis' legitimacy as Pope.
Bingo. I think it’s clear that I’m preempting the backlash and responding ahead of it.
Altman and Vigano weren’t flipped on a dime, “rah rah hooray church” on a Monday and then “Bergoglio is an antipope” on the following Tuesday. Their sad apostasy is in a large sense caused by their continual rejection from the very church they love so dearly. Compounding time and again, it leads to desperation, from which we receive the outcomes of such figures as Lefevre, Vigano, and Altman. That’s something that *we* have to reckon with and be careful of: driving someone away into desperation by constant rejection when trying to do the right thing. +Francis will have to answer for the soul of his son Vigano at the pearly gates.
I don’t want us to be part of a similar possible re: +Strickland
Matt, I think it’s highly amusing how your comments on here have only gotten MORE intense since Abp told you he sees them sometimes (or at least that’s how it appears to me)
I'm with you (I certainly can't cast any stones either, though I've tried to repent of my invective against Pope Francis), except that there's no good reason for Bishop Strickland or any of these priests to be attending this event at Mar a Lago, using a show of fealty to Trump as the stage for their criticism of the Pope. It discredits them, and by extension all the rest of us who have voiced similar concerns here and in the company of our like minded friends.
Not just at Mar-a-Lago but paying Trump for use of the place and Strickland sharing a stage with Roger Stone (no mention if Mrs. Stone and some Black guy was with them). This episode probably moves beyond discrediting to the category of a clown show.
> Everybody wants a bishop that stands up and speaks boldly
Actually I want a bishop who is palpably holy i.e. you can feel that he is holy when he walks into a room.
I have not been in a room with +Strickland so who knows (there are very few bishops I have been in a room with, and because I am a shy (which is to say: self-obsessed: absolutely tormented by vanity) person, I would be unlikely to reliably assess an authority figure's degree of personal holiness, instead being focused on whether anyone is *looking at me*).
We have a Pope who is not well-known for precise and clear statements of doctrine, and who is known for employing unflattering metaphors, insults and hyperbole, and hyperbolic insults. For some people, that's just how they roll.
Which might explain why the Inquisition often took years to convict people of heresy or schism, in spite of the ability of some more efficient modern people to get there in under an hour based on partial quotations on the internet.
Sigh. I really liked Strickland circa 2012. Watching him unravel--when just a little more sobriety would make just criticisms worth defending--is grievous to me. Sad and frustrating.
The devotion to Trump among some conservative clergy is every bit as objectionable as liberal Catholics' apologies for pro-abortion politicians. Holding this gathering at Mar a Lago is equivalent to Notre Dame inviting Obama as their commencement speaker.
I have followed closely the story of bishop Strickland from the UK but still can’t quite understand exactly what he is so upset about. Our Holy Father Francis can he confusing at times & it’s not always clear what his views are or where he is heading but, to my knowledge, he has not changed Catholic teaching at all.
Dan pointed out that Jesus got Himself a reputation for consorting with sinners & the dregs of society & my sense of where Francis wants to take the church is into the places where these people dwell too. In his opinion we have behaved like the Pharisees, rejecting people in irregular relationships, divorced, remarried people & people in same sex relationships for instance, keeping ourselves separate from them & making it uncomfortable for them to attend church services & gatherings. This is not what Jesus did. He always rejected the sin but never the sinner. To the sinner He showed nothing but compassion & mercy & my sense of Francis’ teaching us that he wants the church to do this. We should be in the streets, getting our hands dirty, listening to the stories of those on the outskirts of society, walking with them & helping them make their way back to God.
Bishop Strickland seems to think that our Pope is advocating a change of teaching in so far as the church should now accept irregular relationships & homosexuality as no longer sinful but this isn’t my understanding at all. I believe he is asking us to show more compassion & support in the same way the father of the prodigal son received his child with love & celebration for he “was dead, & is alive, he was lost, & is found”.
Humanity’s struggles with sin are so well understood by our Father in Heaven. Do we really believe that God, having created us as wilful & selfish beings, each of us with some Achilles heel or other, rejects any soul who longs for Him? No! So many poor souls who have drifted away from the straight & narrow path, long to return but don’t know how. They feel judged & rejected by the church & lose hope that they are still beloved children of a King.
As a church, we need to demonstrate to all who want to belong again that God’s mercy is endless. That can be done whilst at the same time acknowledging that for the time being their way of life isn’t in alignment with God’s will for them & needs to change, hence Our Lords words “Go & sin no more”.
