By CHRISTOPHER MANION
The results in Virginia’s November second election were pretty close to earthshaking on several levels. However, one dimension has received scant attention in the media, but it has set the ground to trembling under two specific locations in the Commonwealth: the buildings that house the chanceries of the Diocese of Arlington and the Diocese of Richmond.
Virginia’s two bishops, Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Barry Knestout of Richmond, have been in a bind for four years. In the wake of the abuse and coverup scandals that have dragged on for decades, attorneys general in almost two dozen states have launched investigations of various Catholic dioceses.
Virginia is one of them. Here, Attorney General Mark Herring has demanded and received the personnel files of every Catholic priest in the Commonwealth. We note that those files record not only assignments and health insurance details, but every over-the-transom complaint ever received regarding everything from unmaintained parish entrances to complaints regarding personal behavior of all kinds.
Complain to the bishop about your pastor’s long sermons — especially if they support Humanae Vitae — and your letter goes into his permanent file.
Now, back to Herring. While there has been scant public news regarding what he has done to pursue his alleged investigation, the tactic has had its desired consequences: Both Burbidge and Knestout have rolled over like a doormat in response to every diktat, mandate, and other policy proclaimed by current Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam, all of them under the umbrella claim that they are designed “to keep us safe.”
Several of those mandates affected Virginia’s Catholics directly. Most importantly, at the governor’s command last year, both bishops immediately closed our churches to the faithful. Mass, Confession, funerals, Baptisms — they were all declared “nonessential,” while abortion doctors were free to keep the doors of their “essential” abortuaries open. But the sidewalks outside were not so open: Pro-life pregnancy counselors there had to fear arrest for breaking Northam’s “distancing” diktats — commands which were, on inspection, enforced only selectively.
On a wider scale, Northam’s lockdowns were ranked as some of the most severe in the United States. Untold thousands of businesses were forced to close down, and hundreds of thousands of Virginians lost their jobs, many of them permanently. The lockdowns affected most severely the community of small and medium-sized businesses who could not survive under the stringent “health” rules imposed by Northam’s government. Larger businesses not only survived but thrived in the absence of those once-flourishing competitors.
And the children of Virginia suffered too. During the administrations of Gov. Northam and his predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, Virginia’s school unions had worked hard to fill the Commonwealth’s Board of Education and other senior positions with apparatchiki whose “progressive” policies quickly trickled down to the local school board level. School boards across Northern Virginia erupted in battles over “gender,” “racism,” the faux biology of “transsexualism,” and the general introduction and proliferation of rank perversion masquerading as science, literature, and civics.
While various citizens’ groups encouraged our bishops to defend Catholic families, the quiet voice of Attorney General Herring and his briefcases full of personnel files was enough to silence then.
A Shift In The Tide
In last Tuesday’s election, Herring was defeated. His successor, Jason Miyares, is the son of a Cuban legal immigrant. He is Virginia’s first Latino attorney general and the first Hispanic elected statewide.
Newly elected Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears is a gun-toting conservative who was the Commonwealth’s first black woman to win a statewide election. And Glenn Youngkin led the Republican ticket and helped the party recapture the majority in the House of Delegates. Youngkin has made it clear that he intends to turn Terry McAuliffe’s agenda upside down.
One of his campaign slogans should cheer Virginia’s Catholics and its bishops: “No more lockdowns!” We will never be locked out of Mass and the other sacraments again — not on his watch. And that provides an inviting opportunity for our bishops to step out from under cover and start doing their job.
Has Bishop Knestout ever publicly admonished the pro-abortion record of Catholic Sen. Tim Kaine, who lives in the Richmond Diocese? Kaine’s pastor likes to give Kaine a standing ovation, an unlikely preamble to a private consultation followed by a public condemnation of Kaine’s obstinate perseverance in manifest grave sin.
Knestout has in the past been quick to admonish and then punish a pastor who was critical of the American bishops’ handling of the sex abuse crisis. Knestout even asked the Vatican to remove the pastor, Fr. Mark White, from the priesthood. Will Knestout finally do his job and address the problem posed by the most powerful pro-abortion Catholic politician in his diocese?
The same opportunity is now presented to Bishop Burbidge. Will he accept it? Cong. Gerry Connolly is one of the most rabid pro-abortion Catholic politicians living in Burbidge’s diocese. Connolly cannot plead ignorance to the Church’s teaching on life: He is a former Maryknoll seminarian, after all.
Will Bishop Burbidge invite Connolly to a private consultation, followed by a public condemnation of Connolly’s obstinate perseverance in manifest grave sin?
The sword of Attorney General Herring no longer hangs over the heads of Bishops Knestout and Burbidge. Will they now act? If not, just what is it that they are afraid of?
A New Day For Virginia?
During the campaign, Democrats brought in their big guns to boost McAuliffe’s campaign. Obama called parents’ outrage at tranny rapes in Loudoun County “fake.” Joe Biden tried to help, but his biggest contribution was his abysmal rating in the polls. McAuliffe tried to run against “Youngkin as Donald Trump,” and Trump rubbed it in after Youngkin’s victory, writing, “All McAuliffe did was talk Trump, Trump, Trump and he lost!…I didn’t even have to go rally for Youngkin, because McAuliffe did it for me!”
In his remarks after his victory, Youngkin made it clear that he was going to turn McAuliffe’s agenda upside down. He concentrated on education because, early in the campaign, he gave the impression that he was focusing more on “excellence” and “getting things done.” But Youngkin quickly caught up with the wave of parents and families that were outraged at the radical school boards in the very counties most dominated by Democrats in Northern Virginia. He caught it and rode the wave all the way to victory.
Here’s an excerpt — and we can be sure that there will be more to come.
“Friends, we’re going to embrace our parents, not ignore them. We’re going to press forward with a curriculum that includes listening to parents’ input. A curriculum that allows our children to run as fast as they can, teaching them how to think, enabling their dreams, to soar.
“Friends, we are going to re-establish excellence in our schools. We are fighting for parents and students and teachers in our schools. Friends, we will reduce our cost of living — on day one, we will declare the largest tax refund in the history of Virginia. We’re going to eliminate the grocery tax. Suspend the most recent hike in the gas tax. Double everybody’s standard deduction. And we are going to cut taxes on the retirement income of our veterans.
“All in, we are going to save Virginia families $1,500 year one. We’re going to keep our communities safe. We’re going to comprehensively fund law enforcement because they stand up for us and we are going to stand up for them. Higher salaries, better equipment, more training. Programs like unity in the community to work to build trust between law enforcement and those they protect and serve. We’re going protect qualified immunity, invest in our behavioral health system. And finally, we will replace the entire parole board on day one.”
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