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While the Bishops were debating their important policies, rules, and position papers, the real Work of the Church was going right along, in obscure, unknown situations like me anointing that dying man. All of the policies and rules and Important Debates are just so much wind compared to that.
And I began thinking about my new blog, and blogging, and about all of the indignation and anger and feelings of betrayal expressed in blogdom about our corrupt and incompetent Shepherds. While it’s important that we discuss these things, if they distract us from the Real Work of the Church, then we’re part of the Problem.
All the bloggings, bleatings, and bloviations in the world don’t amount to beans against the Sacrament by which I helped usher that one soul into eternity.
Blogging is fun, but Anointing that old man is why I Became a Priest.

On second thought, just go read his site. I think I have become part of the problem!

the priest and mystic fomerly known as Padre Pio.

San Pio de Pietrelcina, pray for us!

is hopeful that the question of the role dissent and homosexuality in The Crisis will be addressed in the upcoming Apostolic Visitation.

See this post from NRO’s Rod Dreher on The Corner.

…the mood among orthodox RCs here is grim. This “hapless bench of bishops,” as Bp. Bruskewitz called them tonight, couldn’t even agree that the role of dissent and homosexuality in this catastrophe was worth studying.

More to come from Rod on Monday.

This is not what we were hoping for from our Bishops. At least not what me and my Catholic friends and family in communion with the Church were hoping for. I applauded Bishop Gregory’s statement at the beginning of the conference. However, there were not only bad decisions that led up to this conference, there were also bad ideas, beliefs and practices. We discuss them all the time. They include dissenting ideas and practices regarding such things as:
Liturgy
Confession and Sacramental participation
The Church teaching on human sexuality
The role of the clergy
The role of the laity
Abortion

It all comes down to what the Catholic Church teaches and what dissenters believe should be taught. This includes the voices of dissent inside and outside the Church. Let’s remember that in centuries past dissenters were called “heretics” and “schismatics.” I am shocked and dismayed that the Bishops couldn’t agree the role of dissent was worth studying. How is it not worth studying?

More from another piece by Mr. Dreher:

The ideological schism within Church ranks will likely only intensify, particularly if the sense grows among orthodox Catholics that the bishops do not want to address the homosexual problem, and the “lavender mafia” corruption of the seminaries, where much of this abuse starts. Similarly, as Phil Lawler points out, the bishops have said nothing about the Vatican’s recent mandate that the bishops recommit themselves to Catholic teaching.
That is also at the heart of this scandal. The liberal Appleby made an excellent point in his address to the bishops, saying that the crisis began, in a sense, with the 1968 papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, which forbade artificial birth control for Catholics. A large majority of American Catholics rejected the ruling, and a large majority of American bishops (and priests) declined to defend and promote the teaching. This event, Appleby said, marked the beginning of the bishops and the laity living in bad faith.
As Lawler, who agrees with Appleby on this diagnosis (if not the solution), wrote yesterday, the bishops “have, in short, ‘looked the other way.’ Over the years the habit has become ingrained. On one issue after another — contraception, homosexuality, abortion — bishops have developed the practice of looking the other way, papering over the gap between teaching and practice. Meanwhile, the ordinary Catholic faithful became accustomed to this mode of behavior, so that they began to view bishops as distant, abstracted figures. And so we come to today’s scandal.
“Yes, the path leads back to Humanae Vitae. And we wish to address the fundamental causes of today’s distress, we cannot avoid that history.”
This is why anybody who thinks the Friday vote on sex-abuse policy will be the end of the matter is dreaming. The battle for the Catholic Church in America has only just begun.

Perhaps I should be hoping and praying instead of blogging.

Only Michael Tinkler would use “historian” and “cranky” in the same sentence.

Not that I’m opposed to the Latin mass, but it was the suburbs that broke down cultural barriers.
When I moved to Geneva, NY (pop. 14,000) I was amazed to find that there were still 2 parishes *within sight* of each other in winter time (in summer the trees get in the way) which people still refer to as the Irish and the Italian parishes. Yes, one could go to Mass at those churches and do o.k., but remember that sermons were in the vernacular – which in America didn’t always mean English. As was confession.
Now I tend to think that the Paul VI Mass in Latin reverently celebrated would be one of the best things going, but let’s not idealize the cultural barrier situation of the church in America.

Point well taken, Professor. Clearly I wasn’t communicating very well. Bilingual Masses can be wonderful when the faithful is equipped to understand the prayers and readings. I don’t know many parishes who can afford to print translations in the form of a program, even for infrequent bilingual Masses. At the Cathedral they do one reading in Spanish and the English version is printed in the program. The rest of the Mass is in English with the exception of a blessing the Bishop might give in Spanish. That’s marginally a bilingual Mass. The Mass at St. Anthony’s was alternating English and Spanish all the time. It didn’t have any translation in the program. That wasn’t ideal.