The elections for conference treasurer and committee chairs at this year’s U.S. bishops’ conference meeting constituted a rejection of some of the more arch-conservative candidates in favor of more centrist, or at least center-right, bishops.
In two contests, bishops most associated with the culture warrior-wing lost, and in the other four contests, the bishops selected candidates whose pastoral credentials are more obvious than any ideological preferences….
Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon was a candidate to lead the Committee on Divine Worship but his longstanding affinity for the pre-Vatican II rite was a bridge too far for the rest of the bishops. He lost to Bishop Michael Woost, auxiliary bishop of Cleveland, by a vote of 112-128, the closest margin. Woost has only been a bishop for two years so his victory can only be interpreted as a rejection of Sample….
Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, is one of the most conservative bishops in the country, and he lost the contest to become chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, garnering only 91 votes to 147 for Dallas Bishop Edward Burns. Conley is a protégé of retired Archbishop Charles Chaput, to whom Conley paid tribute in a recent article at the National Catholic Register. No bishop has done more to embroil the Catholic Church in the culture wars than Chaput. Burns, like Hebda, a priest of the diocese of Pittsburgh, is no liberal, but this election result was clearly a vote to move away from the culture war approach….
From the National Catholic Reporter
The use of political labels for our bishops is usually not helpful. When we Catholics care for the poor, we’re called liberal. When we care for unborn babies and their mothers and stand for marriage and family, we’re called conservative. As a priest friend said to me years ago, “Some call me a conservative and some call me a liberal. It depends upon who is doing the calling.” Maybe our bishops, and all of us, should be simply “Catholic,” meaning faithful to the teachings of Christ and His Church. Otherwise, we’re just dissenters. No bishop can contradict the Ten Commandments or any of our Scriptural teachings and not simply be a dissenter. There have been many bad bishops in the history of the Church. Please pray for all bishops.
Caring for the poor is not “liberal”, but demanding state money to do so might be. None of the Pharisees contradicted the Ten Commandments, but many just quietly ignored ones they didn’t like or “invented” new ones. Sort of like some bishops.
“… election result was clearly a vote to move away from the culture war approach….” We are in a war and the bishops think it’s a pillow fight.
“You may not go looking for war, but war can still come looking for you.” (Leon Trotsky)
Goodness. Does the USCCB release the names of the bishops who voted? Sample as the director of the CDW would have been great. We can only hope Lopes will shape Woost– who only recently just got consecrated!!! — into the right mould. I don’t know if the Diocese of Cleveland has made any liturgical waves, good or bad.
From our experience, Bishop Burns of Dallas is no slouch.
Well, this article is very strange. Archbishop Sample and Bishop Conley are outstanding, faithful Catholic clerical leaders.
Too bad our Catholic bishops all couldn’t just be believing, dedicated, good practicing Catholics, to begin with! But no, many of the liberals do reject parts of the Catholic Faith sadly, in the post-Conciliar era. We cannot count on them to uphold Pro Life, Catholic Marriage and Family Life, proper Catholic teaching on repentance of sin, and proper reception of Holy Communion, proper legal immigration, and our country’s responsibility for border control, and much more. No religious discipline, in Vatican II– a horrible mistake. When will the Pope accept Cardinal Cupich’s required letter of resignation, as he turned age 75 this year? At least,
I am glad that Jesuit Fr. James Martin hasn’t been named a bishop– a horror beyond belief! Now, that is “building bridges too far,” for me! The only kind of “bridge” he wants, is a gay rainbow bridge.
Is it possible that the majority of the bishops are true to the faith and that Sample and Conley are outliers?
Wondering, what has Bishop Sample or Bishop Conley done or said that makes you wonder if they’re not true to the faith?
I know of nothing. On the other hand, some bishops want to bless fornicating “couples” (straight or gay doesn’t matter). We don’t even have to wonder about those bishops. They are not true to the faith.
To Wondering– Sadly, in today’s post-Conciliar era– No. Lots of irresponsibility in Catholic clerical leadership, today. Beware. Stick to the True Faith, with your spouse, family, and children. Don’t listen to Catholic bishops who are LGBT- promoters, who support gay unions, “gay families,” and those who compromise on abortion, equalizing it to other social ills, like poverty, racism, sexisn, etc. Abortion, Child Killing, is Murder– always a Mortal Sin. And do not listen to bishops who lie and say it is fine to take Holy Communion if you believe in, support and practice contraception, “living together,” abortion and other mortal sins, it is “your (Vatican II) human rights, your choice” and Confession and repentance is unnecessary– and to demand it is “weaponized religion.” Stick to the True Faith, exactly as given to us by Jesus Christ.
