What is going to the brand new 12 months deliver within the lifetime of the church in the USA? As we discovered final 12 months, we by no means know what unexpected occasions will enlighten or becloud all else. We will discern three main themes that can largely form the 12 months forward: the connection between the USA bishops and the Biden administration, the Year of the Family, the appointments of latest bishops in some vital sees, and the way the church will proceed to deal with COVID-19. Then, simply earlier than the tip of the 12 months, a brand new main theme emerged, arguably essentially the most explosive: vital upheaval at EWTN.
We’re all nonetheless making an attempt to determine what’s going on at EWTN, the conservative Catholic media conglomerate. They cancelled Gloria Purvis’ “Morning Glory” and Fr. Larry Richards’ “Open Line” radio reveals. Purvis was essentially the most outstanding African American at EWTN and Richards was a lonely defender of Pope Francis on the in any other case hostile community. Media organizations undergo shakeups on a regular basis, however ousting two voices of sanity, together with one of many few minority voices on the community, whereas retaining Raymond Arroyo, who shills for President Donald Trump and leads a seminar in anti-Pope Francis conspiracy theories weekly, is unusual at finest. At worst, it’s extremely sectarian.
The community introduced some new reveals and I shall be maintaining a tally of one specifically. “EWTN News In-Depth” can be hosted by Montserrat “Montse” Alvarado, government director on the Becket Fund for Spiritual Liberty. I attended a convention with Alvarado on overcoming polarization hosted by Georgetown College’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, and she or he is definitely able to mounting an attention-grabbing tv program. I fear, nevertheless, that her time at Becket has not inoculated her from the conflation of faith and politics that’s the central drawback at EWTN. It was telling that the EWTN-owned Catholic Information Company’s (CNA) article about the new show states that it’ll “will supply the Catholic perspective and evaluation on the highest tales of the week.” That may be a mistake, however a telling one. EWTN presents “a” Catholic perspective, not “the” Catholic perspective.
Simply as attention-grabbing was the shock departure of J.D. Flynn, editor, and Ed Condon, Washington bureau chief, from CNA. Flynn mentioned he was leaving for private and household causes, however such departures are hardly ever abrupt and are normally accompanied by an announcement of a transition, none of which occurred. This week, Flynn and Condon introduced they’re launching a new platform, “The Pillar.” Flynn spills plenty of ink explaining how they plan to be completely different from different journalists, recounting a dialog with an archbishop “some years in the past” on the lodge in Baltimore the place the bishops’ convention meets. Flynn requested concerning the propriety of holding the conferences at such a lavish venue and the archbishop brushed it off. Flynn writes:
There’s a type of journalism which might use that story to color a one-dimensional caricature of Catholic bishops, or use clericalism amongst bishops to decrease the veracity of their non secular claims. There are commentators who would dismiss out of hand, with no analysis or evaluation, the chance that an costly lodge may truly be the economical selection for bishops’ conferences, stirring up anger, not solutions, in an effort to get clicks and a focus.
There are additionally journalists who would by no means query the expense in any respect. After which there are those that may increase the query, however do not know get the reply.
We would like The Pillar to be a distinct type of journalism.
Excuse me for stating that, earlier than he talks concerning the misbegotten methods different journalists may deal with the important thing truth right here — “A waterfront Baltimore lodge may very effectively be the only option for the bishops, and it would even be essentially the most economical” — he admits that he by no means investigated that key truth: “I did not know then, and I nonetheless do not know.” Is not {that a} unusual instance of excellent journalism?
The truth that Flynn selected such a narrative confirms one thing that can, time beyond regulation, flip this pillar into the type of factor at which the Lord was scourged: He and Condon usually are not actually journalists in any respect, they’re canon legal professionals, and typically they appear to not acknowledge the road between journalism and propaganda regardless of how brilliant that line is, as Paul Moses demonstrated brilliantly at Commonweal.
Adjustments at a media group, even a big and influential one, may appear to be an odd factor to give attention to when analyzing the 12 months forward within the Catholic Church, however EWTN is not only any media group. In response to its newest publicly available tax filing, on its board sit each Archbishop José Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles and president of the U.S. bishops’ convention, and Archbishop Charles Chaput, former Archbishop of Philadelphia. Why Gomez and Chaput haven’t been keen or capable of arrest the anti-Francis tenor of a number of the present’s applications is a vital and attention-grabbing query.
Which results in the second merchandise that can form the 12 months forward: Nobody ought to be shocked that the U.S. bishops as a physique could be so pleasant with the Republican Occasion that they’ve misplaced their ethical compass. Their fixation on a single difficulty — abortion — has led them into the camp of Republicans that’s incapable of even elevating their voice towards the assaults on our democracy coming from President Trump. As David Gibson, director the Middle on Faith & Tradition at Fordham College, tweeted:
When even Paul Ryan could be stirred to talk it is all of the extra attention-grabbing that the US Bishops have (collectively) not made a peep concerning the risk to the Republic, which isn’t actually a very good search for a church which has not at all times been carefully related to liberal democracy.
