When hostile parishioners drive out their pastor, what’s a bishop to do?
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Then he proceeded to tell the people this parable. “(A) man planted a vineyard, leased it to tenant farmers, and then went on a journey for a long time.
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At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenant farmers to receive some of the produce of the vineyard. But they beat the servant and sent him away empty-handed.
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So he proceeded to send another servant, but him also they beat and insulted and sent away empty-handed.
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Then he proceeded to send a third, but this one too they wounded and threw out.
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The owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I shall send my beloved son; maybe they will respect him.’
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But when the tenant farmers saw him they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him that the inheritance may become ours.’
When the Son comes, will they respect Him?
Boy that article really steams me.
Here’s a classic quote to show how “me” centered some folks can be within a parish:
”There are a lot of really good things we see in Father Coyne, and we hope he’ll be transferred to a parish in line with his skills,” Foley said. ”The other side of that is we hope that the next person assigned to Our Lady’s is in line with the direction the parish has been heading for 10 or 12 years.”
What could the “direction” possibly be? Holiness? More use of the sacraments? Does this clique in the parish have any sense of the universal mission of the Church?
This quote is even more telling (re: former pastor)
“Cuenin, a leader of a group of priests who had called for Law’s resignation in 2002, was extraordinarily popular in the parish but was viewed warily by some at the chancery because of his criticism of archdiocesan leadership and his liberal views on issues such as gay rights.”
Maybe that’s the desired direction. And poor Fr. Coyne just wasn’t heretic enough, so he’s run out on a rail.
We’re having the same problems in our church. The dissidents are hanging out, undermining the pastor, witholding their contributions. I say to them: “We love you, but you are not helping our community here. Maybe it’s best for you to go”.
And what does the Boston Archdiocese do with the semi-Catholic former Newton pastor Father Cuenin (acolyte of Arius, Calvin, Luther, Knox, and Kung)– make him chaplain to Brandeis (a Jewish founded university). As someone on another blog site asked: “Is this assignment an act of anti-Semitism?” I had a course taught by Father Cuenin at St. John’s Seminary when studying for the diaconate–and I bet his first mission at Brandeis will be to try to make himself popular there by giving lectures or courses that further smear Pope Pius XII over the Holocaust.
>>When the Son comes, will they respect Him?