Hey CCD: at the beginning you state that this article is from the National Catholic REGISTER-which it is not-but at the end you provide the correct link to the article written by Michael Sean Winter, head of the National Catholic REPORTER. This later publication is very Left-leaning and often features articles promoting heterodox beliefs. The REGISTER is very faithful to the true teachings of the Catholic Faith, though some of its authors hold neoconservative views that are promoted by FOX NEWS.
Thanks for catching this – fixed now.
Our USCCB needs to contribute their efforts to help Make America Great Again, and lead our Church and our country, to Christ. Ryan Walters, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction (Education), has opened a new Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism, within his department. Walters recently made a video for all of his schools to show, and also sent it out to millions of parents in Oklahoma. He may sound “radical” to some, but I think he is the greatest thing in American education– his ideas of a bold return to solid, traditional values, is so badly needed, for today’s liberal “Woke”-infested and corrupted U.S. schools! Why are so many Americans blindly accepting of liberal sex-ed, Planned Parenthood, rainbow flags and gay and gender trash, DEI, CRT, dumbing-down curriculums, horrible, rebellious “hippie” clothing, pornography, obscene language, ugly, filthy rock “music,” drugs, Drag Queens, and bashing our great country, in in our schools– but ignorantly object to teaching Patriotism, respect for our American flag and country, respect for good manners and good Christian Morals, respect for our great American Founders, respect for God, Christianity, the Ten Commandments, the Bible (at least as part of our history and Western Civilization, upheld by our Founders) and celebrating Christmas as the day of Christ’s birth, with Nativity plays, Christmas decor, and religious Christmas carols– and School Prayer? A prayer at Christmas programs given by an invited cleric, a prayer before sports games, at graduation, etc. Very important! And even more, in some areas of the country. Here is a link to Superintendent Walters’ latest video, with a prayer given by him, at the end. Wonderful, Superintendent Walters!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wVBYmrppOnM&feature=shared
Make America Great Again: Thank you for posting this youtube video. Let’s all pray that President Elect Trump leads America back to God.
America has two school systems, public and private. Public schools are run by the government, usually by local school boards. Because they are government agencies they must not support one religion over the other. So when one talks about prayer before a football game, for example, it is essentially supporting a religion. That is against the Constitution. A quick example of the difficulty schools have with religious issues: it is ok to discuss the historical use of the Bible throughout history, but it is not ok to teach the Bible as the only acceptable book about religion or religious beliefs.
We are not a theocracy, we are a democracy based on a constitution. Full stop.
Left-wingers get prayer in public or government contexts wrong. The Constitutions stipulates that the federal government shall not promote one religion over another, but that does not prohibit prayer to God in the form of a civil religion. To hold that civic prayer violates the Establishment Clause is to consider atheism a religion and in fact to prefer atheism over theism since no prayer is given preference over prayer.
Think again, left winger. We are not an atheistic society. We are a theistic society, whose founding documents affirm that our natural rights come from the divine Creator, not from government.
Bob One– America is not an atheist Marxist or Communist regime, suppressing faith in God and religious practice. During Pres. Ronald Reagan’s presidency, in a TV interview, he spoke movingly of how deeply important regular prayer and church attendance was to him. He was Presbyterian, and Nancy, his beloved wife, was Episcopalian. We are a Nation unified by different religious faiths, under one God, together, we are blessed under God’s Providence. “One Nation Under God.” Our great Nation will soon give thanks to God for His Divine Providence, when we celebrate Thanksgiving. God is invoked in all of our important Founding Fathers’ documents, and state and federal documents. President George Washington daily read the Bible, and knelt in prayer before battles with the British– and won our country for us, by the grace of God. We have always had Chaplains in our military, in our Capitol, and in all of our State legislatures– and in all of our hospitals. Our Founders never, never intended to separate America from God. They only intended not to set up a state religion, like the Church of England, in Great Britain. In our public schools, students as well as teachers should be free, on their own, during the school day, to say a prayer or read a religious text, including the Bible. That is freedom of religion. Also, traditionally, in some parts of the country, public school students were once routinely excused for at least an hour per week, to attend either Catholic Catechism lessons, or Protestant, Orthodox, or Jewish religion classes. Religious training was once recognized as an important part of a child’s education.
MAGA: Superintendent Walter purchased, at great expense, Trump Bibles for every classroom in Oklahoma. As a practicing Roman Catholic Christian, I find this deeply offensive as the Trump Bible is not a Catholic Bible but a Protestant version of the King James Bible. The problem with MAGA types is they do not respect the freedom of religion guaranteed in the Constitution, instead wanting to indoctrinate our children with their particular brand of the prosperity Gospel.
Theistic. Of course, you are correct that the founding documents affirm that divine rights come from “nature’s god.” That is deist god.
If the government can’t promote one religion over another, that means that it can’t promote the Bible any more than it can promote the Koran.
Congress cannot legislate in favor one religion over another, but states and local governments can. A state could explicitly become a Catholic state, if it duly enacted legislation to that effect.
