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Dear Bishops:
We trusted you. We served at your parishes and sat on your committees. We answered your appeals for money. We defended you, even when it was difficult. We said nothing when you felt the need to adopt virtually all of the secular social justice issues of the day, issuing statements about temporal matters outside of your divine mandate, while ignoring far greater issues of eternal life and death, for which you are responsible.
We stood by you when you allowed liturgical laxity and innovation. We believed you when you said the casual, congregation-centered Masses were just as reverent as the Traditional Latin Masses. We accepted your decisions even when the only disciplinary measures you employed were against orthodox priests. We made excuses for you thinking you were so busy overseeing your bureaucracy and attending meetings that you had no time to teach, sanctify or govern.
Lack of Remorse
We even turned the other way when rumors of scandal were whispered about, unwilling to believe them. Then after widespread scandals you participated in or allowed to continue through your silence, there was no repentance, no transparency, no resignations, no purification.
Your collective dishonesty and unwillingness to root out homosexuals, the morally compromised, the pampered, and those who do not believe in the supernatural, have pushed even your biggest supporters to never again be fooled by your lies and hypocrisy.
You are hiding behind lawyers and insurance companies, protecting your dwindling assets that we and our ancestors paid for. Yet even bankruptcy is no excuse for not doing what is right.
We no longer trust you because the dioceses and parishes are run by the same people who were directly involved in the clerical conspiracy of silence. In nearly three years since the McCarrick scandal, which was not an isolated event, you have not cleaned house, nor demonstrated any appetite to deal with the structural secrecy and systemic sodomy within your ranks, while calling out the so-called structural and systemic sins out in the world.
Sadly, too many of your brother bishops have become mere managers, relying on fallen human wisdom and human solutions, rather than tapping into the supernatural power of the office of Bishop and the infinite grace-giving weapons to which you have been entrusted.
When we finally begged you, in the face of a pandemic, to keep our Churches open and the sacraments safe and available, you shamefully shut off the spigot of divine graces, agreeing with the government, not God, that the Church is non-essential.
Your attempts to curry favor with the left who seek to remake you in their image is not merely short-sighted, but suicidal. In doing so, you’ve entirely lost the center to the right of a deeply divided Church who are the most faithful and engaged Catholics, who actually go to Mass, and who would have been your most ardent supporters, as they always have been. Now, our trust is not in you but in God alone.
Our Hope is in God
Put not your trust in princes: In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return into his earth: in that day all their thoughts shall perish. Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God (Psalm 146:2-5).
Many are learning the faith for themselves, often for the first time, because you didn’t do your job in the first place to catechize and pass on the faith. We, who take no oath of loyalty to you, are obedient to the true, timeless teachings of the Church, not your modernist interpretations and secular social justice slant.
We don’t have to put up with a watered-down brand of “catholicism” anymore, for we can seek out and support the holy, joyful, orthodox pockets of the faith. If enough of us attend and encourage reverent liturgies, these parishes will flourish while the ad-libbing, no kneeling parishes will die on the vine.
We see this pattern with the rapid rise of vibrant, orthodox religious orders centered on the Eucharist, in comparison to those older orders who jettisoned their habits, along with their belief in Jesus, are rapidly becoming extinct.
Besides, in times when the Bride of Christ is so weakened, we need the supernatural big guns which are reverent and awe-inspiring Masses, well-understood, well-celebrated, and with at least some of the sacred language reserved for God. Aside from a much-needed increased supernatural power, parishes, priests and even the bishops will take notice as these flourishing orthodox parishes become authentic Catholic communities, beacons of hope, and emblems of the Catholic resistance.
Being counter-cultural is not enough – we must, at times, even be counter to the bureaucratic Church. This means we must think, speak, pray and act according to the established rituals, traditions, and teachings of our Catholic Faith, not according to the irrational and immoral politically correct mantras of the age, some of which subsist within the Church.
We should encourage the good parishes and orthodox priests while avoiding the bad parishes. We must demand transparency, honesty, fidelity, courage, holiness, and if they refuse, we as children of the light must shine a disinfecting spotlight on what they prefer to remain in the darkness.
We must engage in what C.S. Lewis called for, a “great campaign of sabotage” against the cowardly and compromised clerics who have caused this Great Apostasy and continue to preside over the decline of the Church with an indifferent, hopeless, hospice mentality.
A Campaign of Sabotage
This strategy begins with prayer, followed by awareness and resistance in accordance with the will of God. This also means calling you and your brother bishops to be faithful to Christ and reminding you of the eternal consequences of your failure to do so. It means praising you when you do the right thing and letting you and others know when you fail to do so, in accordance with Canon 212:
In accord with the knowledge, competence, and preeminence which they possess, they have the right and even at times a duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church, and they have a right to make their opinion known to other Christian faithful, with due regard for the integrity of faith and morals and reverence toward their pastors, and with consideration for the common good and the dignity of persons.