As for synodality, this is very Catholic. It is a deep listening to the heart of the other, allowing ourselves to understand in a profound way, where the other person is coming from. It is taking our shoes off in the presence of the heart & soul of another, because we are on holy ground. It is seeing Christ in each one of our brothers & sisters, it is selflessness rather than judgement. We spend too much time talking & voicing our own opinions, believing we are correct & whilst we must courageously speak out at times we must also listen to the Holy Spirit & to the views of others. Humility demands we open our hearts & minds & always be willing to experience something differently, to see it from another vantage point & to allow the Holy Spirit to deepen our understanding & compassion. Look at how Sts Peter & Paul disagreed & resolved their differences - that’s synodality.
Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, he pays good money to use the home of a polygamous, adulterous, porn star dating man as the place to denounce sodomy? I mean, he is just setting himself up for well-deserved ridicule.
Yes, many issues with this. I don’t like to see our bishops & priests getting cozy with any politicians, on either side of the aisle. Mar-a-Lago, even setting aside who it belongs to, is a wildly expensive luxury resort and holding an event for trad priests there seems pretty out of step. This whole thing just looks bad.
However, I would have never thought of Strickland as a Vichyist. Well, maybe. You know, now that you hint at it.......could he be Marshall Petain's love child? There does seem to be a physical resemblance.
one could say that a "refusal to reject the siren call of sodomy" means to embrace or accept the practice. its a double negative, so the sentence means the opposite of what he means lol
i wonder if ppl will jump on this as being unclear, or if that is only reserved for the pope
There is a saying- folks won’t remember what you say but how you say it! I believe Pope Francis was elected Pope under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Can we offer some grace in that he may be doing the best he can. I pray God will look on me kindly for trying to do the same.I can’t and don’t want to debate with those who seem to have higher expectations.
Bp. Strickland makes many valid points and I wish that Pope Francis was less ambiguous about Church teaching, but I am conflicted by His Eminence's further drift into the denial of His Holiness' legitimacy. I pray that he doesn't join the ranks of Abp. Viganó and Fr. James Altman (both of whom I pray for their return to communion).
Referring to sodomy as a siren call is either 1) a veiled accusation of Pope Francis' sexuality, or 2) whoever wrote that statement accidentally outing themselves.
Yeah I mean it's only a siren if you're attracted to it...?
I could also just see it as another example of Strickland’s lack of intellectual depth and precision. He often talks about the Deposit of Faith but I sense he would be surprised if I told him that it includes Scripture and the official teaching of Ecumenical Councils (including Vatican II). He and Altman are very clumsy in extrapolating the crisis in the Church.
I think many who have legitimate concerns and critiques wish they would sit down and let individuals more qualified and nuanced at a mic or letter.
+Strickland would be surprised to know that the Deposit of Faith includes Scripture and an ecumenical council? What a silly thing to say. A totally unserious position. Talk about clumsy extrapolation.
Haha…I was being facetious.
Brothers...this pope promulgated Fiducia Supplicans. He has received Father James Martin personally several times and written him personal letters of endorsement. He has appointed Hollerich and countless others who disent openly to the Church's teachings on sexuality to prominent posts. Guys...stop debating phrases such as, "Siren song". Wake up and smell the rainbow flag.
I think one problem is that there is a very legalistic version of theology being taught in American seminaries and as a hyper political country it’s easy to turn into a congregation that picks sides. The Church has been raising alarm about the USA concern for quite some time. Bishop Strickland wants unity and to defend Church teachings. I can sense that and applaud him for it. In a country with so much religious competition between faiths, it’s really hard to keep the family together unless you constantly lay down the hammer. Bishop Strickland is trying to do the right thing. BUT here is the theological approach that most moral theologians outside of the USA agree on (seriously, it’s almost at consensus if you ignore American theologians), and it not only accompanies people in situations that are not fully Catholic (please note, I’m acknowledging that the situation you reference cannot be fully Catholic), it refuses to reject what the Church has and always will continue to teach. Theology on this explained here https://www.avvenire.it/chiesa/pagine/omosessuali-libro-fumagalli-prefazione-semeraro
Thank you Dan. I can't read your link because it's in Italian and my Google translate function isn't working. Despite that, I'm not terribly interested in the theological gyrations of, "the rest of the world" if they are aiming towards heterodoxy and modernism and relativism. Most of the world succumbed to the Arian heresy at one point. Half of Europe left the faith in 2 centuries after Martin Luther and Calvin rebelled. Men shooting their sperm onto other men's feces is just never going to be a thing God likes. The debate was over before Noah built the ark.
