The low estate of the bishops

By Cheshire ( articles - email ) | Jun 17, 2003

The implosion of the dignity of the episcopate is now breathtaking. Governor Keating is forced out for comparing some of the bishops to the Mafia and those bishops give his unfortunate remark credibility by their total obliviousness to the depths to which they have sunk. Had Archbishop Weakland been removed from office when he first openly mocked the Holy See, he would not have compounded his ruinous effect on the Church by relevations of immorality and bribery, and he would not have left his archdiocese saddled with debt and a wrecked cathedral. Had Bishop O'Brien been removed from office when he copped a plea to stay out of jail, he might not now be under arrest for hit-and-run vehicular homicide. - We are now paying a price unprecedented in church history for the breakdown of discipline. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave/ when first we practice to deceive." - Are there any John Fishers or Charles Borromeos waiting in the wings? Nothing less than such saints can lift the episcopate from this unspeakable mire.