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	Bishop’s Firing Makes Pope’s Priorities Clear [australia] [with Urls to Other Articles] The Startpagina May 10, 2011 http://startpagina.paginablog.nl/startpagina/2011/05/Bishop_8217s_firing_makes_pope_8217s_priorities_clear_Australia_with_urls_to_other_articles_.html The Australian Catholic diocese of Toowoomba, encompassing more than 300,000 square miles, has just a relative handful of healthy priests to serve the church’s 35 parishes. So it came as no surprise to Toowoomba’s Catholics when the area’s bishop, William M. Morris, addressed the priest shortage in a candid but still cautious Advent 2006 pastoral letter. “We do face an uncertain future with regard to the number of active priests in our diocese,” wrote Morris. “Other options,” he wrote, “may well” need be considered. These include: 1. “ordaining married, single or widowed men who are chosen and endorsed by their local parish community; 2. welcoming former priests, married or single, back to active ministry; 3. ordaining women, married or single; 4. recognizing Anglican, Lutheran and Uniting Church Orders.” For these words, this week the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI has fired Morris. Eighteen years as bishop ended with the stroke of a papal pen. (...) Some obvious but necessary points need making: First, it turns out it’s really not that difficult for the pope to give a bishop a pink slip. In the course of the quarter-century clergy sexual abuse cover-up, there’s been considerable handwringing over just this question. Bishops don’t “work for” the pope, we have been told. Bishops are “fathers” to their flock – with all the unconditional love and commitment that entails – not employees subject to the whims, well-intentioned or otherwise, of the boss. Canonical procedures must be followed. Apparently, that’s just so much hooey. If the pope and his advisers care deeply about an issue about which a bishop has publicly raised questions – such as women priests and optional celibacy – a way can be found to dismiss that bishop. And – noteworthy because it goes to some underlying issues – a bishop who acts against church teaching and law related to sexually abusive priests apparently need fear no such reprisal. Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali, for example, continues a life befitting a prince in splendorous surroundings, even as his flouting of church procedures (and perhaps civil law) resulted in nearly 30 diocesan priests facing administrative suspension and heat from local prosecutors. And not to forget Cardinal Bernard Law, orchestrator of the Boston clergy abuse cover-up. His punishment? An extended Roman holiday and a healthy pension. Meanwhile, Morris gets the door. The pope’s priorities are clear. The pervasive intellectual chill in the church reaches beyond the towers of academia (note the recent chastisement of theologian St. Joseph Sr. Elizabeth Johnson) or to those who directly challenge the rules – Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois’ open support for women’s ordination a most recent case in point. (Bourgeois is facing excommunication for saying what he thinks on the subject.) Now even those directly in the line of apostolic succession are forbidden to speak freely. Note that Morris did not offer answers to the provocativelyposed semi-questions on celibacy and ordination he raised that Advent. Instead, employing what one advocacy group terms the “progressive bishop’s style book,” he couched his concerns more obliquely. (No doubt to avoid Rome’s wrath. Lot of good that did him.) Today, it seems, even such carefully couched queries are completely verboten; such so-called “open questions” (non-doctrinal in every sense of the word) such as the ordination of married men are grounds for dismissal. That the overwhelming majority of clergy (not to mention laypeople) think the failure to even consider options like married priests in the midst of a clergy shortage crisis goes beyond Dilbertesque mismanagement. It is, to employ the psychobabble of the era, completely dysfunctional. As we prepare to celebrate the feast of the first pope next month, are we still permitted to remind church fathers that Peter was a married man? That this Holy Father was likely a human father? Or should Mrs. Peter and her progeny, like so many nettlesome Stalin-era apparatchiks, be airbrushed from history? National Catholic Reporter, 4 mei 2011 Zie verder: * Bishop knew of his departure / Anthea Gleeson [AU; The Chronicle; #ordinationofwomen] http://alturl.com/u6w5e * Australian archbishop weighs in on bishop’s removal [AU; CatholicCulture.org; #ordinationofwomen] http://alturl.com/6rmz3 * Toowoomba has change of bishop [AU; Catholic Leader; #ordinationofwomen] http://alturl.com/pj2xs * Australian priests offer support for deposed bishop / T. Roberts [AU; NCR; #ordinationofwomen #celibacy] http://alturl.com/j6wwe * Ex-Bishop William Morris is Right / By Dr. Jeff Mirus [AU; CatholicCulture.org; #ordinationofwomen #celibacy] http://alturl.com/5iz6f * Ipswich priest supports Bishop / Peter Foley [AU; The Queensland Times; #ordinationofwomen #celibacy] http://alturl.com/cqr89 * Community rallies behind Bishop / Kerri Burns-Taylor [AU; Warwick Daily News; #ordinationofwomen #celibacy] http://alturl.com/sy747 * Dismissed Cath. bishop says Vatican denied him natural justice [AU; Digital Journal; #ordinationofwomen #celibacy] http://alturl.com/jiyzn * Letter to Tucson Bishop Kicanas: Why does the pope fire a bishop... [US/AU; Voice from the Desert; #celibacy #sexabuse] http://alturl.com/gbxbj * Support for ousted Australian bishop widens / By Tom Roberts [AU; NCR; #ordinationofwomen #celibacy] http://alturl.com/xpgpy * SNAP questions Vatican priorities w/ bishops [AU; Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests; #childsexcrimes] http://alturl.com/5i6b9 * Bishop's firing makes pope's priorities clear [AU; National Catholic Reporter; #ordinationofwomen] http://alturl.com/onf8o * Bishop knew of his departure / Anthea Gleeson [AU; The Chronicle; #ordinationofwomen] http://alturl.com/u6w5e * Papal power in Toowoomba / Andrew Hamilton [AU; Eureka Street; #ordinationofwomen #celibacy] http://alturl.com/ab28s * Bp Morris: 'You’ve got to stand in your truth.' / Roberts & McElwee [AU; National Catholic Reporter; #celibacy] http://alturl.com/jjhgk
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