No certainly nothing can be thrown out. The problem is we learn the rules here but not the theology behind them. There is a danger of practical relativism on the two extremes of Catholicism: the kind that only takes into account the theology and knowledge within their country & the kind that is willing to throw things out. Martin Luther suffered from both.
The above 2 possibilities is not even close to exhaustive. I can think of several others. It appears that your charity towards Bishop Strickland is quite limited.
There is a third option. It is a siren call because there is enormous political pressure to accept it, especially from Western governments and bishops.
With the Vigano excommunication, it seems that the Vatican's line is questioning Pope Francis' legitimacy as Pope, at least for now. I hope that Bishop Strickland doesn't go down that path. I generally agree with what he says even if I strongly question the effectiveness of his methods. At the same time, there probably is no earthly method that could change the Vatican's trajectory until there is a new Pope, so I guess it probably doesn't matter what Strickland says or does.
It always matters how one acts.
Smells schismy
I recognize this tone.
Growing up, if you ask me one thing I learned in the Catholic Church, it is living secrecy. The importance of keeping secrets. My sins will hurt my ability to proclaim the truth! Having truth doesn’t mean being open about everything. My desires must live safely hidden behind walls and in public denounced.
The tone of creating a fraternity of prayer and truth is oddly familiar too. In college ministry, the campus ministers felt very proud of their ability to accompany people but a lot of us were holding things deep deep down. Deep down. There was also a bizarre idea that organically emerged that chastity could be imposed through Exodus 90.
I think we need to reflect on the way Americans treat one another right now. The way we perform. The way we are suddenly not concerned about emails when it’s Hillary, but very concerned when it’s messages on Signal. Our values have become performative.
I think virtue has tragically reduced to some sort of legal definition (with a theological appearance) and a discipline that could be weighed, rather than a way of life fostering encounters. We should lovingly and respectfully pray for people trapped in their own secrets, especially doing so in the name of defending truth. And we should help them understand the beauty of dining with others and allowing the messiness of real life to transform us into better Christians. The same way the Pagan helped Peter become a better Christian after he finished protesting the angel’s instructions to go dine with him.
I have been wondering about what a more healthy approach would look like in my life. I see people try to correct the problems you mention and go in the opposite way - toward a prideful display of their weakness and failings. I think it can be a preemptive defense mechanism. How can someone criticize or correct me if I have already acknowledged my failings to them? Too often it ends there, as we identify with our weakness and resist any call to repentance and improvement.
I have pondered what living in the freedom of children of God would look like in the middle of the two extremes.
I am extremely eager for a non political, more theologically grounded version of natural law to make a comeback in America. I’ve learned from other countries that not all Catholic cultures suffer from our extremism. Our issues happen in countries where there is a lot of Protestant-Catholic and other religious competition. It’s hard to keep the family together when there are so many choices unless you constantly lay down the hammer. In that sense, Bishop Strickland is wonderful because I can sense he wants unity.
But in natural law, one is called to live exactly precisely as God made them. And so the trick is a very difficult and often painful search for a Catholic authenticity. Discerning where in our lives we are rebelling or choosing to be different, vs. being how God made us. There are a lot of examples of how psychology has helped the Church stretch its formation by elevating teachings on human dignity. Are we called to simply not abort babies or are we called to do something really hard, like make it possible for Christian communities to support moms without all of the judgement and guilt we often impart.
Of course, this will bring about the knee-jerk reactions of "oooh smells schism-y!" but what if... just what if... +Strickland is right? He's saying the same things that we all kvetch about and lament over, in both the comment sections and around the table of like-minded company.
+Strickland is right. Entirely right. He is 100% justified in his statements, and I cannot cast a stone, because people like you and me and the majority of us Pillar-readers already agree with him, and have said the same things right here every time we saw a headline about the Synod, or about +McElroy, or about Traditionis Custodes, or about McCarrick, or about Amoris Laetitia, or about the personnel being promoted in various Curial departments, or about every other thing that has rightly elicited our passions to righteous indignation.
So before I hear any sighs and faints over things like "schism" let me present this to you: we can either recognize the true things in what he says, or we can push him away. And if anyone needs a reminder of the last time we all repeatedly pushed a cleric away for strong statements and clarion calls in defense of sound doctrine and adherence to the continuity of Christ's Church? How about Father James Altmann? Carlo Maria Vigano? Ring a bell?
