As you may have heard, the American bishops have been meeting in Baltimore and have issued a document stating that those who dissent from definitive doctrines of the Church shouldn't receive Communion.
My reaction?
Who cares?
It's another bloody piece of paper that gives bishops the feeling they're doing their job.
I note that it is directed towards laypeople rather than bishops.
Oh good, more instructions for the laypeople to ignore.
The root of the problem is not the laypeople! When the head is rotten, the whole body will rot!
"All kinds of people don't understand their responsibilities when going to the Eucharist," said Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Doctrine.
Whose fault is that? Whose job is it to teach the faithful?
The bishops!
But the bishops don't have any guts. Oh sure, they get together and vote on documents, either too blind or too naive to realize that the very problem is that laypeople and church elites consistently ignore these DOCUMENTS!.
Documents, documents, documents.
If documents did anything, we'd have a fairly faithful Churh. They don't do squat.
Why?
BECAUSE THE BISHOPS WON'T ENFORCE THEM!!!!
The snooty university-educated (re: liberal dissent) "pastoral" elites (clergy, "pastoral animators" and other "directors") who deal with the faithful do what they want with these documents. They usually ignore them.
Bishops, what we need is for YOU TO CRACK THE WHIP.
Stop pussyfooting around. Show some intestinal fortitude! Denounce some politicians for the love of Christ! Deny communion, excommunicate, whatever.
Just stop "meeting" and "voting" and ***DO*** something about dissenters.
Why haven't Frances Kissling and Joanne Manning been denounced? Why not Father Raymond Gravel? Why not Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien? Why not John Kerry?
Will their bishops please have the courage to stand up and say they are GRIEVOUSLY WRONG and SHOULD NOT SHOW UP at Communion?
What do you suppose the faithful think when they see prominent Catholics get away with this?
They think it's okay!
They think it's perfectly okay in God's eyes for Catholics to oppose the equal dignity of unborn children. Or any other Catholic doctrine.
Bishops who cannot effectively communicate to the faithful, especially the lapsed and the semi-practicing that this is not okay are useless. The knowledgeable committed Catholics at least try to follow Church teaching.
