UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
[with video]
William D. Lindsey
Yesterday, Rolando mentioned in a comment here that he misses hearing from Jerry Slevin. I told Rolando that I suspect he’s far from the only reader of this blog who watches for an opportunity to read anything Jerry writes, and I reminded him that Jerry posts continuously at his Christian Catholicism site. Here’s the opening section of a posting Jerry has just made there about the revolt of Catholics in Chile after Pope Francis appointed Juan Barros, who has been accused of helping other priests cover up abuse of children, the new bishop of Osnoro:
Pope Francis is publicly and disappointingly increasing the gap between his noble words and his less noble deeds. As he faced a major Catholic revolt in Chile over his inexplicable appointment of a bishop allegedly linked to the abuse scandal there, he and his staff carefully avoided publicly acknowledging the Chilean revolt, a major turning point. Instead, in another subject changing whirlwind trip, to Naples this time, the pope pontificated on the usual “safer suspects” like the Mafia, immigration, gossip and poor workers. His compliant media entourage avoided pressing the Chilean revolt subject with the pope and his media machine.
Francis’ opportunistic “media groupies” may love him, but Latino parents seem to have reached their limit. Chilean parents understand, better apparently than the celibate Vatican and some of the seemingly clueless childless among the media, Nelson Mandela’s reported wise words, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.” …
The video at the head of the posting is the You Tube video to which Jerry’s link above points, uploaded by a user named soyosorno. What strikes me about the video: all those hierarchical figures and priests, all those men, marching with stolid determination through crowds shouting at them, in some cases, engaging them, even pulling on their sleeves, asking that they stop the charade.
That they stop and listen.
They do not intend to stop. They do not intend to listen. They intend to carry out their program, no matter what. No matter what the people of God, who are obviously . . . well, energized here . . . say to them. No matter how many members of the people of God, who constitute the church, ask them to engage in respectful, meaningful conversation with us.
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