Our Founding Fathers were of different religious denominations — mostly Protestant, with three Catholics– Charles and Daniel Carroll, of Maryland, and Thomas Fitzsimmons, of Pennsylvania. They were not a bunch of “Deists” worshipping a “nature god.” They read the Bible, and believed in God– each in their own way. Only a few believed in “Deism,” a popular thing of the day, similar to “New Age,” stuff of today, which some people experiment with. But there was no “Deist” church. The men who dabbled in Deism all also belonged to regular churches, such as the Episcopal church. And many also were Masonic, too– another quasi-religious dabbling or experiment. George Washington, Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock and many others, all belonged to a Masonic lodge. Catholics are forbidden to join Masonic groups. There are some Catholics today, who experiment with the Charismatic style of prayer, “speaking in tongues ” But “speaking in tongues” is not a part of the original Catholic faith, it is just experimental.
National Catholic Reporter (Distorter) is even less “Catholic” than the Christian Science Monitor. Best to ignore these chumps. Let them bloviate to the wind.
We are all Americans, and all religious faiths are welcome, here. We proclaim, “One Nation Under God,” and “In God We Trust.” America is not an atheist, Marxist or Communist country that suppresses and firmly opposes faith in God, and persecutes religious people– like China, Nicaragua, Cuba, Russia, etc.
The editors omitted an important point that I tried to make in my comment of Nov. 17 at 8:47pm. I said that in America, unlike in the UK and a few other European countries, we do not have a State church. But we do recognize our Creator, God, and invite clergy of different faiths to come and offer prayers at important national,
state, and city events. America is not a Godless, atheist country. And we celebrate Christmas, too!
Reply to Bob One: “So when one talks about prayer before a football game, for example, it is essentially supporting a religion. That is against the Constitution. “* I submit that the only provision of the Constitution that speaks to your example here is the first amendment wherein it explicitly states that the Constitution prevents Congress from making laws respecting an establishment of religion and from prohibiting the free exercise of religion. When a coach offers prayer before a football game so that the prayer is voluntary, he is not enjoining Congress to establish a religion but practicing the religion freely. Free exercise, Bob One, means free exercise. And it is free for the players only if it is voluntary. I also submit that the free exercise clause means the government has an obligation to support this free exercise from people who would seek this from happening. So if a Christian group of students wants to have prayer on school grounds, the government would have an obligation to prevent a school principal from prohibiting this.
If a teacher wants to pray and/or read the Bible, that is OK. But if s/he leads the prayer in the classroom or reads the Bible as a religious act, that is unconstitutional because she is an agent of the State. If s/he wants to use the teach how the Bible influenced a political decision or created a cultural norm, that is OK, I suspect.
If a football coach or his/her students want to pray before a game, that is OK as long as s/he doesn’t lead the prayer because s/he is an agent of the state.
It gets to the question of prayer in school. Even if you support prayer in school, which prayer do you support and to which God? Take something as simple as the Lord’s Prayer. Which version do you support? I remember my pastor telling parishioners to vote against prayer in school because they wanted to use the Protestant version. Jewish people don’t use the same prayers as Christians. They don’t believe in Christianity. Islam doesn’t use the same prayers to the same god, or the Bahai or the … you name it.
When I attended a public high school, long ago, a local cleric was always invited to say a prayer before football games. And local Catholic priests attended, too, and were available to Catholic students, to hear Confessions, or to just talk. No one agreed with atheist or anti-religious groups, like the ACLU– they were viewed as abhorrent. The town was dominated by Eastern European and Russian bilingual immigrants, and their Orthodox churches and culture– with lots of hard-to-pronounce names. My junior English teacher was a pretty, well-educated, young Russian immigrant, who escaped Communist Russia, in a scary journey to America. My senior English teacher was a devout Orthodox woman, who also loved our Catholic Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction services. Every Monday morning, she would start the class by asking students if they went to church (any church) yesterday, Sunday, and we would have a nice inter-faith discussion. We read and learned all about the English King James Bible, an outstanding English literary as well as religious accomplishment of its time, as well as studying Shakespeare plays, etc. We had to write essays on things like St. Paul’s famous “Epistle on Charity,” and its meaning, and memorize and recite these beautiful King James Bible passages aloud, because of the high literary quality of the English translations. My sophomore English teacher, whose father had been an Orthodox priest, once reprimanded a student, in one assignment, for writing and reciting aloud, a poem that questioned the existence of God. In my Latin classes, we studied Catholic ecclesiastical religious works, as well as classical literary works. We had to memorize and recite aloud, Latin prayers like the “Pater Noster,” etc. I loved sitting down one afternoon, translating the “Stabat Mater,” and writing an essay about it. Faith in God and church-going was very important, in that time.
