Where Are Our Bishops?

I think this post on the Muniment Room has some really important and necessary insights. It really joins together the dots so that you can see how things fit together.

It begins by examining the position of Catholic Voices, how much authority does the organisation  have to speak on catholic issues? Who guarantees their Catholicity? These are questions which were voiced at the organisation's inception.

Officialy, the authoritative source about Catholicism in the UK is the Catholic Communications Network (CCN) of the CBCEW.

Catholic Voices then, is a conduit; a simple way for a media outlet to find an "every day Catholic" to comment when it needs somebody who isn't an official spokesman for the Church (mind you, when was the last time you saw any "official spokesperson for the Church"?).

However, Ttony reports "that any call to the CCN asking for a Catholic comment on an issue of the moment gets forwarded routinely to CV and that, furthermore, requests to discuss current Catholic views on difficult sexual matters (the new frontline: not sex, or contraception, or the "remarriage" of the divorced, but gay rights, gender etc - the letters that come after LGB) were getting no results: that beyond "compassion for all" there didn't seem to be a willingness to put forward an identifiable Catholic viewpoint."

Ttony also points out that the Catholic Education Service (CES), led by Paul Barber, recently hosted a study day for CV which was aimed a coming up with a definitive "line to take" on transgenderism. Given the manifest errors in the CES's own document on this issue, largely plagiarised from LGBT lobbyists, it is really very worrying that Catholic Voices, the "go to" organisation for the media to find out what the Church teaches, appears to be looking for a moral lead from the CES!?

Ttony's point in all this is, quite simply, where are our bishops?

We know that the bishops are divided and therefore cannot teach with authority. They therefore remain silent. The lack of agreement means that they cannot control agencies of their Conference deciding what should be said: if only some of the Bishops contradict the CES, then by implication the others are in favour of it, thus the disagreement has surfaced.

The obvious truth Ttony concludes is:

The Bishops are the problem. It is they who should be telling us what Amoris Laetitia means, not a bunch of laypeople.

Each of our Bishops should be on his cathedra, telling us what Amoris Laetitia means. Not to do so is a dereliction. It is little short of a scandal that our pastors are not shepherding us. If they think that the proclamation of orthodoxy by some is less valuable than silence and a pretence of unity, then there is a serious crisis of episcopal identity. Bishops don't exist to be silently united in their national conferences: they are there to confirm the brethren.

I cannot agree more with these sentiments. I feel it is a great scandal that the bishops are not teaching and thus total confusion reigns and Satan has a field day. The easiest solution to the current crisis involves bishops affirming the teaching of the Church, the fact that they haven't demonstrates that many of them disagree with that teaching on some fundamental level, and that is the most worrying thing.

Another thing that occurs to me is to wonder what the lay people who are prepared to take up the mantle which should be worn by the bishops think about all this? If you were a devout, faithful Catholic, would it not occur to you that the bishops should have your back? By taking their place, are they actually allowing the bishops to get away with shirking their duties? Rather than getting annoyed with bloggers, should Paul Barber actually be asking the bishops for some answers and some proper direction? What led him to commission such a dreadfully incoherent and erroneous piece of propaganda in the first place?

As long as the bishops stay silent, the need for lay people to speak out for the faith increases. No wonder they hate bloggers!

Please do read and ponder Ttony's full post here.