www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News What good is vision without clergy?

Randy,

Did I miss something?

Many years,

Neil

I have spoken to Father Tom on the phone before when I was looking for an address for Tom Petty, and I did not find him to be too welcoming. Besides you said that you would make sure that he saw my posts. You indicated that he had spoken to you about retired priests, and I do believe that it would be equally possible for him to make inquiry with me, if he was indeed interested in any way.

Maru

To get back to the original topic, you could almost say what good is clergy without vision? Without vision, aren't we just going through the same habitual, mindless routines with no thought for the future?

Without good, healthy and happy clergy or any clergy at all we have no sacraments, no gospel preached, no spiritual direction, no spiritual writing...OH!!...what's spiritual writing have to do with clergy?....

Without clergy we got nuthin' but a bishop, his "staff", and a copy machine.

I would think that kind of perspective you are suggesting here is more appropriate to a healthy Church who takes good care of their old and weak parishoners regardless of what it costs.

You take care of the clergy that you do have and you do not terrorize them to the point where they can't even preach the Gospel for fear someone will call the bishop who is known for making dire threats...and carrying them out, without due process.

You don't talk about vision instead of people. A vision begins with how to husband and shepherd what you have, where you are, now. If the foundation is sand...well...the house just slides into the sea.

And that was the idea when I started this topic. It appears to me that nobody seems to want to really address the situation unless it is to scrabble to distance one's self, or make it go away with a word...<poof>

The situation needs not only to be addressed it needs to be redressed.

Anybody know how many canonical cases have been taken against Bishop Andrew for trying to "short change" his clergy in the past decade? The winner never takes all...not even his due. Just goes away happy for whatever little bit is possible after the fight's over. Why would one have to fight for what one earns?

Is that how one treats a priest? or manages accounts?

You want a vision? Remove your blinders. Do something. Ask questions. Demand answers. You'll get an eye and an ear full...but it will greatly improve your vision.

Blessings....Maru

Actually, Manu, we probably have more clergy than we need right now. Or better put, we haven't enough people for the clergy we have. The salaries for them are artificially low because the ratio of people to clergy is too low.

Dan L

Maru, I sympathize. But you don't seem to realize many of us live far from Passaic and have no influence on anything that happens there. Tennessee is directly under Metropolitan Basil, not Bishop Andrew. For what it's worth, I have never even met Bishop Andrew.

I have pointed out your posts. He indicates that there is a modest but adequate pension for clergy. Since I'm not clergy and I don't know how to gain access to pension reports I don't know what else to do. If you know how to access such information please let me know.

Dan L

Dear Maru,

I just happened to catch your message. Be careful what you say about some bishop. On trips to Pittsburgh I had occasion to visit with the late Bishop John B. of Blessed Memory at his residence next to the Chancery. I recall one conversation where Rome was calling a certain bishop from the Metropolia (like it did with the late Bishop Nicholas T.E. However, at the last minute - the "recall" was crushed. There was a mess in the Eparchy; there were "meetings" and discontent. And what later happened - a transfer to a new location.

If you look at the latest photo in their publication and who is sitting very close to, rumor has three names as a successor. Evidently the chaos in Rome with the late ailing JPII and his passing, change may be in the wind since the age of retirement is "beyond" . So you may see PL JB GD as possible "heirs to the throne". The Holy Spirit is getting ready!

In the very recent past we as a Church were growing by leaps and bounds. We are a sui juris Metropolia in the United States and we were building parishes like wild fire in the 1970's, and the seminary was full...it's a matter of record... until somebody decided that we dared not "offend" the Latin rite bishops, and so rather than being an evangelical Church today, we impovrish our clergy, bust the good men with years of experience and training down to private, coddle the sexual predators and substance abusers, and drive people away.

It is enough to drive one absolutely insane to "read" the history of this Church in the last half of the 20th century.

Now, not only is our liturgy stripped to gawd awful remenants of what used to be the magnificent liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but our rural parishes are dying or being snuffed out prematurely, our Metropolitans behave like a second class citizens when they should raise their heads like patriarchs, and tyrannical bishops think that if it is legal it is moral and that a tyrrant's crown in theirs by the personal power of the Holy Spirit, and the only way to prevent rebellion is to sew the seeds of fear and doubt by destroying lives and daring anyone to complain publicly.

Well I have watched it as a "mutt" in this Church for nearly a decade and if I can know the names of the abused parishes and clergy, then anyone can know them for the asking.

You will also be able to find the names of those sexual predators and substance abusers who have been coddled while good men have been reduced to beggary and the charity of friends, or simply gone away and died!!!

I am disgusted by the fact that nobody has stood up in eight years and said "ENOUGH!" Because if I, Madame Nobody, knows...you all can know and many of you DO know and have said nothing!!

