Ballsy

In the Fall 2004 issues of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame, Dr. Ralph McInerny has an article in the Ex Cathedra column on the last page. He entitles it, ironically, "A Flock of Shepherds," and it's about the strongest language I've seen from the pen (or keyboard) of McInerny outside of his detective novels. Here goes:

Should members of the bishops conference be allowed to receive communion? Giving aid and comfort to their fellow Democrats is so ingrained a habit that it has fuzzed episcopal minds as to whether a soi-distant Catholic politician who champions abortion is rejecting Church doctrine and thereby qualifies as a public sinner who should be denied the Eucharist. Of course it could be argued that being a politician is already to be a public sinner, but that would be as facetious as my opening sentence, even if one can invoke the authority of Mark Twain for the identification.

Thomas Aquinas, in a quodlibetal question, asked if being a bishop outranks being a theologian. The question may seem quaint in a time when bishops have established a long track record of silence on dissenting theologians. It has become hard to tell the one from the other. Perhaps the episcopal conference fears being charged with inconsistency. After all, to act manfully in the case of dissenting politicians would be in stark contrast to their hands-off policy on theologians who deny the creed.

Father McBrien has advised Catholics to attend to the silence of the bishops on the matter of giving communion to Catholic politicians who are in the vanguard of the Culture of Death. But we have been hearing the silence of the bishops on important matters for decades now, so much so that when a few of them actually act like successors of the Apostles they cause one to check his hearing aid. One had come to think that they were all Trappists of the old observance.

The shambles of the post-conciliar Church is all around us. Most Catholics are unaware of what the Church--by which I mean the Holy Father, Vatican II, the Catholic Catechism-teaches or, if aware, have been led to think that their acceptance of it is optional. Now they have episcopal sanction for this heterodoxy. Who was the saint who wondered if bishops can go to heaven? Another quaint question when the fearful either/or of heaven or hell is also enveloped in episcopal silence.

Hell, now there's one ballsy prof. How utterly refreshing!