This must, of course, be accomplished first by charitably and respectfully informing the Bishop, followed by non-scandalous modern means of communications with the faithful.
It means supporting solid religious ministries and organizations, while avoiding those who have abandoned the faith and Christ, letting them know why they don’t deserve our support. It may even mean to refuse to obey the bishop’s compromises with the world.
Such sabotage could even involve the purchasing of closed parishes and staffing them with solid, sidelined, or retired priests. It could mean gathering an army of warriors who pray at your chanceries and residences, attending your meetings and ceremonies not to intimidate, but to peacefully pray, to encourage, and to let you know there are thousands more out there who will not simply sit back and accept this disastrous course.
If you won’t be the courageous guardians of the Body of Christ you were ordained to be, then we will. If you refuse to be the generals we need in this spiritual and material battle for souls, then step aside and let someone, who believes in the supernatural, and is willing to assemble an army of the entire Church Militant, utilizing all of the spiritual weapons in the Church’s arsenal, take over.
If you fail to do the one job you have been given by Christ because you fear the social and mainstream media and the loss of your popularity, then we will be the faithful, outspoken, happy warriors to encourage you and hold you to account when no one else will. We will be the united voice of tradition and sacred order amidst the heterodoxy and chaos, the powerful right flank of the Church, and the pillars of iron to stand firm when you get wobbly. This assembled army of orthodoxy and charity will no longer be dismissed and demonized by you as disorganized dissenters or random, right-wing, rad-trads.
We will stand up to these secular forces, having your back if and when you decide to join in the fight. If you are merely motivated by fear, not righteousness, then maybe you will fear us more than you fear the spirit of the age. If you are motivated by perishable things such as wealth, prestige, or comfort, these can and likely will be taken away, and you may soon experience poverty, disgrace, and discomfort.
You have clearly demonstrated that you can’t or won’t clean up your own mess. Though there are some holy bishops and many solid priests there is no comprehensive plan or even an appetite to address the widespread evil which subsists within your hierarchy. Since you’ve proven, time and again, you can’t police yourselves, then the laity must. The good priests and bishops will likely appreciate the cover and gladly welcome such a unified effort to turn over the tables they desperately wish they could. These holy and courageous clerics can even be an integral part of this necessary purification and renewal, along with other lay diocesan or parish employees who have access to the dark and dirty secrets the Church still insists on hiding.
With the anonymous reporting provisions, whistleblower protection, and the hidden help of those loyal to God not men, you and your brother bishops will finally be forced to address this ongoing evil, to repent, to show contrition, to call for prayer and sacrifice, to be transparent, to remove bad actors, and even to resign if need be. The Church in the current clerical culture of conspiracy and concealment will only be cleansed when devout, orthodox, members of the ministerial and common priesthood team up on the side of Jesus to expose the enemies and cowards within, motivated not by career advancement or settling of scores, but for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
Please understand, we are not in opposition to the Church we love; we are in opposition to the cowardly men who lead it, and the unfaithful functionaries who, by their secularism, sins, and secrecy have all but shipwrecked the Ark of Salvation. We are not just content to complain; we are committed to doing everything in our power, by prayer and sacrifice, by word and action, to restore the Kingdom of God for Christ.
We will get engaged as you have never seen before. The laity will rise up to save the Church, as Archbishop Fulton Sheen predicted and as Apostolicam Actuositatem envisioned, with all the zeal and the courage of Apostolic times. We will even teach, train, and give to the Church our sons and daughters as priests, religious, and laymen and women, to finish the job we have started, purifying the Church.
We, having been awakened from our slumber, see much more clearly and are assembling an army of devout, Catholics to answer the divine mandate, when you, and other Church leaders have abdicated yours. When your soul and mine are in eternal jeopardy, not to mention the thousands of souls who have left the Church and remain outside of a state of grace, niceties cannot control.
Prepare for a new era.
By: Unknown Centurion
56 thoughts on “Never Again! An Open Letter to our Bishops”
Bravo. Thank you.
Thanks be to God.
Pingback: Letter #17, 2021, Thurs., April 19: Unknown Centurion | Catholic Canada
The Negative commenters show us exactly where you stand. Thank you.
Articles like this get people fired up because they strike a dramatic “call to battle” tone: as in, “us awesome faithful courageous laypeople” vs. “those cowardly bishops.” The desire to distance yourself from members of the hierarchy with whom you are frustrated with is understandable, yet dangerous, prideful, and dare I say – kind of Protestant. Also, this passage stood out to me: “Such sabotage could even involve the purchasing of closed parishes and staffing them with solid, sidelined, or retired priests.” Are you seriously suggesting that disgruntled laypeople start their own parishes outside of the bishop’s authority? (Or perhaps I am misunderstanding? Please clarify – thank you.)
