AmericanPapist Comments
Great line, AmPap, about clearing one's desk for Easter.
Folks can check out http://www.canonlaw.info/
canonla...nlaw_excomm.htm
Free advice for the Pope: Remove Abp. Wuerl from Washington, and install Abp. Burke.
Thank God for sending the Archdiocese of St Louis such a faithful shepherd who guards his flock so well! God bless him for his fidelity to Holy Mother Church.
God bless Archbishop Burke. All of our bishops should look to him as an example.
No, no, send Abp. Burke to Los Angelos and make him a cardinal!
No, no, send Abp. Burke to Los Angelos and make him a cardinal!
Let the bidding begin!
WFW: Mahony is nearing retirement age. My point is precisely that Wuerl should be removed prematurely and abruptly--to send a message to the entire American hierarchy, and to make room for Burke, who would do the job of a bishop, which Wuerl refuses to do. Washington, not Los Angeles, is where Congress meets.
God bless Archbishop Burke! More like him, please, Lord!
Indeed. I'm a big fan of Burke's.
Fr. Joe: I would love for Abp Burke to come to DC--it would be a great blessing--but isn't it more of Abp Sambi's job to be the spokesman for the Church to the government and not the Archbishop of Washington? Maybe the Pope should replace him instead? I mean Sambi is the papal legate after all, not Abp Weurl. Besides, maybe its just me, but I would be more inclined to fix the liturgical and pastoral problems of a major archdiocese like Los Angleos before putting someone as spectacular as Abp Burke in Washington. Washington is in a powerful location but the archbishops usually (I mean in the past fifty years or so) have not had very much sway with the government.
Besides, Washington is somewhat peculiar in that it has a very little province whereas if there were a forceful Metropolitan in the Los Angelos province he could have a major impact all throught California.
WFW: But obeying Canon 915 is NOT "speaking to the government." It is simply doing the bishop's job of protecting the Eucharist from sacrilegious reception, and preventing scandal. Abp. Sambi is not the ordinary of Washington, and exercises no authority over the clergy in Washington.
The scandal is that, if a bishop allows publicly pro-abortion people to receive Communion, the clear implication is that they are not sinning by promoting abortion. Which implies that it is not a sin to vote for them. Ultimately, there is no way for the Church to allow Ted Kennedy or John Kerry or Nancy Pelosi to receive Communion without implying that there is no sin involved in PROCURING an abortion. As long as Wuerl remains in Washington (Wuerl has publicly assured us, repeatedly) Canon 915 is a dead letter. Which means that as long as Wuerl is in Washington, the Catholic Church in Washington teaches that procured abortion is not an injustice, not a sin. This is not my wacko, fringe opinion. This is the position of Abp. Burke, who has made precisely this logical connection: A bishop who refuses to obey Canon 915 teaches his people that abortion is no sin, no evil, no injustice.
WFW: The value of putting Burke in Washington (assuming the Pope takes my advice) is not that the government is in Washington, but that so many pro-abortion Catholics who are in the government are in Washington. If those pro-abortion Catholics are not allowed to receive Communion in Washington, the ordinaries of all the dioceses they come from will have to explain why being pro-abortion is a mortal sin in Washington, but not in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, New York, Dismal Seepage, etc.
I completely agree with you Fr. Joe, I guess my point is that it would be better to stop sacrilegious celebrations of the Mass before worrying about sinful reception of the Eucharist. I think it is simply that are priorities are different. Believe me, I know firsthand how strange things are in DC and would like nothing better than to have Abp. Burke come here and get things back on track—morally, doctrinally and liturgically—its just that based on the way the current pope works I don’t think its going to happen. Of course, come April 20th or so [after the pope’s visit to DC] things might be different .
Do Senators Kennedy and Kerry and Speaker Pelosi actually present themselves for Holy Communion in D.C?
How frequently, I wonder, do they attend Mass?
I believe that Sen. Kennedy's D.C. residence is actually in Virginia, not he District, so it seems more likely that, if he attends at all, he would do so in a Virginia Diocese. I'm not sure about Sen. Kerry.
And wouldn't the Bishops of their home Dioceses be equally on the hook here? For Kennedy it's the Diocese of Fall River, MA (he lives in the town of Barnstable, on Cape Cod). Sen. Kerry, I believe, lives in the Archdiocese of Boston, Speaker Pelosi, presumably, in San Francisco.
Little Donnie Wuerl, a little, little girl. He's a joke and not a bloke, little Donnie Wuerl. Tom
ps: if Benedict appointed this clown, he should fire the guy that suggested this girlieman.
Benedict appointed Wuerl fully aware of what pastoral approach the man would bring after serving as Pittsburgh's bishop for 18 years. Not only does he appoint Wuerl to the See of D.C., but he visits D.C. on his first, and perhaps only, to the United States, but the Pope had the final word on Wuerl's appointment to the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God. Looks like someone enjoys the Holy Father's confidence while others belittle the person. I can only imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth when he's made a Prince of the Church in 2010.
Nathan: We don't know what the Pope knew about or expected from Abp. Wuerl. We don't know what the Pope thinks of Wuerl now. What we do know is that Abp. Burke's case for what a bishop's duty is, is conclusive, and Wuerl rejects Burke's conclusive argument. Of course, Wuerl has not and will not write an article making any case for his inaction, because there is no case for it. There's only the impunity that comes from being an ordinary. BTW: The fact that the pro-abortion politicians in Washington are from all over the country is irrelevant. We are not talking about excommunication or any other penalty. We are talking about the authority of the Abp. of Washington over his own priests, deacons, and extraordinary ministers of Communion. If you believe this is an issue of imposing some kind of penalty, then you haven't read Abp. Burke's article.
You think the Pope signed off on his first major American appointment blindly? As I'm sure you know, one of the major tasks of the Congregation for Bishops is to compile dossiers of bishops and potential bishops and vet them for the Pope's approval. It's well known that this pope takes a much keener interest in the appointment process than did JP II. There's little if anything to suggest that he didn't know what he was getting with Wuerl, and, given the evidence that the Pope takes seriously his job of appointing local shepherds, most everything to suggest that he did.
Archbishop Burke might very well wind up in D.C., but Wuerl doesn't turn 75 for another 7 1/2 years. So be patient.
The Pope is like any other head of an organization: He relies on the reports of others to make episcopal appointments. Abp. Wuerl, in the face of other candidates for the position, was probably recommended to Benedict by the USCCB and his own Vatican sources. It's also worth considering that Abp. Burke may have been kept in St. Louis because of the particularly pernicious problems there with the schismatic Polish priest and the RCWP movement. A lesser bishop could have made the situation in St. Louis more toxic than it already is.
Up here in wintery Canada, we recently celebrated the appointment of Abp. Tom Collins to the Diocese of Toronto, which is Canada's largest with some 2 million members. Abp. Collins spent several years in the Diocese of Edmonton (think Dallas of the North), where his leadership helped cultivate a vibrant, orthodox Catholicism that is now blessing the Church in Canada with many seminarians and applicants to religious orders. Before Edmonton, Abp. Collins was known as an promoter and defender of orthodoxy, but he needed to cut his teeth before he was given a large and politically significant diocese. The same metric is and has probably been applied to Abp. Burke, so expect him to arrive at a large diocese in the near future.
Personally, I hope Abp. Burke winds up in a large diocese like Los Angeles, Chicago or New York.
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