Strickland's patient endurance and continual primacy of love/charity/fidelity for and towards the Pope and enduring desire to remain in communion is heroic, utterly heroic, and if you or I were in his circumstances and what he's been put through, it would have already broken us into sedes. Everybody wants a bishop that stands up and speaks boldly... until a bishop stands up and speaks boldly. Oh but then, we all whisper and murmur about schism and canonical censures.
I think a problem in this situation, and others like it, is that the bold speakers tend toward hyperbole in a way that is unhelpful to their own goals.
Strickland says things like the pope “refuse[s] to reject the siren call of sodomy.” Or “Pope Francis no longer teaches the Catholic faith,” or "the diabolically inspired new structure of ‘synodality,’ which in actuality, is a new Church that is in no way Catholic.” Many of us would partially agree, but disagree with how far Strickland goes. For example, there are lots of things to be concerned with over synodality, but to say that it is in "no way Catholic" is false. It has some things that are Catholic. A lie has to have some element of truth to it in order for it to be believed.
I can't go along with much of what he says because he seems to be exaggerating to make his point. His exaggerations lead to errors and are ultimately unhelpful, in my opinion. His boldness tends to over-correcting from the first errors and falling into opposite errors. I want to avoid all errors.
I see your point, and it is indeed a common refrain of objection. But I just don't buy it, that claim doesn't make sense when held up to any scrutiny. If using hyperbole for rhetorical effect is wrong or bad, then I just don't know what to make of all of human history (which is permeated with maxims and aphorisms of wisdom passed down through the ages), let alone the words of the Holy Church Fathers, the Apostles in Scripture, and the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, just because a Church Father did something does not give every tom-dick-and-harry the free reign to do likewise (otherwise every American Catholic would be throwing fists with atheists and tearing down Mormon temples and living in trees).
If anyone has a claim to use the same hyperbole as the Church Fathers and the Apostles and Our Lord, it is +Strickland, who is a brother bishop to the Church Fathers, a successor to the Apostles, and possesses the fullness of the priesthood of Jesus Christ... and has consistently demonstrated near-impeccable moral conduct and fidelity to Jesus' Church and its teachings.
And really... so what? Is the hyperbole really that detrimental? Or is the greatest of the Theological Virtues in our modern age now simply "don't say something that could bother someone"
What can he possibly say otherwise? The evils and offenses of both the secular World and maleficent persons within the Church are so egregious that it seems to warrant a proportionate rhetorical response. There's plenty of people out there who are accommodating and hand-holding, which has its place. But if the only people we can support are the ones who dare not say anything spicier than restrained timidity... idk.
This point of criticism just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny IMO.
Which Church Father lived in a tree? And does his feast day fall on the same day the Company reached Lothlorien?
The early monks who lived in trees were called “dendrites” much as the ones who lived on top of pillars were called “stylites”
As for feast days, you’d have to ask the Ents about their liturgical calendar!
The Catholic Faith is the fullness of truth, without any lie in it. That's the point of it. Every heresy is the Catholic Faith with something omitted, something added, or something altered - and it therefore is not the Catholic Faith at all.
You might as well say we can satisfy our Sunday obligation by going to an Anglican service because it has some things that are Catholic and therefore it kinda is Catholic.
I think it indeed defends the teaching, but the approach sounds political or maybe legal, but not theological. Consider that the Christ who died and resurrected is an eternal being. Jesus is the physical incarnation of that truth, way, and life in the sense that all things come from God. He was not simply a blood thirsty sacrifice for an angry angry father. I am so sad when someone tells me that Jesus died for my sins but they somehow separate that as a different event from the resurrection. It is the resurrection that makes me curious, how did Jesus live his life and how does he want us to live? A couple of things: 1) Jesus spent much of his ministry bucking religious leaders who insisted that God belongs to a small family. 2) He spent much of his ministry with people who had separated themselves from the way due to sin (enticing their own interests of money or pleasure). He earned himself a horribly scandalous reputation. Eventually, he was sacrificed. Dead. Really really dead for 3 days. The religious leaders celebrated that through his death they had reinforced the impervious boundaries of religion. Typically, for all the people that were like Jesus in that they bucked religious tradition and were put down as rebels, that was the end of the story. But in Jesus resurrection, he had the last say and dissolved all the man made efforts to put up walls around the synogague. And for the sinners, he continually offers himself as the bread that feeds and transforms. For the sinners, he called them back. There are both stories of Jesus telling someone to sin no more, and stories where presumably that happened but the Gospel did not record it in order to emphasize something else (John 4 woman at the well). But for the religious leaders he refused to let them call themselves victims or be political leaders. He demanded a spirit of encounter and mission.
