Monday, May 08, 2006

It's out! The National Catholic Reporter Attack in Bishop Finn.

One of my correspondents emailed to me this evening, and I've spent the last hour reading, National Catholic Reporter's (National Catholic Distorter's) long-anticipated article criticizing Bishop Robert W. Finn's short but successful governance of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The title, subtitle, and first two sentences capture the spirit of the article:

Extreme makeover: the diocese
New bishop quickly discards programs, people
By DENNIS CODAYKansas City, Mo.

Perhaps nowhere in America has the transition from a church focused on social engagement and lay empowerment to one more concerned with Catholic identity and evangelization been more dramatic, or in some ways more wrenching, than in the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese since the appointment of Bishop Robert Finn.

Finn has brought the diocese, for decades a model of the former category of church practice, to a screeching halt and sent it veering off in a new direction, leaving nationally heralded education programs and high-profile lay leaders and women religious with long experience abandoned and dismayed.

How happy to read the shrill hysterics of the losing side! I've dreaded the coming of this article for several weeks, but instead of it discouraging me, it's inspired hope and joy. Say what you will about some of the things Finn has written that perhaps Bishop Guiseppi Sarto may not have, and some of the things Finn hasn't done yet that Bishop Curmudgeon would have ordered the day Boland's resignation was accepted (including, but not limited to, giving the Distorter staff the choice of leaving the Diocese or removing the word "Catholic" in the name of their rag), but nobody--not even a foaming-at-the-mouth sedevacantist who thinks Finn is still a layman--can say Finn is on the wrong track if he's getting such flack from the "progressive" peanut gallery.

More comments to follow, but for now, let's leave it at this: God Bless Bishop Finn!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Someone asked if it was a sin to steal NCR's out of the back of a church. Maybe so, but for your penance you'd have to read it when you got home.

wolftracker said...

My take is different, Mr. Curmudgeon. I agree, anything NCR can say bad about him means that he is a good bishop, but this article gives cover to a great many already-bad pastors in the diocese that will find "solidarity" and courage to oppose Bishop Finn all the more than they already do. Need I remind you that Bishop Finn's mandate that representatives from KEXS be allowed to speak AFTER Holy Mass to all diocesan parishes has been ignored in more than a fews large parishes.

I figure myself more of an optimist than you, not saying much, I know, but this article is just what some priests will need to pull the glass carafes out from beneathe the sink and use them in daily Mass, over and over and over until they are on the altar again and every Sunday.

We'll see.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the "heads up" Carmudgeon. I enjoyed reading the NCR article. Any Bishop that raises the ire of "The Distorter" and Richard Carney has to be a good man. God bless Bishop Finn.

Hilary Jane Margaret White said...

As soon as I got to "empowerment" I knew we were in for some good stuff.At "wrenching," and "high-profile lay leaders and women religious with long experience" I was giggling with glee.

Anonymous said...

The "new wine" sounds to me like "sour grapes"

Long may "his majesty" Bishop Finn reign.

If de Zutter thought his job was semi-secure...I doubt he's sleeping easy after this hit the street. By the way whatever happened to "Nihil Obstat" (nothing stands in the way) and "Imprimatur" (let it be printed). Censorship is part of the sacred responsibility of the bishop. Almost all of them forgot this long ago.

Anonymous said...

"Censorship is part of the sacred responsibility of the bishop." Oh please. It's that kind of attitude that led to all the child molestations being covered up and priests moved to new asignments where they still had contact with children. Protect the church, sacrifice the children. Communists countries thought censorship was great too. Censorship leads to abuse of power.

Anonymous said...

Rush, Carney, and Rotert....

Is anyone surprised?

Curmudgeon said...

"It's that kind of attitude that led to all the child molestations being covered up..."

This person must be kidding. The heydays of altar-boy-boffing were the glory days lamented by NCR--the late sixties, seventies and eighties. Not the days of censorship in the Pius X, XI, XII era.

And, BTW, how on earth is it censorship for a publisher to exercise control of what he puts in his OWN newspaper?

Mark S. Abeln said...

No, those diocesan newspaper staffers are part of the party apparatchik, they're not employees who owe a duty of loyalty to the Bishop.

Anonymous said...

Hee hee. Glad to have found you guys.

BTW, I always think of that pidgeon-poo catcher as the "National Gnostic Distorter." I prefer truth in advertising!