Open War Amoung US Bishops

Yesterday saw an extraordinary development in the USA when Bishop Thomas Paprocki, bishop of Springfield, Illinois, and chairman-elect of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance had an essay published in First Things which did everything except publicly name Cardinal Robert McElroy & Cardinal Blaise Cupich as heretics.

The First Things essay did not mention McElroy by name, but it cited directly a Jan. 24 essay in America magazine from Cardinal Robert McElroy, which argued that the Church should “embrace a eucharistic theology that effectively invites all of the baptized to the table of the Lord.”

McElroy said the Church should discard “a theology of eucharistic coherence that multiplies barriers to the grace and gift of the eucharist.”

“Unworthiness cannot be the prism of accompaniment for disciples of the God of grace and mercy,” McElroy wrote, in a text quoted by Paprocki.

A number of U.S. bishops have responded to McElroy: Barron (twice), Aquila, Naumann, Conley, and Paprocki among them. Some of the responses have grown rather strong.

Paprocki’s essay said that those statements are “contrary to a ‘truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith,’” and therefore constitute material heresy.

And he is right, it is what we have all been thinking and McElroy's essay in America was scandalous, perhaps even more so because he was scandalously promoted to cardinal above and before his metropolitan archbishop, José Gómez, and then immediately set about making his heretical views public.

Gómez, you would have thought, was a perfectly placed candidate for a Cardinalate. Archbishop of the Archdiocese of San Antonio since 2004. He was named one of Time's 25 most influential Hispanics in the United States, and in 2007 he was on CNN's list of "Notable Hispanics" in a web special celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month.

On April 6, 2010, Gómez was appointed coadjutor archbishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles by Pope Benedict XVI. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is the largest Catholic diocese in the nation, with Hispanics comprising more than two-thirds of the archdiocese's five million Catholics. Gómez succeeded scandal ridden Cardinal Roger Mahony on March 1, 2011, with a transition ceremony held on February 27, 2011. He is the first Hispanic to serve as archbishop of Los Angeles, as well as the highest-ranking Hispanic bishop in the United States. On November 12, 2019, he was elected USCCB president.

Perfect cardinal material from a see traditionally raised to the cardinalate (a la his predecessor Mahoney). But Gómez is orthodox, so Francis picked the most scandalously unorthodox bishop under Gómez, McElroy, and made him a cardinal instead! It is hard to read this as anything other than a slap to orthodox prelates everywhere. It would also seem to suggest that above equality and diversity and all that rubbish Pope Francis plays lip service to, his priority really is pushing a progressive agenda through the promotion of openly heretical men to influential positions in the Church.

My point is, the war now breaking out in the USCCB is a war which has been orchestrated, provoked and fermented by the Pope.

If the Pope is going to promote individuals like Cupich, who has a terrible record for destroying the faith in his diocese, to the cardinalate, is anyone really surprised that there's a backlash?

Thank you Bishop Paprocki for your clear and important article. It needed to be said and needs to be addressed for the good of the Church. https://t.co/WfRyUrtULV

— Bishop J. Strickland (@Bishopoftyler) February 28, 2023

Bishop Paprocki has followed up by clarifying his essay to The Pillar. In his comments there we can easily see that US bishops have been talking among themselves about this since McElroy's problematic America article as Bishop Paprocki states "We have passed beyond the point of private conversations"

Paprocki likened the situation to the Arian heresy, saying "if the bishops who were staying true to the Church just kept quiet, well then, we wouldn’t be where we are today in terms of having clarification about that.”

Personally, I am really glad Bishop Paprocki has spoken out and clearly (see above) Bishop Strickland is behind him. I think it fair to say that Paprocki would not have publicly called out McElroy unless it had been cleared and he had support. Paprocki is widely considered to be a "company man", so it seems extremely unlikely that he has gone rogue as it were. I think the most worrying development here is that we now have heretics voting in conclave for Pope Francis's successor. Perhaps that was the plan all along?