Wh- what are even you talking about?
I think he’s trying to convince you he is clever and we are stupid because we Americans, apparently, don’t do theology.
To attempt giving Dan's comment the steel man treatment [insert "Steely Dan" pun here], I suspect he is trying to contemplate simultaneously (atonement theology a.k.a. Jesus' death) and (the Resurrection a.k.a. Jesus' life). Dan seems to be distinguishing Jesus' treatment of lay sinners and religious leader (presumed) sinners, in that the former are healed and told to sin no more, and the latter are called to transform their approaches to said lay sinners. I'm... not following exactly how the second sentence is related to the first sentence, except perhaps as analogy, possibly to holding justice and mercy in tension. But charity demands that I at least try to engage with the argument.
Completely agreed. I don't necessarily agree that he has the best strategy for communicating his points, but as far as the substance of his argument goes, he is completely correct. I find it a bit perplexing that he gets a lot of flack here in the comment section; maybe not the fact that he is getting criticized, but the type of criticism he is getting. I don't think he's shown any "schismatic" tendencies thus far. His criticism of Pope Francis is harsh, but not inaccurate. That doesn't make him "schismatic". That's the argument that Pope Francis' sycophants use, that any criticism of the Pope = schism.
I get that people are wary of Strickland because of the path that Vigano went down, but I would hold off on the "schism" accusations unless he actually starts questioning Pope Francis' legitimacy as Pope.
Bingo. I think it’s clear that I’m preempting the backlash and responding ahead of it.
Altman and Vigano weren’t flipped on a dime, “rah rah hooray church” on a Monday and then “Bergoglio is an antipope” on the following Tuesday. Their sad apostasy is in a large sense caused by their continual rejection from the very church they love so dearly. Compounding time and again, it leads to desperation, from which we receive the outcomes of such figures as Lefevre, Vigano, and Altman. That’s something that *we* have to reckon with and be careful of: driving someone away into desperation by constant rejection when trying to do the right thing. +Francis will have to answer for the soul of his son Vigano at the pearly gates.
I don’t want us to be part of a similar possible re: +Strickland
Matt, I think it’s highly amusing how your comments on here have only gotten MORE intense since Abp told you he sees them sometimes (or at least that’s how it appears to me)
Majority of Pillar readers agree with him eh? Bold statement. Such statements don't help JD and Ed's job whatever else they might say.
I'm with you (I certainly can't cast any stones either, though I've tried to repent of my invective against Pope Francis), except that there's no good reason for Bishop Strickland or any of these priests to be attending this event at Mar a Lago, using a show of fealty to Trump as the stage for their criticism of the Pope. It discredits them, and by extension all the rest of us who have voiced similar concerns here and in the company of our like minded friends.
That’s definitely a valid point! I’m not sure what I think about that aspect, but I understand that concern for sure.
Not just at Mar-a-Lago but paying Trump for use of the place and Strickland sharing a stage with Roger Stone (no mention if Mrs. Stone and some Black guy was with them). This episode probably moves beyond discrediting to the category of a clown show.
I didn't know Trump was charging them to have the event at Mar a Lago, though, like, of course he was
> Everybody wants a bishop that stands up and speaks boldly
Actually I want a bishop who is palpably holy i.e. you can feel that he is holy when he walks into a room.
I have not been in a room with +Strickland so who knows (there are very few bishops I have been in a room with, and because I am a shy (which is to say: self-obsessed: absolutely tormented by vanity) person, I would be unlikely to reliably assess an authority figure's degree of personal holiness, instead being focused on whether anyone is *looking at me*).
We have a Pope who is not well-known for precise and clear statements of doctrine, and who is known for employing unflattering metaphors, insults and hyperbole, and hyperbolic insults. For some people, that's just how they roll.
Which might explain why the Inquisition often took years to convict people of heresy or schism, in spite of the ability of some more efficient modern people to get there in under an hour based on partial quotations on the internet.
"more efficient modern people"
I cackled aloud at this one. Thank you for that.
Sigh. I really liked Strickland circa 2012. Watching him unravel--when just a little more sobriety would make just criticisms worth defending--is grievous to me. Sad and frustrating.
Not sure this was worth reporting on.
The problem(s) are closer to home, as well. McElroy, Cupich.
