BISHOP DRENNAN RESIGNS (SO TELL US SOMETHING WE DON'T KNOW)

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The priest who celebrated Holy Mass in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel at Wellington's Sacred Heart Cathedral on Saturday morning seemed sad - even broken-hearted . 

He was, presumably, a diocesan priest, and it had fallen to him in the absence of Cardinal John Dew to announce the resignation, and the official reason for that resignation, of Bishop Charles Drennan from the next-door Diocese of Palmerston North. 


Perhaps Father had had little warning of his distasteful task. Some in the PN Diocese knew as far back as last Wednesday that Bishop Drennan had tendered his resignation to the Pope; ma
The important thing to preserve the chastity and celibacy of our priests is to be faithful in our own marriages, mortify ourselves, pray for them daily, invite them to share meals and feel a part of our families etc. For them they need to observe strict boundaries, avoid ocassions, mortify themselves, avoid the internet except for necessary engagement etc. "Remember that the heart is a traitor. Keep it locked with seven locks." St Josemaria
ny had noticed the gate of our diocesan sheepfold left wide open for the wolf to enter, years ago. But the early-warning system of prayer and faithfulness doesn't prevent people feeling just as sad as Father and the chrome candlesticks and plastic flowers all looked, in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel last Saturday morning. Of course they were missing their own bishop, Cardinal John Dew. 
In Rome on his ad limina visit, NZ's head shepherd looked positively dreadful. He was "deeply disappointed and angered". (For anyone who doesn't know the official version of events, here it is:
//cathnews.co.nz/2019/10/07/cardinal-dew-left-angered-and-disappointed/).

"Let all bitterness, and anger, and indignation, and clamor, and blasphemy, be put away from you, with all malice," says St Paul (Eph 4,31). We're tip-toeing through a minefield here, and badly need the word of God to guide us. It's probably just as well that being in Wellington for the weekend, celebrating two children's birthdays, I had to keep my powder dry until now.

At a public meeting yesterday evening  - https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/116392899/catholics-question-circumstances-of-bishop-charles-drennans-resignation  
- very little bitterness, anger, indignation, blasphemy or malice was in evidence.  Apart from a solitary shouter, who wanted to know why the ex-bishop wasn't there to answer his people's questions (which seems a reasonable question), 'parish members' ' behavior, according to Stuff was 'measured'. 

As it certainly should be, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament - Stuff's pic of Diocesan General Manager Tony Murphy, also looking somewhat stricken, shows the tabernacle behind him. Maybe they thought any potential shouters would shut up in the Real Presence. 

While 'gathering spaces' get larger (the cathedral's which is super-duper was created at the behest of  PN's first bishop, Peter Cullinane) and congregations get smaller, one has to wonder why meetings are now held in the 'worship space'. Have the hierarchy forgotten that one of the seers of Fatima, Sr Lucia, was told by the Blessed Virgin Mary Her Son is deeply offended by talking in church? 

But I digress. In the wake of disclosure of a bishop's alleged sexual dalliances (two women, one 'mature', the other, the complainant, is 'young') we hear the usual denunciations of 'compulsory celibacy', from several at the meeting and from the usual suspects, most prominently children's author Joy Cowley, who was married to an ex-priest so she knows. 

Cowley says "we know that a hungry man cannot be judged for stealing a loaf of bread" and that the Church had married priests up until the 11th century - and most impressively, that Daniel O'Leary SJ says "mandatory celibacy is a sin".

However, if 'a hungry man' had voluntarily vowed never to eat bread, his act of stealing it could most certainly be judged (the act of theft, that is, but not the hungry man himself). And in the Western Church - to which Ms Cowley claims to belong - men have been required to take a vow of the priestly celibacy modelled by Jesus Christ Himself, ever since the days of Pope Leo who died in 461. And wouldn't you just expect Daniel O'Leary to declare something is a sin which the Church in its wisdom does not? Daniel O'Leary is a Jesuit, and most Jesuits now seem to be a law unto themselves. 

Anyway, to return to our minefield. Come tip-toe through the M16s and claymores with me. Are the cardinal and his independent investigators perhaps bending over backwards? As Paul Collits, recently resident in the Palmerston North Diocese, writes from Sydney (https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/09/hidden-networks-and-the-get-pell-sting/):

"As many as 19.5 per cent of clerical abuse cases in the US have been unsubstantiated … A number of priests and commentators on Catholic issues have suggested that the reputational hurt to, and incarceration of, a falsely accused cleric causes far less harm than the harm done to victims of abuse.  … We seem to be in the early stages of what may turn out to be a decisive and alarming shift away from the old legal dictum that it is better for ten guilty men to be set free than for a single innocent man to be wrongly convicted."

