WOULD WE HAVE ARDERN AND EUTHANASIA IF OUR BISHOPS HAD LED US IN PRAYER?

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Faithful Catholics are reeling from the double whammy of a re-elected neo-Marxist Government and New Zealand's endorsement of euthanasia. The question is, if  our bishops had devoted Prayers of the 'Faithful' (hah! faithful to what? to the bishops, or to Christ?) and their statements and homilies to preaching the Gospel instead of promos for flabby 'social justice' issues, would our nation have been visited with this twin disaster?

Bishop Michael Dooley (Dunedin), Bishop Paul Martin (Christchurch), Cardinal John Dew (Wellington), Auxiliary Bishop Michael Gielen (Auckland), Bishop Steve  (sic) Lowe (iHamilton), Monsignor Brian Walsh (Administrator, Palmerston North which still languishes bishop-less after more than a year).

In the United States, the vast majority of Catholic  bishops, like their peers in NZ, cower in their bunkers while the battle of Good versus Evil rages in the public square. The column below is written by an employee of some diocesan US chancery, who obviously prefers to remain anonymous. Much of it applies just as well to NZ's sheepish shepherds as to those in the US. 

Dear Catholic Bishops

The poet John Milton wrote: “The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.” Church leadership is called upon to do the right thing, especially in difficult times: to speak the truth boldly and lovingly and to watch over those entrusted to their care. When bishops fail to fulfill this sacred obligation, the lay faithful are left feeling confused, neglected, and abandoned.

Such is the situation as we approach our national election

pretty much the same as it was as New Zealand approached ours, last month  

in which a clear and obvious divide exists on essential matters related to earthly wellbeing and eternal welfare: the protection of God-given life from conception to natural death; the safeguarding of the family and the wellspring of sexuality; the dignity of all persons, including the rights of conscience and the freedom to live and worship without interference from the state or persecution from the culture.

The Democratic Party that once championed the civil rights of all

just like the Labour Party in New Zealand 

has now become hostile to Christian faith and those who practise it. Their shrunken tent has no room for those who are pro-life, no room for those who profess what has been called mere Christianity, nor for any who believe in the value of patriotism insofar as patriotism embodies a natural preference for one’s own country.

Moreover, the Democratic presidential candidate himself

pretend Catholic Joe Biden 

can be considered Catholic in name only, for in nearly a half-century of public life he has routinely, repeatedly, and systematically rejected what the Church teaches: on life issues, on sexual morality, on religious liberty. When asked recently whether he would support an eight-year old’s decision to change gender, he answered in the affirmative.

Through it all, the great majority of you have said and done nothing. Those bishops who have spoken – claiming that abortion, for example, is not the pre-eminent moral issue, or that the current administration is the most anti-life in history, or that a Catholic ought have no qualms of conscience voting for Democratic candidates and their party’s dismal culture-of-death platform – have done so without public criticism from their brother bishops who, in this regard, seem to share the Democratic standard bearer’s bizarre preference for remaining safely in the basement.

When will you, as successors to the Apostles, overcome whatever has silenced you?

Do you lack faith and conviction in what the Catholic Church teaches and has taught from the beginning?

From observations made at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Palmerston North when our bishops met there last week, faith in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist is certainly lacking. A certain prelate was seen to rush in and out of the sacred space without genuflection and another to chat animatedly with a local liturgical prima donna, close by the tabernacle. Perhaps, not being familiar with the cathedral, that particular bishop could be excused for not noticing the tabernacle or recognising it for what it is. But he knew, or should know, that being in the cathedral he was in the Presence of God.

Are you primarily motivated by human respect, fearful that speaking the truth will bring ridicule, laughter, and opposition?

Are you so attached to your standing in civil society, having places of honor at the world’s table, that you cannot speak the beliefs you privately cherish?

Have the basic Christian virtues – loyalty, honesty, and courage – been so bred out of you that you now find yourselves neutered by the world and unable effectively to confront its manifold faults and follies?

Do you have so little love for your flock, including deluded politicians who insist on self-identifying as Catholic when they no longer believe, that you dare not challenge or correct them?

That at least is not a charge that could be levelled at our bishops. The Catholic Faith is now so diminished in New Zealand that very few politicians self-identify as Catholic. 

Have you made a craven surrender to the Zeitgeist such that you have jettisoned the ancient practice of the spiritual works of mercy, counseling the doubtful, instructing the ignorant, admonishing the sinner?

Our bishops seem to be interested only in the corporal works of mercy - you know, the works that bring them the world's approval. 

And if you find yourselves now cringing or smirking at such principles, have you not become model citizens of that dictatorship of relativism of which Benedict XVI warned?

“We cannot be in the business of making political endorsements,” many of you doubtless think and say.

As our bishops did indeed say, rearing up on their hind legs when this blog mistakenly but  hoping against hope stated they were supporting New Conservatives, a political party with Christian policies and principles, and reporting me to the Electoral Commission.  

But does not silence in the face of evil signify consent? ... (C)riticizing a party platform so obviously opposed to faith and morals does not mean you give unqualified support to his opponent.

On the contrary, you are simply speaking the truth, in charity, teaching those who have been entrusted to your care and removing the cloud of confusion that you and too many of your predecessors have allowed for decades to hover over the public square.

A cloud thickened to thunderous proportions by the endorsement of Jorge Bergoglio (aka Pope Francis) of homosexual civil unions, and the endorsement of that endorsement by certain US prelates and our very own Bishop Pat Dunn of Auckland.. 

Surely, you must realize that the regard in which you are now held may well be at an all-time low. Although still reeling by the depravity of the likes of Mr. McCarrick, lay Catholics nonetheless continue to pray for you, hoping that you man up and embrace fully the special calling God has given you. But they do so with diminished confidence, embarrassed by your consistent failure to lead, teach, clarify, and correct.

NZ's faithful Catholics must continue to pray for our bishops. Fiat voluntas tua.  

The time grows short. Will you speak and act in these coming days, for the sake of souls and for the common good? Or will you slide into an even deeper irrelevance, abdicating the awesome responsibility given you by the Lord Jesus to whom you must, at last, make an account of your stewardship?

 

 

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.