I'm from Chicago, you had to remind me? lol
The devotion to Trump among some conservative clergy is every bit as objectionable as liberal Catholics' apologies for pro-abortion politicians. Holding this gathering at Mar a Lago is equivalent to Notre Dame inviting Obama as their commencement speaker.
💯!!
I have followed closely the story of bishop Strickland from the UK but still can’t quite understand exactly what he is so upset about. Our Holy Father Francis can he confusing at times & it’s not always clear what his views are or where he is heading but, to my knowledge, he has not changed Catholic teaching at all.
Dan pointed out that Jesus got Himself a reputation for consorting with sinners & the dregs of society & my sense of where Francis wants to take the church is into the places where these people dwell too. In his opinion we have behaved like the Pharisees, rejecting people in irregular relationships, divorced, remarried people & people in same sex relationships for instance, keeping ourselves separate from them & making it uncomfortable for them to attend church services & gatherings. This is not what Jesus did. He always rejected the sin but never the sinner. To the sinner He showed nothing but compassion & mercy & my sense of Francis’ teaching us that he wants the church to do this. We should be in the streets, getting our hands dirty, listening to the stories of those on the outskirts of society, walking with them & helping them make their way back to God.
Bishop Strickland seems to think that our Pope is advocating a change of teaching in so far as the church should now accept irregular relationships & homosexuality as no longer sinful but this isn’t my understanding at all. I believe he is asking us to show more compassion & support in the same way the father of the prodigal son received his child with love & celebration for he “was dead, & is alive, he was lost, & is found”.
Humanity’s struggles with sin are so well understood by our Father in Heaven. Do we really believe that God, having created us as wilful & selfish beings, each of us with some Achilles heel or other, rejects any soul who longs for Him? No! So many poor souls who have drifted away from the straight & narrow path, long to return but don’t know how. They feel judged & rejected by the church & lose hope that they are still beloved children of a King.
As a church, we need to demonstrate to all who want to belong again that God’s mercy is endless. That can be done whilst at the same time acknowledging that for the time being their way of life isn’t in alignment with God’s will for them & needs to change, hence Our Lords words “Go & sin no more”.
As for synodality, this is very Catholic. It is a deep listening to the heart of the other, allowing ourselves to understand in a profound way, where the other person is coming from. It is taking our shoes off in the presence of the heart & soul of another, because we are on holy ground. It is seeing Christ in each one of our brothers & sisters, it is selflessness rather than judgement. We spend too much time talking & voicing our own opinions, believing we are correct & whilst we must courageously speak out at times we must also listen to the Holy Spirit & to the views of others. Humility demands we open our hearts & minds & always be willing to experience something differently, to see it from another vantage point & to allow the Holy Spirit to deepen our understanding & compassion. Look at how Sts Peter & Paul disagreed & resolved their differences - that’s synodality.
Nix to Nix!
Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, he pays good money to use the home of a polygamous, adulterous, porn star dating man as the place to denounce sodomy? I mean, he is just setting himself up for well-deserved ridicule.
Yes, many issues with this. I don’t like to see our bishops & priests getting cozy with any politicians, on either side of the aisle. Mar-a-Lago, even setting aside who it belongs to, is a wildly expensive luxury resort and holding an event for trad priests there seems pretty out of step. This whole thing just looks bad.
And today Trump is literally a tax collector! A bishop visiting the home of a tax collector. How scandalous!
Kurt, that is your second lop-sided political comment. Whether intended or not, it's thinly veiled.
To continue the Casablanca reference , he would say he is “shocked to find these vices in DJT’s cafe .” 😃
However, I would have never thought of Strickland as a Vichyist. Well, maybe. You know, now that you hint at it.......could he be Marshall Petain's love child? There does seem to be a physical resemblance.
one could say that a "refusal to reject the siren call of sodomy" means to embrace or accept the practice. its a double negative, so the sentence means the opposite of what he means lol
i wonder if ppl will jump on this as being unclear, or if that is only reserved for the pope
There is a saying- folks won’t remember what you say but how you say it! I believe Pope Francis was elected Pope under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Can we offer some grace in that he may be doing the best he can. I pray God will look on me kindly for trying to do the same.I can’t and don’t want to debate with those who seem to have higher expectations.
Bp. Strickland makes many valid points and I wish that Pope Francis was less ambiguous about Church teaching, but I am conflicted by His Eminence's further drift into the denial of His Holiness' legitimacy. I pray that he doesn't join the ranks of Abp. Viganó and Fr. James Altman (both of whom I pray for their return to communion).