Not a “good look”? The way it seems is the least of it. All through the twentieth century, U.S. bishops led the best way in decreasing the Catholic Church’s historic antipathy to democracy, lastly overcoming it on the Second Vatican Council and in 60 years of papal educating.
Unwilling to defend democracy within the public sq. and unwilling to defend the pope on the largest Catholic media outlet, the U.S. bishops’ convention is nonetheless decided to deliver President-elect Joe Biden to heel. The announcement on the finish of this 12 months’s digital plenary that the convention was establishing an advert hoc committee to deal with the incoming administration was tone deaf and likewise ridiculous. Regardless of the need of some bishops for the convention to demand Biden be denied Communion, that call rests with the brand new president’s new pastor, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, and he has already indicated he has no plans to turn the altar rail into a partisan battleground.
The election of a brand new normal secretary on the U.S. bishops’ convention, Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill, bodes effectively. Burrill is conservative however not loopy. However employees don’t drive the convention, the bishops do, and I worry a majority of them can be on the lookout for alternatives to conflict with the Biden administration. There are a number of points on which the stance of the incoming administration is much nearer to that of the Catholic Church than the outgoing one, however that won’t matter. Along with the tradition warrior bishops, too many others merely don’t wish to threat the telephone calls and emails that standing as much as the right-wing base of the church entails. I do know one bishop who, when he does something he is aware of will ignite a firestorm amongst conservatives in his diocese, brings flowers and sweets to the secretaries who reply the telephones on the chancery. It’s a good suggestion. Conservative Catholics have, of their complicity with Trump, squandered any proper to veto a bishop’s actions by their hostility.
The Holy Father has mentioned that starting on March 19, the feast of St. Joseph, the common church will embark upon a 12 months of reflection on Amoris Laetitia, the 2016 apostolic exhortation he promulgated following the dual synods on the household. At these synods and when the doc got here out, a lot of the main target was positioned on a controversial footnote that opened the door for divorced and remarried Catholics to obtain the sacraments.
Jesuit Fr. James Keenan organized three conferences for bishops and theologians to debate the textual content again in 2018, following a really profitable three-day assembly to replicate upon the doc Keenan organized with Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich in 2017. I used to be lucky sufficient to attend that first assembly, and it was so refreshing to have interaction the various points the doc raises apart from communion for the divorced and remarried. Will probably be attention-grabbing to see if the bishops’ convention takes up this chance for reflection the Holy Father has offered now, or if, as they did 5 years in the past, they go away the reflection to others as a result of it might be too divisive for the convention to have interaction. I worry that the topic will nonetheless be too scorching to deal with. As I noted last week, too many bishops don’t assume there may be something to discern, that there isn’t a want for synodal discussions, that they’ve all of the solutions they want within the catechism.
It’s unhappy but additionally greater than unhappy. The pope has given his fellow bishops an express invitation. If they’re unable or unwilling to meaningfully interact his request, what does that say? It’s clear that sure fringe conservative teams like Church Militant and LifeSiteNews are de facto schismatic, however what number of bishops qualify as proto-schismatic?
Which brings us to the perennial matter of which key dioceses will obtain new bishops this coming 12 months. Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs turned 75 final March, so his substitute might come at any time. The diocese shouldn’t be massive, serving solely about 176,000 Catholics, however it is a vital important project as a result of Sheridan has been a frontrunner among the many most excessive abortion-only bishops, and close by Denver is floor zero for opposition to the pope. Having a Francis-friendly bishop down the street would assist create stability within the province.
The one metropolitan who turns 75 this 12 months is Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville. Home to 200,000 Catholics, the archdiocese shouldn’t be massive, however the province contains all of Kentucky and Tennessee. Two of the bishops who’re most in sync with Pope Francis, Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, and Bishop David Talley of Memphis, are among the many suffragans, though it’s unlikely Talley could be elevated to the metropolitan see, provided that he inherited a multitude in Memphis in 2019.
The bishop of one of many quickest rising cities in America, Phoenix, Bishop Thomas Olmsted, doesn’t flip 75 till January of 2022, however the nuncio ought to begin trying now. Some 1.2 million Catholics live in the diocese, they usually have been led by one of many worst tradition warrior bishops within the nation. Olmsted referred to as for a 54-day novena for the nation final 12 months, and among the many issues he requested the Catholic folks of Phoenix to wish for was “the rejection of all types of collectivism.” I hope he’s not getting Medicare or Social Safety. In any occasion, I’m positive the metropolitan of the area, Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester, can discover a appropriate pastor to advocate to the nuncio.
How the church copes with COVID-19 is tough to guess. There’s a lot we have no idea. How quickly will most of us be vaccinated? How a lot of a monetary drain has the pandemic positioned on parochial and diocesan coffers? Has the perdurance of this virus modified the cultural contours of our society such that extra folks can be receptive to faith? Or will individuals who have stopped going to church by no means return? These are very important questions, however I wouldn’t have a clue how they are going to shake out.
These are a number of the tales I can be following right here at Distinctly Catholic this 12 months. Glad Three Kings Day to every body.
