By CHRISTOPHER MANION
The USCCB’s fall meeting came and went in Baltimore, with no surprises. The assembled bishops at the Marriott Waterfront Hotel were admittedly daunted, and possibly haunted, by the recent publicity stunts featuring Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and sponsored by Pope Francis, so their sellout on the much-maligned “weaponizing the Eucharist” charade was a done deal months ago. This week they voted to adopt without fanfare a document on the Eucharist, a ploy designed to deflect criticism for their doing nothing about it.
Perhaps they were pondering the threat of Sen. Pat Leahy, the Catholic pro-abortion senator from Vermont. In 2007, Leahy told a reporter that “I’ve always thought that those bishops and archbishops who for decades hid pederasts and are now being protected by the Vatican should be indicted.” That image has chilled the spine of many a prevaricating prelate since: Today Leahy is the senior Senate Democrat and the esteemed chairman emeritus of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
Leahy has just announced that he won’t run for reelection next year. If he wants to take a parting shot to fulfill his longstanding views about coverup bishops and archbishops, he could always subpoena Roger Cardinal Mahony to testify under oath before the committee. Mahony, disgraced by his successor José Gomez (the current USCCB president), had the gall to complain that the conference was discussing the document at all. Why remind the faithful that Mahony spent a billion dollars of the faithful’s money to stay off the witness stand until California’s Statute of Limitations had expired?
Well, not to worry. The prospect of confronting Biden, Pelosi, and the hundred or so Catholic pro-abortion senators and representatives on Capitol Hill has been kicked down the road, or quietly put back in the bottom desk drawer of the general secretary, the officer who runs the USCCB headquarters operations.
Oh, by the way, with a quickly arranged vote this week, the bishops hustled to confirm the appointment of a new occupant of that position. It’s an important one: The general secretary of the conference holds the most senior staff position at the USCCB. Apparently his predecessor, Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill, had been exposed as a diehard client over several years of Grindr, a website that arranges anonymous liaisons among its homosexual subscribers (Vanity Fair once called it “The World’s Biggest, Scariest Gay Bar”). Burrill resigned from the USCCB position this past July.
Fr. Michael J.K. Fuller, STD, was elected as general secretary of the USCCB in a vote over Fr. Daniel Hanley. The general secretary’s term is five years.
Here Come The Seitz Brigades
Moving right along: In another vote, Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso defeated Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami by a vote of 127 to 116 to become the new chairman-elect of the Committee on Migration. Both prelates, like all of their colleagues, are avid supporters of immigration, legal and illegal, but Seitz has made the issue his prime mandate, to the exclusion of abortion and just about everything else.
Four years ago, Seitz made national news by slandering nine state attorneys general and one sitting governor, all of them pro-life and some of them Catholic, for their support of the Rule of Law regarding citizenship, illegal aliens, and the border. The bishop called them “hypocrites” and “Pharisees” in an op-ed which he authored for USA Today on July 3, 2017.
At the time, Catholic Cong. Beto O’Rourke (D., Texas), who was Seitz’s U.S. representative from El Paso, told The Wanderer that, while he and the bishop had appeared at immigration rallies together, Seitz had never criticized O’Rourke’s position on abortion (he has a 100 percent rating from NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League). The diocesan chancery confirmed that, while the bishop had spoken privately with O’Rourke about the issue, he has never publicly criticized Mr. O’Rourke’s perfect “pro-abortion-rights” record.
O’Rourke has just announced that he’s running for governor of Texas next year. He won’t have to worry about Seitz and Canon 915, but he’ll probably appear at more rallies with him.
Seitz’s headlines went international last year when he was photographed kneeling in reverence before a Black Lives Matter placard, a pose which so impressed the Holy Father that the Pope rewarded him with a personal phone call of congratulations. The delighted bishop immediately shared his joy with his fans in the media.
According to his chancery’s communication officer, Bishop Seitz will no longer speak to The Wanderer. However, his colleagues have now elected him as the chairman of their Committee on Migration. Hence, if he will not speak to us, he will undoubtedly be happy to speak with his brother bishops about the subject.
That promising prospect suggests an innovative approach that might produce the openness, transparency, and accountability that all of our bishops have promised us for so many years. Why don’t we all write the ordinaries of our own dioceses and ask them to forward to Chairman Seitz the questions he refuses to answer when we ask them? As Joe McCarthy said in Wheeling, W.Va., on February 9, 1950, “I have here in my hand a list. . . .”
In the meantime, the election of Chairman Seitz reveals three fundamentals, none of which is a very well-kept secret: first, the bishops will do nothing, in community or individually, about pro-abortion Catholic politicians. Not only will they continue to defy Canon Law, they will also defy the faithful who have had to put up with their scandals and corruption for so many years.
Second, the bishops will continue their advocacy of open borders, their silence on the crimes of illegals, their support of the Coyote smugglers who supply clients to their domestic NGOs, and their smug calumnies about the “bigots,” “nativists,” “racists,” and, yes, “Pharisees” who oppose the Biden administration’s open borders policies. Seitz’s election constitutes an open invitation for millions of new illegals to cross the border into the welcoming arms of your diocesan bishop and mine.
And third, our silent shepherds will continue to receive hundreds of millions in federal funding for their secular NGOs which are in turn funded so generously by the taxpayer.
In the light of these realities, it’s worth asking, what is the difference between Bishop Seitz and Joe Biden?
Well, they are both personally opposed to abortion, but neither uses the authority of his office to do anything about it; they’re both devout fans of Black Lives Matter, but never criticize its grifting Marxist leaders. They both support the same domestic political agenda, and believe that those who criticize their agenda are racists, and very possibly White Supremacists.
And they both find Kamala Harris to be truly amazing.
Matthew Festing, RIP
This past week saw the passing of His Most Imperial Highness Fra’ Matthew Festing, the Grand Master Emeritus of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta. Known in the vernacular as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), the Order was founded in 1113.
As a Catholic, as a Knight, and as Grand Master, Matthew Festing devoted his life to prayer, to the Church, to service, and to the Order that he led. As a tribute to his honorable service, he will be buried in the crypt of St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Malta’s capital of Valletta. He will be the 12th Grand Master of the Order to lie there, and the first in hundreds of years to be so honored.
Matthew Festing fought to preserve the Order against the same secular forces that have ravaged every other good work of Holy Mother Church. In return, Pope Francis summoned him in a most unlovely manner in January 2017 to demand his resignation. Clearly the very presence of such a holy man must have petrified to the core the Argentinian’s pompous Peronismo. He ordered Festing to leave without saying a word.
His Most Imperial Highness Matthew Festing died in Malta on November 12 at the age of 71. May he rest in peace.
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