Shameless!

• 3 years ago

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

“All hail Catholic Joe Biden, the 46th President of the United States.” On cue, America’s bishops pander once more to their Democrat benefactors.

But why the rush? Why jump at the chance to join hands with Planned Parenthood and cheer the “election” of the most pro-abortion presidential ticket in history before even one state certifies its final vote tally?

Is it tradition? Well, true enough: The conference’s Deep State has comfortably snoozed in the lap of the Democrat Party for years — for a century, in fact. When the National Catholic Welfare Council — now known as the USCCB — was formed 101 years ago, our bishops were already firmly allied with the progressive Democrats. The support of James Cardinal Gibbons had been indispensable for Woodrow Wilson’s War. They gratefully cheered FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society for their socialist welfare-state programs.

So, tradition? Perhaps better said, a bad habit — fortified by policy, and money.

The conference was a strong supporter of Barack Obama’s radical policies, even as he betrayed his fawning prelates on abortion. Nonetheless, bishops received ramped-up federal government funding, amounting to over a billion dollars a year, for their NGO’s, right through 2016.

Then came Donald Trump.

For four years, Donald Trump has simply terrified the bishops. How? The people are solidly behind him — those same Deplorables the bishops have claimed as their own for years. But those millions of Trump supporters have resolutely opposed the USCCB’s Obamanite political agenda. For the bishops, that support represents a death threat to the USCCB’s taxpayer-funded federal lifeline.

But there’s another issue, a “preeminent” one: Don’t Trump’s pro-life policies outshine those of any previous president?

As Bill Clinton used to say, “Hey, so what??” Even before Trump was elected, our frantic shepherds began blasting him as they had no president before. He and his supporters were “racist,” “nativist,” “bigoted,” and “xenophobic.” El Paso’s bishop even called us “hypocrites” and “Pharisees.”

Today, Trump’s support of life, family, and freedom doesn’t matter to the USCCB’s trough-dwellers. They’re mad! Trump has shredded their flimsy façade of “Social Justice,” exposing them as just another gaggle of DC’s money-grubbing grifters. Already funded by the faithful through mandatory taxes on our Sunday collections, these bureaucrat lifers cozy up to corrupt Democrats, shilling for more millions from the taxpayer and repaying their paymasters with foghorn-level support of the DNC’s secular political agenda.

And speaking of corrupt Democrat grifters, they have no problem with traitors like “China Joe” Biden.

The Dems Get Their Payback

Archbishop Gomez might mean well, but he’s trapped. Our bishops are not only desperate to get their graft, they also need Democrat support to avoid being investigated for their corruption, their bankruptcies, and their role in the coverup of the hierarchy’s worst scandal in the history of the American Church.

For years, they’ve smoked the Democrats’ peace pipe — at a high price: even though they proclaim abortion as their “preeminent issue,” they routinely turn their backs on the unborn and remain silent on the hundred or so pro-abortion Catholic Democrats on Capitol Hill. In return, Democrats keep their part of the bargain by looking the other way on USCCB corruption while they keep the government money flowing.

An honest McCarrick Report from the Vatican would have been a death knell for today’s USCCB. But the Pope’s Chicago cardinal plugged that “rabbit hole” two years ago, and the coverup bishops were off the hook. Now their only threat is Congress.

On that score, their lawyers and lobbyists are undoubtedly warning the bishops about trouble if Democrats take over the Senate in January. If that happens, Pat Leahy of Vermont, another pro-abortion “Catholic,” might well be the next chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Why is Leahy so important? Rest assured, every bishop has committed to memory the threat Leahy made in 2007: “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,” he told a Capitol Hill newspaper.

“Hid pederasts”? Shocking! How many of them hid pederasts? Do they really want to go before a Senate panel and testify under oath about the more than 100 bishops who covered up for abusers in the past forty years — many of whom still serve, many more who retired in comfort?

For years the USCCB has been able to rely on its Democrat friends to keep the lid on its scandals, fending off investigations that would require that they be sworn in before their investigative committees.

Consider: The Vatican investigators couldn’t subpoena witnesses; the Senate can. The Vatican can’t punish perjury (why, American prelates “knew nothing” about McCarrick, they were all shocked, Shocked!! when his crimes were revealed in 2018!).

Lie under oath before a Senate panel and you’re in jail for five years.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy? The prospect hovers, and haunts. Suddenly our bishops are unanimous. “Why, Pat’s a good Catholic and so is Joe! Are we OK now, Democrat friends?”

You bet they are. Our beloved shepherds have been OK with them for years, and their silence is proof positive.

What Comes Next

Repeatedly we have asked — even begged — that our bishops get their house in order. They have just circled their wagons more tightly than before.

For years they have promised transparency and accountability. They provided none. The Vatican whitewash appears, and they promise more transparency and accountability — again, without providing any.

They are virtually daring the faithful to repudiate them and move on without them in this struggle. They might be surprised at how easy the faithful might find it to do just that.

They have abandoned the faithful at a critical time. The flashpoint came last winter. When we most need the fortifying support of the sacraments, our shepherds bowed to Caesar and locked us out of the Mass — for months.

Joliet Bishop Daniel Conlon lamented in 2012 that our bishops had “shredded” their credibility. With their latest betrayal, they have shredded their authority as well.

As we search for the words, for the virtues, for the strength to fight back against an unprecedented secular tyranny here at home, we are alone. Our shepherds have fled. But while it’s hard to be optimistic, we must be hopeful. We must find solace in the unhappy truth that these bishops are not the Church. The credibility and authority of Holy Mother Church still shine unadulterated, whatever darkness enshrouds us.

Our bishops are desperate men. In their desperation, they have turned their backs on the faithful and thrown themselves at the mercy of Catholic Joe and his Democrats, every one of them pro-abortion, every one of them a declared enemy of the unborn, the Deplorables, and all faithful believers.

This is war. Let’s face it — the USCCB has chosen the other side.

Every revolution finally brings what Lenin calls Iskra — “the spark.” Ours has now been ignited. In coming months, the left’s concerted efforts to destroy our faith and our country may bring unprecedented suffering.

We are on our own. Our bishops have chosen not to lead us in this conflict. We, the faithful, must decide who will.

It is now the moment of truth for our bishops — and it’s clear that they don’t want it. The lie about Joe Biden is just protection money. But it nonetheless brings us face to face with the crisis in AmChurch, as Paul Likoudis called it. Finally the truth is laid bare for all to see.