Originally posted by Dan Lauffer:
... The lazy and sinful ones and there are plenty of them are chastened or removed and that brings much blessing to the Church. The hard working and faithful ones hear the direction from the good bishops and they happily follow and even do more than what is expected. There are many of those but not as many as the others.
Sadly, a majority of bishops throughout history have not been faithful and have lacked courage. Some have even been evil. They tend to coddle and protect the lazy and faithless priests...
Dan L
Dear Daniel,
I can't imagine what you all might have said about me had I said, as you say above, that we have many more "lazy and sinful" priests than we have faithful, hard-working priests.
And, my goodness, what would you have all said about me had I said, as you say here:
"Sadly, a majority of bishops throughout history have not been faithful and have lacked courage. Some have even been evil. They tend to coddle and protect the lazy and faithless priests."
I am not certain that you can buttress those incredibly broad generalizations as fact, but it is clear to me that you do see my point then in this case.
We need good healthy clergy and hierarchs in order to proceed apace with any visionary evangelical project.
There seem to be at least two canonical factors here we could talk about in terms of evangelical vision:
1) The current selection of bishops:
It seems to me that both east and west in the papal Church have reached a point where bishops are "cloning" themselves, in the selection and election process. There is no input from the clergy or laity, never any question of the holiness of the candidates, or lack thereof, and always the breach of canonical silence on the short-lists.
Now before you all come down my tubes I realize that this cannot be redressed at the diocesan level, nor at the Metropolitan level so I am not suggesting that in be resolved in Parma next month, but it ought to be factored into any thinking on evangelical vision, and personally I think it is time for a "reform of the reform".....
2)The issue of due process
We have seen in the Latin rite the fact that when the bishops met in Dallas to establish a zero-tolerance mandate for sexual sin among clergy, they 1) never included themselves, until quite recently, and 2) never said a word about canonical due process for priests so accused.
I personally know of 11 men, Latin rite priests, who are now without faculties because their bishops came back from Dallas and summarily and immediately dismissed them.
Some of their bishops didn't even bother to drum up charges against them, particularly the young ones who are not pastors and easiest to get rid of without much fuss or bother or challenge.
NOTE: You all do know that canonically you cannot remove a pastor without due process, don't you? Of course, you would know that. It is explicit in Canon Law.
Their "crime" for removal? They were all loudly outspoken across the altar against "militant and active" homosexuals in the priesthood and in the episcopate.
So here one could say that canonical due process is an issue in the hierarchical Church, and one cannot presume, as you note Daniel, a good and faithful bishop.
The canons as they are and have been written, the Code of Justinian, the Decretals of Gratian and every codex since, simply presume the existence of a good, holy bishop who will not willingly do any wrong, or even unwillingly or unwittingly do wrong, or simply posits that God will bring good out of it somehow, which He will, of course. But that provides no excuse for blissfully preparing the ground that will protect evil in the first place. And it certainly does not excuse the habitual lack of redress for wrongdoing within any hierarchy in the universal Church.
One of the things that could be done at the level of the Metropolia is to work to effect a reform of the Tribunal, or an addition to the Tribunal, to include in each diocese and at the level of the Metropolia, a board of examiners, who would not be canonically tied and answerable directly to each individual bishop, as the Tribunals are now, but act at the service of the Archbishop Major, to hear cases that fall outside of the ordinary bounds of due process, where any person from a lay man or woman or a bishop could retreat for discovery and a fair hearing. I have no idea what all this would entail canonically but I'd at least like to see it offered more than passing consideration.
Well that's enough to chew on for one sitting.
I am curious Daniel, how you seem to know so many "lazy" priests, and I know so many hard working ones who are more likely to get slapped for their faithfulness than hugged?
I don't think I have ever met a truly "lazy" priest, and as a woman, I tend to take particular note of such tendencies among men.
Mary