It's bad enough now when a priest is accused of 'inappropriate' sexual behavior by a male: think Cardinal George Pell, banged up in a Sydney jail, found guilty on the uncorroborated testimony of just one witness, and a not-very-upstanding one at that. 

But when the complainant is a woman, a 'young woman'  … and bearing in mind that 'a mature woman' had contacted Cardinal Dew 'some time ago', who didn't want him to talk to anyone else about it, and who didn't want to talk to the abuse protocol committee either … Just saying. 

I had assumed that the 'mature woman' wanted to let the cardinal know so that he could let the bishop know that he knew, so that said bishop would know better in future. I said as much to a couple of good Protestant friends today, and they practically laughed me to scorn for my dewy-eyed innocence. 

Just saying also, that yesterday was the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. And that on Sunday, at Mass at St Mary of the Angels, Wellington, the same letter was read, divulging the same awful news re ex-bishop Drennan, only this time prefaced with "By now you will all have heard …" 

One wonders how many congregations in the Palmerston North Diocese were urged to take advantage of this handily-placed celebration of Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Graces, perhaps by praying, together even - in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, even - the Rosary which at Fatima She commanded us to pray, for the young woman who is being 'given all the support she needed from the Church', and also for ex-bishop Drennan, whom the Church "has an obligation to support" - and not forgetting the good Vicar-General, Monsignor Brian Walsh, who will be left carrying the can.

Not just the PN Diocese but the entire NZ Church should be on its knees in this grave crisis, praying also that God send us a good bishop. It's not likely the diocese will want a flash bishop. Not necessarily one who was trained in Rome, or served in the Vatican Secretariat of State. Just an orthodox, faithful, holy bishop.

My curmudgeonly correspondent Leo Leitch reminds me of an email he sent to NZ's bishops individually in March, protesting at what he called "a demonstration of naked far left hatred from a NZ bishop", not long after said bishop Charles Drennan took up his appointment in Palmerston North. Bishop Drennan, says Leitch, "prominently participated in a political protest against the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement". 

Leo has also dredged up ex-bishop Drennan's 2018 Christmas Midnight Mass homily, in which he confessed to "cranking up (his) computer early in the morning just to read the latest ghastly narcissistic tweet, or worse still, decision or decree, of President Trump". 

To be fair to ex-bishop Drennan, that witticism was probably hugely enjoyed by the anti-Trumpists in the congregation, but we take the point that a public parade of political correctness - even in Palmerston North's own Square, let alone in Auckland, is not what Palmerston North needs from its bishop.

Palmerston North needs what is offered, for example, by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, on his website -

https://www.gloriadei.io 

- help and encouragement for Catholics in living the Faith, expressed in these terms such as these:

United in the love for our holy Catholic Faith, united in our mighty army of prayers and in the love for Jesus and Mary, the Mother of God and our loving heavenly Mother, from all my heart I greet and bless each of you,

That's the sort of bishop Palmerston North needs.

Bob Gill says: 

Bob Gill With our focus being very much on the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon region and the hope that wise decisions will be made, here’s some food for thought:
St Matthew’s Church, Charlotte, North Carolina is the largest Catholic parish in the United States, serving over 10,000 registered households. Between 10,000 and 12,000 attend its 10 Masses every weekend. St. Matthew’s has only FOUR priests!
This parish realised early on that there were not many Catholic mega-churches to learn from to achieve their own success, so studied evangelical mega-churches that differed in theology but were of similar size. Their thriving parish thereafter is the result of putting those studies into practice.
I sincerely hope the Synod doesn’t automatically try to re-invent the wheel in its quest to resolve the Amazon issues, but instead first tries to duplicate the success of others by at least evaluating what was done in the likes of St Matthew’s, Charlotte, North Carolina - and other places.

