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Friday 20 March 2015

"Can we talk....?"

 That's the plea from, (no, not Sr. Mary Joan Rivers,)
Image result for joan rivers as a nun
(Ya know, if she had spoken Catholish, it would have been, "Can we break into small discussion groups with facilitators for each one?")

but from a few loose threads on the fringes of Catholicism -
clericalism pervades the Church at all levels. It's not just bishops who insulate themselves from the voices of lay people and, sometimes, their own priests. It's not just the priest or pastor who assumes license to overrule all other input and ignore parishioners' voices. It's also lay people with a "Father says" or "what will Father think" attitude. 
I've said it before and I'll say it again, clericalism isn't even in the same league as the "demi-clericalism" running rampant in many American parishes, there is NO ONE as eager to "assume license", "overrule all other input" and "ignore parishioners' voices" as a Catholic lay minister with certification from some other Catholic lay minister who manages to gain for himself control of any facet of parish life.
(And by "himself" I almost always mean "herself.")
And if there are two such at odds? Bloodsport.
Of course, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church has fringes on both sides, the selvages are unravelling -
Richard Williamson, the bishop consecrated by Lefebvre and dismissed from the Fraternity of St. Pius X in 2012 [ordained] a new bishop... on the feast of St. Joseph in the monastery of Santa Cruz in Nova Friburgo, Brazil.... The consecration of a bishop without a papal mandate will make the ordaining party, ... the person being ordained, ... liable to a latae sententiae excommunication. 
Good Saint Joseph, Guardian of Our Lord, and Guardian of the Church Universal, pray for us!

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