BISHOP CHARLES DRENNAN CHANGES THE SUBJECT

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"Even Satan reacts to the stench of sodomy, leaving the scene in disgust once satisfied that the foul deed is accomplished. How much more satisfying, to entice priests to perpetrate the unspeakable act on innocent souls."

Since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has cosied up to the world to such effect, she's lost that sense of revulsion at the act of sodomy so eloquently expressed in this exchange between Jesus Christ and St Catherine of Siena.

Kowtowing to the values of the world, many priests now use the world's word for sodomites: 'gays'. But mostly priests avoid any mention of homosexual practice - and any or all aspects of sexuality as framed so well in terms of Catholic doctrine by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae.

For instance, in the October Welcom Palmerston North's Bishop Charles Drennan reports on the recent 'professional development week' for NZ priests. ('Professional'? The priesthood is now a profession? I thought it was a vocation.) At that happening in Christchurch they changed the subject from the malaise which threatens the very life of the Catholic Church - rampant sodomy and predator priests - to 'clericalism'. 

Bishop Charles says he loathes clericalism. It makes him 'shudder'. Ah, how do you feel about sodomy, +Charles? 

As for instance, practised by Monsignor Luigi Capozzi, a drug dealer busted by the Vatican police in an orgy at a Vatican apartment with a senior official at the Pontifical Council of Legislative Texts, a protégé of Cardinal Coccopalmerio who is one of the Pope's inner circle? Practised apparently with impunity, as Capozzi was not handed to the Italian authorities for prosecution?

Or by Monsignor Battista Ricca, a notorious sodomite who enjoys the Pope's personal protection and curial promotion? It was Ricca who occasioned the Pope's most famous remark, "Who am I to judge?" That typical, ingenious, Jesuitical avoidance of the subject - Ricca's international record as a sodomite and his promotion by Pope Francis - turned a potential for serious damage to the pontifical image into a huge coup in the eyes of the media and the world.

So, +Charles and the rest of NZ's bishops have hastened to pick up their skirts and join the international episcopal chorus line, blaming clericalism instead of homosexuality in the clergy for the crisis in the Church. And why?

For one thing, because the world and its media love 'gays', and the Church under Pope Francis wants more than anything  else to be popular. (And to climb the hierarchical ladder in the Church under Pope Francis, a bishop needs to be popular. To be on the winning side.) 

But more sinister is the other thing: going after clericalism allows bishops to go after traditional, orthodox priests - and encourages lay people who like Pope Francis want to 'meet people where they're at' to complain about those priests as they have in this diocese, in Tararua, Hastings, Palmerston North and Marton. 

Traditional, orthodox priests preach the Gospel and Church doctrine, instead of squirming in mock humility, trying to be just an ordinary guy, putting the Church down (especially those pre-Vatican II antics like wearing hats and mantillas) and fancying themselves, in their Sunday homilies, as Agony Uncles instead of priests. Priests loyal to Tradition 'read the black, do the red' and may even wear a cassock or beretta - until they're told not to, like at least one priest in the Palmerston North Diocese. 

Or until they decide they've had enough, like Fr Bryan Buenger of Tararua Parish, and go back home to the US. 

In  Welcom +Charles veers off-track from the chase of clericalism only to pursue 'a radical change in governance', which in its plea for 'diversity at the Bishops' table' is not 'inching towards shared insight' so much as inching towards what German theologian Dr Markus Buning describes as "a new Church from Francis". 

This 'new Church', says Dr Buning, is "the Church of arbitrariness, in which anything goes and one can finally, finally please the world; yes, where one may finally expect the praise of nearly everybody." Features of this "new Church", he warns, will be "intercommunion, Communion for 'remarried' divorcees, blessing of same-sex partnerships, Masses without clear rubrics, everything ad libitum (the way you like it).

According to Dr Buning, in planning this revamped Church, the Pope's "episcopal vassals" must themselves stand accused of clericalism, of "a form of bourgeois episcopalism which aims at only one thing: to please the world". 

This episcopalism, he says, "blames everything on the lower clergy who are supposedly infected by this self-aggrandizing clericalism. Those priests are being defamed who have wished only one thing: to be loyal priests!" 

And hooray I say, for Dr Buning, who wants to know how bishops used their power over recent decades while kneelers and statues and sanctuary rails were being thrown out, while homilies were turning heretical, when communicants were encouraged to receive the Lord of lords with grubby fingers and sacrilegious hearts? 

He speaks of "office drawers of German ordinariates filled with letters of complaint concerning these matters and most probably the letters have already been shredded". 

"As long as these bishops do not exercise their ecclesiastical office as it is given to them by God and as it is exercised according to the Church's tradition, they are facing the accusation of conformist clericalism which is not willing to fight the abuses in this Church."

Pity the poor layman/woman, even those of the Protestant variety: 

• A devout Catholic, a guy who'd never speak and probably never even thinks ill of anyone - said to me yesterday, "I don't know what to think about Pope Francis". I just looked at him (meaningfully, I hope).  
• Then there's the woman who says she has to suppress an urge to run screaming from the church during her PP's Sunday sermons. 
• And a church-going, bible-reading Protestant who says, "I don't think Pope Francis believes in God".

 'Anon' says: Julia, your piece is tough but necessary.  I missed this Dr Buning, he makes some good points.  He has seen right through clericalism and the big game.

I was fascinated by your description of priests becoming 'agony uncles', defined as a man who answers letters in an agony column.  Dr Buning speaks of 'office drawers ....filled with letters of complaint'.  From what I hear there are two classes of letters.  If a parishioner complains a priest is too orthodox (too Catholic), the priest likely gets a reprimand.  If the complaint is about a priest being un-Catholic, well, don't expect much to happen visibly or otherwise.  As I say, from what I hear.  I also understand there are a lot of letters.

There is no point getting upset about the loss of good priests.  If the laity wont fight for them, expect to lose them. Crying into our lattes is not going to fix anything.