Linda Clarke says (about The Resignation):

Hmmmm.... for me it pales in view of the Amazon issue. I like how Taylor Marshall said in a little blurb from Rome, quoting La Salette ('the Church will be in eclipse'):"An eclipse is TEMPORARY" !    
We don't how long the eclipse will be....but we can hope in the New Eve who will crush the head of Satan.
La Salette was 1846 - Our Lady knew all that long time ago!  
But back to The Resignation: It's relevant that at St. Anthony's Priory (SSPX Whanganui) they have no Tv and no internet. What do these priests and monks do in the evenings? They read, and read and read, (and no doubt, they pray) but so often their weeks' evening calendar is full of meetings, teaching the faithful - all  sorts of gatherings for different age groups.  
My point is that a lonely bishop would only have to turn on that box in the evening to face visual stimulants that don't support him in keeping his vows.    Just saying.

Bruce Tichbon says:
These are tough times and we are called to be understanding.  This is the second time in recent decades the Palmerston North Church has been rocked by priestly sex scandal.  I am aware of people who left the Church because of the last one.  This latest scandal may cost more souls. I am told still more scandals lurk.



I attended the question and answer session at the Cathedral on Monday 7th October.  In many respects it was well managed, starting with Adoration.  It was a painful but necessary experience, it reminded me of a kind of funeral to help us all come to terms with the latest disaster.



To me it seemed to become in part a preaching session where people came to the microphone and advocated for their private positions, especially in favour of married priests. Some people afterwards commented privately the meeting was a set-up.  Maybe that's a bit conspiratorial but the effect seemed to be the same.  Add Joy Cowley's piece in CathNews (vigorously calling for the end of priestly celibacy) and it becomes a crescendo.

The organizers should have prevented it becoming a private preaching session, but I understand their issues.  I felt at times I should speak myself to try to balance things up, but I would have just added to the tension.  Preaching in front of the Blessed Sacrament is not my prerogative.  

Does holding such a session in the Cathedral serve to silence those who believe in the Real Presence of our Lord, and leave the field wide open to those who do not?

The Church is starved of balanced dialogue, that is why many are forced to use blogs like this one.  Publications like Welcom and NZ Catholic fail to properly present the tensions and growing schism within  the Church.



People have commented above about Bishop Drennan using his position to express his left wing politics.  I would add he also rejected certain Church Doctrine.  His leadership caused tension; consternation to many, others approved. Many spoke strongly in his favor, he had done good things, especially helping immigrants.



Cardinal Dew commented "Any sexual behaviour in a pastoral situation is totally inappropriate".  This seems to tell us something new, Bishop Drennan was acting in a pastoral situation with the young woman when the misdemeanor occurred. If it had been a non-pastoral situation, or a young man, would it have been treated differently?  If the Church changes its position on priestly celibacy (it might happen in a few weeks time at the Amazon Synod) will Bishop Drennan's position change?

We won't be told what Bishop Drennan did (to protect the young woman, we are told), so we will never know the facts.  This prevents us understanding the situation properly, and does not help us to advise our children how to better protect themselves in similar situations.  

Is the situation with Bishop Drennan and the Church's response encouraging us to treat all priests with suspicion?  It certainly seems that it's being used to further the call for radical changes to the priesthood.

I say: 

Bulls-eye with "preaching in front of the Blessed Sacrament is not my prerogative". No, it's not your prerogative. The only person to preach in front of the Blessed Sacrament is a priest.

I know for certain of at least one person present at the meeting who had strong views on the bishop's resignation but would not speak in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament. I would have felt the same. 

So you're right: holding the meeting in the church did serve to silence traditional, conservative Catholics. Would this have occurred to the organisers ? I doubt it. But there should be vigorous opposition to holding any meetings in the church. It's wrong in principle for any meeting, but a big mistake in this case.

As for "any sexual behavior in a pastoral situation (being) totally inappropriate", the priest has taken a vow of chastity. He is married to the Church. 

Dear Cardinal Dew, any sexual behavior from any priest in any situation is not only "totally inappropriate", it's sinful - and I venture to say, given the priest's position of prestige and power, seriously sinful. 

It should not be left to lay people to point this out. 

Anonymous says: 

The important thing to preserve the chastity and celibacy of our priests is to be faithful in our own marriages, mortify ourselves, pray for them daily, invite them to share meals and feel a part of our families etc. For them they need to observe strict boundaries, avoid occasions (of sin?), mortify themselves, avoid the internet except for necessary engagement etc. "Remember that the heart is a traitor. Keep it locked with seven locks" (St Josemaria).