Carlyn,
The intent of the article was not to divide, cause scandal, schism or promote anything “kind of Protestant”. My intent was to encourage our bishops to focus on the one job they were given by God, to provide hope to the demoralized and discouraged priests and lay men and women, and a potential way forward for the Church in times of concentric crises. I manfully accept all criticisms, and gladly bear my share of responsibility for not only my article but for the situation we Catholics find ourselves. Conversely, I am heartened by the many who whether they agree with my proposals or not, are coming to see the supernatural reality in the Church and share in this prophetic sense of urgency. I’m encouraged by great bishops, like Bishop Strickland, who retweeted this article, pledging to vigorously guard the deposit of faith and asking for forgiveness (even though he had no reason to apologize). If we are judged both by our friends as well as our enemies, I’m thankful to be on the same team as Bishop Strickland, which provides some confirmation that I may at least be doing something right. In Bishop Strickland’s book, Light and Leaven, he describes upon his installation he approached the position as a managerial one, before coming to the realization that he needed to employ the supernatural weapons inherent with his apostolic office and go out into the deep led by the Holy Spirit not by mere human wisdom or organizational skills. Sadly, it seems many bishops have not experienced such an epiphany nor the required radical reorientation to zealously save souls through teaching, sanctifying, and governing, and by praying, working, and sacrificing for the flock.
Before the scales began to fall from my own eyes, I was an ardent defender of everything Catholic, supporting all that she did, and didn’t do, and holding that the Church, from her Pope, her bishops and down to her priests could do no wrong. Then when the tip of the infernal iceberg materialized, I could no longer be an unthinking, blindfolded cheerleader for an enterprise which promotes and protects those who perform unspeakable acts of evil in the name of God or cloaked in the robes of religion. The fact that she still has not repented, come clean, or called for public acts of prayer, sacrifice and reparation, demonstrates to me that they still don’t get it, or don’t believe in such unenlightened superstitions. This realization has actually has been quite freeing, improving my relationship with Jesus by getting rid of the middleman, and getting to the heart of the Faith, without all the unnecessary trappings of the Faith. I’m not alone. There seems to be a much wider “great awakening” taking place in the Church in response to the “great apostasy” we are experiencing. To be clear, the answer is never to leave the one, true, holy, apostolic Church, but rather to frequently participate at Mass, the Sacraments, and Eucharistic Adoration, and to fight for our spiritual birthright, because if we don’t, who will?
No matter how bad a particular bishop may be, we must remain under his authority, for we can never separate ourselves from the vine which is Christ. I feel no sense of superiority over any bishop. I pray for them. I want to encourage and support them. I have compassion for them, who as spiritual fathers, will be judged for the souls they have been entrusted. I don’t envy them, for they as our generals are prime targets of the evil one, and without a vibrant prayer life, they will not prevail. There are many good bishops. There are also many good men who are not necessarily good bishops. I say this because in the face of 12% Mass attendance, and 31% belief in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, many of these nice, but weak, comfortable men, do next to nothing to address this Mass Exodus. (To Chris) I share in the outrage experienced by many over the State-sponsored execution of millions of babies at the hands of “doctors” and even their own mothers. But where is the action, urgency or outrage over the loss of the eternal lives of hundreds of thousands who are separated from the Church, living in a state of mortal sin, and at risk of eternal separation from God?
Finally, getting to your question concerning my most drastic proposal concerning the acquisition of closed parish properties, this could obviously only be accomplished with the permission of the local ordinary. Many dioceses own an incredible amount of real estate, with many properties for sale having shuttered a number of parishes with several more on the chopping block. Some of the parishioners at these soon to be closed churches are fighting to save these sacred spaces built by their spiritual ancestors from demolition, or from being turned into condominiums, breweries or nightclubs. Bishops have invited religious orders in to such failing parishes to staff and run these churches outside of the traditional diocesan structure, though those in the order operating the parish, remain under the ultimate authority of the bishop and remain there at his pleasure. With few religious orders able to emigrate, whether a bishop would agree not to deconsecrate a church and sell it to a Catholic Apostolate, Association of the Faithful, or Catholic Lay Organization, or other entity tethered to the Church so that the faithful will be served, rather than to a developer or secular business, is entirely up to the bishop. But each bishop I believe, has the authority to do so, and can establish churches, oratories, or chapels. My reason for proposing such a dramatic solution is threefold – first, so that Holy Mass and the Sacraments, and the supernatural power resulting therefrom, can continue to be celebrated and dispensed in these sacred spaces, second, that such acts of subsidiarity, where a failing parish becomes a thriving beacon of reverence, right worship, charity, and sadly, collections, will gain the attention of bishops and priests with lax, indifferent, heterodox approaches to step up their game and see what God and the people want, and finally, so another spiritual stronghold and Eucharistic epicenter does not fall to the world and its Prince.
Funny you should use a photo from the protestant church in Trier, Germany, for your article.
This is a very disingenuous article. There are 10,000 babies murdered in the US this Saturday and every Saturday and you don’t give a plug nickel. In addition you lead others astray. If you don’t care about babies being murdered God will never let us have our church back.
Are you retarded?