What kind of vision is going to cut through all of that!!

Maru

Manu,

I don't know about the decay of the liturgy. I have heard of the coddling of sexual abusers especially by Bsp. Pataki but had thought the problems had been taken care of. I know that the bishops tend to cower in the corner.

Can anyone on the board confirm or deny the charges made here?

Dan L

Maru,
There are a lot of people who know a lot of things, myself included. The issue may be that not everyone wants to post dirt/name names of 'predators' etc on a public forum such as this. I think every which way has been tried here to coax others to get into this discussion. Hopefully it won't happen.

I will give you my opinion on the State of the Eparchy. Morale is not as low as it once was. I don't want to go as far as to say your news is old news, but take another look around."Coddled" persons for the most part have died or left on their own. Good men continue to do good work and things are progressing. Slackers are found in every profession, and generally committed people work around them.

There is a retirement board in place, put there by the bishop himself if I remember correctly.

Your continued public attacks of the Bishop of Passaic, spanning years already, quite frankly make it look like you have more than a personal vendetta.
In spite of his 'terrorizing' or quirky personality, he is still the bishop. We can complain just as we do about our bosses, etc. but to try to drag his name/ our eparchy into a forum like this to trash him publicly is frankly unchristian and unprofessional.

He is not to blame for dwindling numbers- we all are. If adult MEN cower and shake at the sight of a 78 year old , at least part of the problem is with their own passivity. The victim mentality rampant throughout our history is exactly why we are where we are. We ALLOW ourselves to be stepped on, abused, treated like the hunkies we still are.
I think Fr. Loya, whom I've never met, has a good plan. We need to look beyond present administrations/politics, etc. Somebody has to start to focus on the much bigger picture.

I could go on, but I have to get back to work.
I applaud the good men of Passaic. Life hasn't been easy, but they continue to sacrifice themselves to the best of their ability for the good of our Church. God will provide, in His time, in His way. Keep the Faith!

Sam

This is a fascinating response Sam. It seems you have some inside track if you can say that morale has improved in the Passaic diocese. Have you checked since their presbyteral daze? I don't think you know what you are talking about.

Now that you've falsely accused me, I can tell you that I have no vendetta. I don't even live in the diocese. Nobody closed my parish. Nobody ruined my parish priest. So you are in the unenviable position of having publicly tried to smear me here. Bad shot...Nice miss!!

I know men and of men, priests who have been dealt with uncanonically and literally broken, materially, physically and spiritually. These are the good men of which you speak so casually, as though their suffering is expected...perhaps even demanded, Sam?

For the uninitiated, any bishop at any time can leave a priest totally impoverished, pull the plug on his pension, kill his health benefits and literally hang him out to dry and unless the man has a canonist willing to work for free, and free to work for free, and a place to live and eat and get medical care, till there is a settlement, that priest is what's fondly known as SOL...And that boys is where the terror just begins.

Any one of you who thinks I am just a crazy malcontent would pee your pants if you were in such a position of abject dependence and had to watch the hammer fall on your own heads....you'd grovel and whine of the rank unfairness of it all.

Only when is not happening to you is it apparently acceptable.

I cannot believe you folks don't know these things.

Sam clearly knows or he would not have come on the attack at me.

Bishop Andrew needs to leave now, Sam. And those men who have been falsely treated and harmed need to be identified and restitution made to their lives to the best of the ability of the entire Metropolia.

What has gone on is shameful and your attempts to try to shut me up and not at all innocent.

Blessings....Mary

Dear Mary,

You say "he" needs to leave now. Easier said than done. Did you ever see the list of the "37" who signed against the late Bishop Nicholas Elko? One name was on the list and this person said he never signed. His star was rising. You would be surprised to see who was "advanced" after the signing!

The late Bishop Fulton Sheen faced a similar situation like Bishop Nicholas.

Does history repeat itself? Get my drift?

Signing against a relative young person (NTE) may be acted upon faster than someone who
has been collecting SS for the last 10+ years.

Pray the Holy Spirit does His job ..and quickly!

Mary,

You could help us all by directing us to the documents or to the people that are the sources for your charges. You may have access to documents that most of the rest of us do not have. But what am I supposed to do with the charges you bring forth when I don't even know where to begin to look?

Dan L

Mary,

It seems to me that accusations of misdeeds by bishops are best made through the appropriate Church authorities. If your accusations are true then they are best resolved in a way that does not cause scandal in the Church. If your accusations are not true then they should not be made at all.

If you have proof to support your accusations then you are obliged to take that proof to someone in the Church who has the authority to address them (the apostolic nuncio in Washington, DC is probably a good place to start). I don�t see anything that that can be accomplished by your posting accusations without proof here, except creating scandal.

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