By CHRISTOPHER MANION
It’s been a busy week for bishops preparing for their annual meeting in Baltimore late this month, and a pertinent question arises: Are they getting ready to apply Canon 915, or to ignore it?
Here is the canon’s pertinent text:
“Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
Both Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden have recently found occasion to visit Pope Francis to receive a “harm handshake” for Nancy and a “keep on being a good Catholic” for Joe (Biden doesn’t speak Spanish or Italian, but he’s quite sure that the Pope told him to keep receiving Communion, even though “it didn’t come up.”).
So both of these pro-abortion radical pols are fully prepped, and the suspense builds as the USCCB’s meeting approaches. And they’ve got some pretty hefty Vatican ammo (although they might well be chambering blanks and not WMD: we’ll see).
Clearly, they’re loaded for bear. So what’s the bear doing to get ready for the main event in the meantime?
Well, by golly, that bear is ready! Why, just last Tuesday, “Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville, auxiliary bishop of Washington and chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration,” endorsed the decision of Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to restore the administration’s “open borders” policy! [“but a federal district court vacated that decision,” Dorsonville complains — so the USCCB is appealing the court’s decision to the Supreme Court].
How’s that for forceful? Is this a strong signal to Biden that he’d better back off at the Communion rail, or what?
But wait, there’s more. After all, not a day goes by that our shepherds aren’t working hard to confront Catholic public figures who are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin.”
Just a day later — on this past Wednesday — Bishop Dorsonville was joined by four other USCCB heavyweights to send a signal to “Catholic Joe” that he’d better think twice the next time he goes to see his Jesuit pals at Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown.
That’s right. The USCCB’s PR flaks report that these five bishop-leaders “have written a letter to Congress” supporting Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better Act.”
Right on cue, the bishops’ letter applauds several major features of the bill and “outline (s) their support” for the radical social welfare-state programs that the bill would create.
Meet The Bishops’ Socialist Caucus
The bill which so delights the bishop-leaders is the brainchild of the U.S. Senate’s lone socialist, Bernie Sanders.
Remember “Feel the Bern”? Well, Bernie is the guiding light of Biden’s domestic agenda.
That’s right. There are one hundred senators, and the Democrat agenda is run by the most leftist one percent.
Over at the House of Representatives, a stronger faction — that is, all of two percent — is calling the shots on the “Build Back” bill. There, the Socialist Caucus, known as “The Squad,” is led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (otherwise known as “AOC”). Although they constitute a tiny minority of the House’s 435 members, “The Squad” controls the schedule of the two most important pending pieces of legislation pending on Capitol Hill, the “Build Back Better” bill and the “Infrastructure” bill.
The “Build Back Better” bill was originally set to spend some six trillion dollars, but, faced with the possibility that Sen. Joe Manchin (D., WV) might not support that figure, Sanders gracefully relented and agreed to the $3.5 trillion figure.
A trillion here, a trillion there, what’s a trillion bucks among friends?
When it comes to the USCCB, the Bishops’ Socialist Caucus comprises a sizable majority of the body’s bishop members, plus the vast majority of their permanent bureaucracy that churns out endless letters supporting their fellow socialists in the White House and on Capitol Hill.
Specifically, the bishops welcome the bills’ expansion of federal power over “expanding access to in-home care for family members, strengthening child nutrition programs, ensuring quality and affordable childcare options, paid sick leave, parental leave, expansion of health care [a/k/a Obamacare] . . . and other forms of support for working families.”
The letter’s longest section addresses Global Warming, advocating a wish list that would make Greta Thunberg proud. Its most humorous section assures us that “significant investment in technology research and development will be essential to provide secure, affordable, accessible, and equitable energy without harming the economy or creating more hardship for the poor.”
Yeah, right. Higher prices don’t hurt the poor at all, because, well, they know the bishops care about them, and if they freeze at least they know we care.
And so what if the “clean energy infrastructure and climate resilience” programs our bishops call for have already raised the cost of heating, cooling, and gasoline alone by over thirty percent compared to those costs a year ago? That’s a spiritual opportunity for the poor. See, they can “offer it up.”
And undoubtedly our shepherds will share their pain.
Bishops Leave Life
To The Laity – Again
After exhausting their passionate energy advocating more of the same — that is, the welfare state — the bishop-leaders interrupt their enthusiasm by regretting that, Oh dear — the bill expands the taxpayer funding of abortion even more.
“Please don’t do that,” they whine. “Come on, we support you on everything else — can’t you just toss us this little crumb?”
Fat chance.
That’s right. On Capitol Hill, a lobbyist who gets 90 percent of what he asks for is in Fat City. As Grover Norquist famously put it, he doesn’t get a second dessert.
But wait — does it really have to be that way?
Consider: What would happen if the bishops were to limit their lobbying to issues that truly address objective goods and evils?
Of course, on the practical side, that would mean that they’d be able to fire 90 percent of the bureaucrats at their D.C. headquarters.
But what about on the level of good and evil? What if the bishops left the debate over the Welfare State to the laity, and focused their authoritative fire on life, again and again and again?
Why not let the laity deal with prudential particulars on which even good Catholics can disagree?
It would mean this: There would be no headlines from the usual suspects in the secular press gloating that “the Catholic Church (yes, I said “secular” press) supports 90 percent of the Biden-Bernie-Squad bill.”
Instead, the story would be, “Democrats rebuff bishops and adopt flagrantly anti-Catholic legislation.”
Yes, that headline could be true. And the bishops could do it but they won’t.
So while the bishops usurp the role of the laity and cheer the Democrats’ blueprint for the Welfare State, they abdicate their consecrated role as Defenders of the Faith and frolic in the fun fantasies of their role as minor political players.
Typical pirouetting pols.
And in the meantime, who is it that might actually pick up the abandoned standard of truth and defend it in the public square?
Of all things, it might be Catholic layman and Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who not only opposes the bishops’ profligate demands also but pledges not to support any bill that removes the requirements of the Hyde Amendment or otherwise removes existing restrictions on the taxpayer funding of abortion.
Pray for our beloved bishops.
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