The Pandemic And The Prelates
By CHRISTOPHER MANION
During the pandemic, the term “comorbidity” came into view as an important, even critical, ingredient in assessing the prospects for infection, severity, and survival from the Wuhan Virus. As the virus spread, it quickly became evident that its effects were more severe when contracted by those with serious pre-existing medical conditions like asthma, high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.
The lockdowns responding to the virus had an impact that transcended the medical dimension. As its repercussions spread, they revealed another set of “comorbidities” — that is, conditions that disposed some in society to suffer from the lockdowns more than others.
One of those conditions was simply being religious. And there, Catholics were hit especially hard. Sure, atheists were quarantined in their homes like us, but only we were deprived of the sacraments, especially the Mass, for months. Atheists weren’t.
The virus lockdowns ravaged not only the faithful and families, but also institutions. Some of America’s most beloved institutions collapsed. Revered icons like Brooks Brothers, J.C. Penney, and Hertz fell prey to the virus, and died. Hundreds of thousands of small businesses suffered the same fate. There comorbidities played a role as well. Razor-thin profit margins, maladroit responses to a changing market, and burdensome debt all proved fatal in the acid test of the shutdown.
Many of these enterprises were already struggling or facing challenges before the pandemic. That was especially true in the case of one major institution, now over 100 years old. Its name has not yet appeared in the obituary column, but a unique mutation of the virus has hit it, and hit hard, and placed it in serious peril. Indeed, given its historic dimension, the infection might well prove to be fatal.
That threatened institution is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, known as the USCCB.
A Perilous Position For Prelates
The damage done to the American Church by the lockdowns is massive in itself. Public Masses were shut down for months. Even now they are celebrated under severe restrictions. The lockdowns caused many bishops to limit access to the other sacraments as well. Diocesan Catholic schools went online, but dozens of them might go under. Financial support sank precipitously across the board.
In this weakened condition, the Church was assailed by vandalism, destruction of shrines and statues, and even the firebombing of churches. Democrat governors and municipal officials proved to be no help, and were often guilty of fomenting the violence.
And then the comorbidities kicked in.
Faced with political diktats demanding the closure of churches, most bishops across the country were reluctant to act forcefully in response. Here in Virginia, for instance, Bishops Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Barry Knestout of Richmond quietly complied with the overbearing measures ordered by the blackface Gov. Ralph Northam. Many among the faithful were frustrated that our bishops “just followed orders” from the secular powers in shutting down access to the Mass, but to no avail.
The damage was so extensive that today, good priests who had to obey now wonder, how many of the faithful will never come back? How many will continue their financial support? Virginia’s chanceries are undoubtedly not alone in their frantic effort to renew the financial support of the faithful, whether they come back to Mass or not. This reality is undoubtedly threatening chanceries throughout the country.
The McCarrick Mutation
Just as the “COVID 19” exposed comorbidities in the economic realm, a mutation of the virus has struck America’s Catholic hierarchy. There, it has exacerbated long-abiding weaknesses — some of them glaring, in fact — and crippled them further.
Let’s start with Virginia. Why did our bishops ignore pleas from the faithful to reject Northam’s seizure of Church governance? One factor in their calculated capitulation might lie in the files of Northam’s fellow blackface Democrat, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. On October 24, 2018, The Washington Post reported that Herring had opened “an investigation of possible child sex abuse and coverup in the Catholic Church in Virginia…his office is running an ‘ongoing investigation’ into the state’s two Catholic dioceses,” the report stated.
Herring now has in his possession the complete personnel files of every priest in the Commonwealth. So Bishops Knestout and Burbidge have every reason to tread lightly in criticizing Northam’s lockdown. In fact, they haven’t criticized it at all.
And the same is true in state after state, as the scandals — declared “over” in February 2002 by now Vatican Cardinal Camerlengo Kevin Farrell — continue to rock the hierarchy.
No bishop has forgotten the threat leveled at the hierarchy by Catholic Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.), then and now the senior Democrat on the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. On May 9, 2007, a Capitol Hill reporter asked Leahy about Pope Benedict’s view that pro-abortion politicians could be excommunicated.
“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,” Leahy responded.
Words to live in fear by.
Today the Leahy threat and the McCarrick Mutation hound the hierarchy. Well over half of the bishops who adopted the USCCB’s infamous “Charter” in 2002 had covered up, but there were dozens who hadn’t. It didn’t matter. When Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb., made a motion from the floor of the meeting to investigate the scandals, he didn’t even get a second. McCarrick ran the show, and no other bishop dared cross him.
The USCCB’s paralyzed position today is personified by their longtime ward heeler. Today no one even knows whether McCarrick is still alive. The same goes for the “McCarrick Report.” Does it even exist? Will it ever be made public?
As former USCCB senior official Jayd Henricks has observed, the bishops are afraid of each other and afraid of us. And they have good reason to be.
Let’s face it. If the Report is published, and it is honest, dozens of prelates will be forced to retire. On the other hand, if it goes down the Memory Hole, or if it’s a whitewash, the laity that haven’t left already will be tempted to let Herring, his fellow state attorneys general, and Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act investigators finish the job.
One of the bishops’ greatest fears is that Sen. Leahy’s premonition will indeed come to pass.
One wonders, is the USCCB any longer productive at all? To use Eric Hoffer’s formula, it began over 100 years ago as a cause. By the 1930s it turned into a business. Is it now approaching its final days as a racket?
In this stage of its impending collapse, one wonders who will die first — McCarrick or the bureaucracy that he commandeered for decades?
Bring on the ventilators.
Notes On Hoosier Hysteria
On July 10, a day after we informed Lafayette-in-Indiana Bishop Timothy Doherty that BLM fundraiser Susan Rosenberg was a convicted terrorist, the bishop wrote on the diocesan website that “The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation and Antifa promote beliefs and stances that directly contradict Catholic Church teachings. I have always opposed these contradictions to Church teaching and have never advocated for any organization that promotes these contradictions. I have never supported those who bring violence to otherwise peaceful demonstrations.”
At press time, Bishop Doherty had not yet reinstated suspended Pastor Fr. Theodore Rothrock, however.
On July 5 in Indianapolis, 24-year-old Jessica Doty Whitaker was ambushed and shot through the head by Black Lives Matter supporters after an argument precipitated by her telling them that “all lives matter.” She leaves behind a three-year-old son.
The cold-blooded killing received international press coverage, but as of July 13, the chancery of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis confirmed that Archbishop Charles Thompson had yet to make a statement regarding the murder.