IN THE US, FR BRYAN BUENGER WILL HAVE THE SUPPORT OF HIS BISHOP

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I wanted to escape to St Joseph's Dannevirke today, to Father Bryan Buenger's patch, even though in our parish it was First Holy Communion Day. (To be precise it was, we were told, their 'First Eucharist'. Really? Had none of these children ever attended Mass before? Things are even worse than I thought.)

Oh yes, they are worse than I thought. I've just learned that Cardinal Blasé Cupich, cheer-leader for the disgraced (but not even yet laicized) homosexual predator former Cardinal McCarrick, has been named by Pope Francis to head the synod in February on prevention of abuse of minors. 

But wait, I hear you say, didn't Cardinal Cupich present 'Cardinal' McCarrick with a prestigious award for 'outstanding work' in the Church, at a time when everyone in the US knew - including Cupich - that McCarrick had been abusing seminarians at his notorious beach house for years? Yes he did. But now we're told by Cupich that it ain't necessarily so. It mightn't have been abuse. It seems we should make a distinction between abusing minors and abusing seminarians, because as Cupich has said, the latter 'could be consensual sex'.

Oh well, that's all right then. So it's not sinning seriously (mortally) against the Sixth Commandment as long as another, consenting, adult is sinning with you. 

Oh yes it is, but that's not what the Pope's picks for the February synod's steering committee say. Besides pro-gay Cupich - who with another disgraced prelate, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, has proposed that the US bishops should investigate themselves for their sex abuse - there's Malta's pro-gay Archbishop Charles Scicluna, India's pro-gay Cardinal Gracias who calls Church language on homosexuality 'judgmental' and pro-gay Jesuit Fr Hans Zollner, who jesuitically goes all around the houses talking about abuse but not homosexuality, implying that consensual homosexual sex is just fine. That's it.

The wolves aren't just in the sheepfold, people, they're running it. 

No wonder Fr Bryan Buenger, Parish Priest of Tararua in the Palmerston North Diocese, is heading back to the US. I asked him why. He said, "Because there I will have the support of my bishop". 

As a wise, holy priest, he knows that  he needs the protection of a wise, holy bishop. In the US he can take his pick of dioceses which are run by such bishops. 

I had to wait a couple of months to get an appointment to see Fr Bryan, and he sat there on a shabby sofa in the shabby presbytery, coughing and apologizing for his voice failing due to a sinus infection. I thought how cold that building would have been in winter - and by comparison how beautifully the church is appointed, with the reno of the kitchen and meeting space Fr Bryan began and has only just completed. 

It was an enthralling conversation, such as one is rarely privileged to have in this life.

He told me the NZ Diocesan Priests' Assembly in Christchurch was "dreadful" and confirmed, without going into any detail, that yes there had been complaints made against him in Tararua. 

I wonder who those whingeing parishioners think is going to replace him? They might well get what they deserve.

PC says: I escaped to Waipawa. Alas, the heresy followed me. What happened to Fr Buenger is disgraceful. But then, much of the 'Roman' Church in NZ is disgraceful. This beautiful country is a liturgical and theological wasteland.

Anon says: It just gets creepier and creepier every time I open my web browser.  According to the testimony of whistle blower Archbishop Vigano, Cardianl Cupichs' appointment was orchestrated by kingmakers McCarrick (now a totally discredited abuser of children and seminarians), Cardinal Wuerl (forced into retirement by Grand Jury revelations of covering up abuse) and Cardinal Maradiaga (so close to Pope Francis he is known as the 'vice-Pope', and also accused of cover ups).

 

So pro-gay Cupich, who beyond all reasonable doubt knew about McCarrick's trail of sodomy, gets to sit on the organizing committee for the long awaited Synod on clerical sex abuse.  This makes me feel very uncomfortable.

 

And locally, soon Father Buenger will be gone, chased away by complaints and whatever else we are not told about.  I hear he is not the only local priest looking for an escape route back to the home country.

 

Its hard to be Catholic these days, even if I close my web browser.