The Catholic Church today is facing corruption unprecedented in the modern era. An ex-Cardinal (Theodore McCarrick) was recently exposed as having been molesting young Priests and Seminarians as well as at least one Minor. McCarrick’s habit of using the seminary as a hunting ground has only been confirmed by more and more Clergy. One of these confirmations came from a young Bishop by the name of Steven Lopes in this short clip .The hierarchy of the church are no longer even attempting to hide their either grevious incompetence or malicious intent. The February meeting about the current crisis was undoubtedly sparked by the Testimonies of Archbishop Vigano about Ex-Cardinal McCarrick. Who is the Cardinal Pope Francis has picked to lead this meeting? Why not a Cardinal who was elevated from Bishop to Cardinal in large part thank to the influence of Ex-Cardinal McCarrick? That’s right it will be none other than Blase Cardinal Cupich. (Just to give you an idea of who exactly this guy is when he was Bishop in Spokane, Washington he discouraged his Priests and Seminarians from praying outside of Planned Parenthood during 40 days for life. As you can read here .) The Pope initially refused to speak on the Vigano accusations. Since then he still has made no open comments about Archbishop Vigano, but he did use a thinly veiled insult to call Vigano the Devil (you can find Vigano’s second testimony where he points out this hypocrisy here ). Why in a time when even the opponents of Vigano are obviously attempting to hide something do we seem to have an epidemic of faithful Catholics willingly with their heads in the sand?

The other question necessary to ask is why does simply pointing out obviously troublesome facts result in ridicule? The answer is simple. It slaps us all starkly in the face whenever we acknowledge evil, and we always see it coming. When a person acknowledges an evil they are implicitly also taking on responsibility to do what they can to fight that evil. When a person acknowledges evil then does not do anything or continues to willingly ignore it they are guilty of a sin of omission. Whether or not you agree with me on this fact does not really matter. This feeling of guilt is a natural response to being faced with evil and then doing nothing. Even if it isn’t a sin it at least weighs on one’s conscience, and this is what we try to avoid when we turn a blind eye to evil.

This all being said I want to address not a single scandal, rather I want to more broadly address the response of the Laity. First, of all I want to make something very clear by stating a few known facts.

Pope Francis barred the USCCB from voting on measures to hold Bishops accountable at their November conference. Also, most of the Bishops didn’t find out until the beginning of the Conference, because Francis called the President of the Bishops conference literally the day before they all met to let him know. Francis’ reason for this last minute change/sabotage was that he wants them to wait until the meeting in February. However, as mentioned in the first paragraph this meeting will be run by a Bishop who was elevated in large part thanks to the Influence of Ex-Cardinal McCarrick (McCarrick’s sins are the reason we are in this mess in the first place.) At the Conference the US Bishops did take a vote on whether or not to request a speedy release of documents regarding the actions of Ex-Cardinal McCarrick from Rome. Two-thirds of the Bishops voted not to make this completely reasonable and decent request.

These are not even the actual scandals. These are the “responses” to the scandals that have rocked the Church in this past year. I think it is safe to say that the hierarchy as a group can no longer be trusted. I’m sure there are still good men in the USCCB and the larger Hierarchy as a whole, but a few men in the minority can not do a lot on their own from inside the system. It is time the laity make known our willingness to help these good Priests and Bishops.

I can already hear the responses. “You just hate Pope Francis.” “It’s not our place to question the Pope as the laity, and the Bishops are supposed to support him.” “These scandals don’t affect my personal relationship with Jesus, so I don’t need to worry about them.”

First, I don’t hate Pope Francis. I disagree with how these scandals are being handled. If you’ve ever had a problem with a family member did you hate them just because you disagreed? Most likely you did not, so no I do not hate Pope Francis.

This second objection is one that seems very reasonable. This objections is actually one that has been presented by some news outlets and even by some of the Bishops. However, this objection is obviously not true. In fact the Church honors a Saint specifically for her correcting the Pontiff. St. Catherine of Siena is Canonized, because she questioned the Pope’s decision to Live in Avignon instead of Rome. As for Bishops, there is an instance of a Bishop correcting the Pontiff in Scripture. Galatians 2:11-14 St. Paul tells a story of St. Peter ding something wrong and St. Paul correcting him. In verse fourteen St. Paul give the specific reason why he corrected St. Peter, “when I saw they were not straightforward about the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter…” In a time when the Catechism has been changed in a manner that does not reflect the actual teaching of the Church, and the Pope is helping to cover for a pervert this verse seems extremely relevant.

Lastly, I am going to address this last objection. Frankly this is more of an excuse than an objection. The third objection is a perversion of a wonderful and beautiful aspect of our faith. If your “personal relationship with Jesus” doesn’t include the world you live in, then you are compartmentalizing Jesus. When one compartmentalizes Jesus they do not have a relationship with him, rather they have an excuse to bury their head in the sand when they do not want to deal with a problem. If your “personal relationship with Jesus” doesn’t allow you to be filled with righteous anger at the state of the Church; go ask Jesus if he is angry. I guarantee he is. (If he isn’t then that's not Jesus). If you are in a personal relationship with him shouldn’t you share his emotions? Jesus will at least tell you to Fast and Pray for the Church as a whole. He may even call you to greater action. Jesus never calls us to no action in the face of evil. Jesus always calls us to journey and fight with him. How you are to journey and fight may be different than the person next to you in the pew, but everyone is called. The point simply is that we can not use our personal relationships as an excuse to ignore the battle going on in our Church.

What can we do? What should we do? Well as stated above we all must at least Fast and Pray for the victims and for the Church as a whole. We need to make known to our good Priests and Bishops our appreciation for them. We should make sure we are informed enough on the scandals to address the concerns of non-Catholics. Being informed on the scandals in the Catholic Church is getting harder and harder. The Vatican has begun to circulate a list of “approved” Catholic Media Sources ( this list was handed out at the USCCB conference in Baltimore). One of these sources is actually America Magazine which is run by Fr. James Martin who is open about his rebellion against the Church’s teaching on Homosexuality. With this is mind I would suggest two sources which are openly disliked by the establishment Hierarchy; Church Militant which has coincidentally been warning about a crisis of this type long before the Summer of 2018 and Life Site News who has a tab where you can look up your Bishop and they will give you a summary of his positions on various issues facing the church today. What we should do is simple; We must Fast and Pray for the Church, and we must also keep informed on what is happening. What we can do is a bigger list. We can write our Bishops, and tell them we want this transparency that they promised and have not delivered. We can (in fact we have the right to in Canon Law) go to our Priests and tell them we want the full undiluted truth preached, and that we do not want to hear excuses for the shortcomings of the Hierarchy made from the pulpit. Now just because the faithful have the right to do this doesn’t mean we have the right to do this in any manner we want. If you make your desires known to your Pastor or Bishop make sure the way you do this doesn’t undercut your message. Be kind and honest. We can also tell our fellow Catholics that speaking out is not a sin as many are being told in their Churches. If we all make it clear that we will not be silenced, and that those who expect to be able to lead the Church astray will be met with resistance then we can win back our Church for Christ and for the Truth.

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