On a regular basis, I hear of the terror that good priests and bishops endure under the current regime. Some use the word fear instead of terror to be modest. My observation is that terror is a better word. Fear or terror serves an important purpose for those wielding power. The freezing from the chancery is a legitimate and reasonable response. Enough dear Lord, enough.
“ Over the years, I have offered lectures, missions, retreats in over ninety of the dioceses of the United States, which has given me a unique perspective on the state of the Church in our nation, and in a particular way, the state of the priesthood. One cleric recently observed that I probably know more priests in the country than any other priest! It saddens me to say, but honesty compels it, that the vast majority of our priests are deeply demoralized.
Pastors say that they are caught in an untenable vise between diocesan bureaucrats who never learned the Catholic principle of subsidiarity and all too many laity who have what I call “stole envy,” that is, they want to run the parishes and the clergy. As a result, the average pastor is reduced to a sacramental magician. A further result is that in not a few dioceses, priests now regularly inform their bishops that they do not wish to be pastors – so thankless a position has it become in so many places. In addition to anecdotal evidence for such conclusions, I also can call upon my own personal experiences; besides all the various positions I have held, three times I was called upon to serve as a parish priest for a total of fourteen years. While I believe I did a “good job” and have many wonderful memories of those assignments, I can identify completely with the sentiments of frustrated parish priests. Truth be told, priests will tell you that when their cell phone rings and the chancery number pops up, they freeze!”
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/01/26/why-priestly-morale-is-in-the-doldrums/
Not the Babylon bee “ For Lent, the high altar of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Austria, where Cardinal Christoph Schönborn is archbishop, is covered in a larger-than-life feminine purple sweater.
The sweater, consisting of 80 square meters of material, supposedly shows “the priority of warming love of neighbor,” according to the website of the cathedral parish. The cathedral parish claims the sweater is a modern Lenten veil (Fastentuch).
Austrian artist Erwin Wurm is responsible for the sweater. He has also created works that depict naked photographs of men with genitals showing in varying poses.”
“ Its that time of year again when bishops shake-down the sheep for their annual Lenten appeal. But this year, things are different. Catholics are fed-up with the financial and sexual corruption in hierarchy of bishops. People no longer trust their bishops not to use their money on expensive lawyers, public relations consultants, compensating victims of homoclerical sexual abuse, or to create “slush funds” like Uncle Ted McCarrick and Bp. Michael Bransfield.
Its been over 500 days since the Vatican promised they would release a detailed report on Theodore McCarrick and we are still waiting. Not only that – McCarrick suddenly went missing in January from the Kansas friary where he was living.
Catholics can send a clear message to their bishops that they will no longer support them until they take action to clean-up the corruption and hold people accountable.”
“ The records that Hallinan had in his possession touched on well-connected institutions at the heart of California’s power structure. St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, counted California governor Jerry Brown and the powerful Getty family as alumni. The school faced enormous vulnerabilities because of abuse problems there. Based on documents later released by the Jesuits who ran St. Ignatius, in the nearly sixty-year span from 1923 to 1982, in forty-three of those years the school employed at least one priest on the faculty who was later accused of abuse.
Hallinan’s investigation threatened to bring dozens of additional cases to light.
The Catholic archdiocese in San Francisco had reason to be extremely nervous.
According to San Francisco election financial disclosures, high-dollar donations to Harris’s campaign began to roll in from those connected to the Catholic Church institutional hierarchy. Harris had no particular ties to the Catholic Church or Catholic organizations, but the money still came in large, unprecedented sums.”