Just Saying, a religious cleric always writes their own prayer, and never recites formal prayers of their particular religious denomination. On D-Day, in 1944, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote and broadcast, over British and American radio (no TV at that time) a famous speech and prayer for the troops. Abd Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote a long and poignant prayer himself, and delivered it from the White House, over the radio, to millions of anxious Americans. You can still get all of these wonderful, recorded historical events, on YouTube. You will also find historical videos of public prayers personally written and delivered, and talks about the importance of religious faith given, by Pres. Ronald Reagan, and other presidents, on YouTube. That is our American tradition, to include all religious denominations, under a simple faith in God. But of course, we have no established State church, as in the UK. In the UK, even if you are not a member of the Church of England (CofE) or are a non-Christian– such as former Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, a Hindu of Indian descent– you just respectfully observe, and may participate in a simple way, in some CofE formalities required by the UK government at certain times. But at home, Sunak daily instructed his children in the Hindu religion, and practiced it with them. Many Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians in America, do the same thing. And Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate Christian holidays or family birthdays, because they do not believe in celebrations. Their kids refrain from attending birthday parties of their friends– but keep the friendships. They also do not believe in the Blessed Trinity, or the Divinity of Jesus. And the Mormons have a very different religion, too. Everyone just tries to be respectful of everyone else.
Here is a link to the famous story of a prayer which Gen. Patton asked his Chaplain, Chaplain O’Neill, to write during WWII. During Dec. of 1944, close to Christmas, 250,000 prayer cards with the Chaplain’s prayer were handed out to the troops, along with the general’s Christmas greetings. The prayer asked God’s help, as the troops were desperate, due to poor weather conditions, fighting the Battle of the Bulge. And God answered their prayer!
https://evanskaren.wordpress.com/2017/12/25/pattons-prayer/
Well, I noticed, in my comment of Nov. 19 at 2:16am, that in this news report, Gen. Patton is also stated to have taken the Name of the Lord in vain– I do not approve of that. But his Chaplain’s prayer for good weather for the troops, and Gen. Patton’s Christmas greetings, were famous. And his prayer was answered. War is a terrible thing. But even in Biblical eras, God helped the poor Jews defeat evil enemies. Gen. Patton helped liberate Jews in concentration camps in WWII, and he reportedly got extremely ill, and “lost his lunch,” as he and the other American generals were totally shocked out of their minds, and could not bear to see the horrors of the Holocaust of the poor Jews. It was all too horrifying. Every Jew that I have ever known, has always had pictures of relatives lost in those horrific concentration camps. May God bless the poor Jews, and all victims of terrible evils.
Not anything anyone wants to believe is a religion. Judaism and Christianity are religions. Nothing else is. The Founding Fathers would not have allowed Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism to infect America.
By going neutral on the truth about God and true religion, a country loses direction. Jews and Christians make the best Americans because they have the one true revealed religion.
Nothing else can ever possibly surpass the Holy Bible– the revealed Word of God. Every child should be taught to read it and respect it. Even in our public schools, children should be encouraged to do so, because that is important. In the past, long ago, every family had a copy of the Bible in their home, even if that was the only book they had. There was a place inside of it, where the date of a couple’s marriage, dates of births of their children, and Baptisms, First Communions, Confirmations, etc. were written, and copies of documents of all these things were kept. Even Protestants had at least Marriage and Baptismal records, sometimes more.
The Bible was revered, and put in a special place– and many people learned how to read from it. Even today, if I am ever in a bookstore, and happen to see either just one, or a bunch of copies of the Bible carelessly mislaid– on the floor, or in a section of modern secular books– often containing objectionable, scandalous or filthy modern trash in them– I will carefully pick up the Bibles, and go talk to the Management, and explain that the Bible is not just a book, it is holy. And you should put it reverently only in a section of religious books– and never, never allow it to be carelessly put on the floor, or in any other disrespectful place. I am not a “religious fanatic.” But respect for the Holy Bible is a must, that we were taught, long ago, in a good and decent, respectful American culture — which I pray we will all oneday return to.
We all may have some interesting and peculiar ancestors. I have one distant ancestor who barely escaped persecution and death, who came over on the Mayflower from England, and helped establish the first Boston Latin School, in 1635 (one year before Harvard Univ. was established) originally located on the north side of School Street, in Boston. This school emphasized Latin and Greek, with a classical humanities curriculum. Of course, studying the Bible was also important. This school was modeled on the Free Grammar School of Boston, England, which was established by the executed Catholic Queen Mary I– “Bloody Mary”– and King Philip II, King of Spain. The City of Boston, MA, financed the new school, and paid instructors. The settlers needed a good school to educate their sons, future leaders in the American colonies. Wealthy Catholic settlers sent their sons to be educated in Europe by the Jesuits. Entering the ministry was a poupular vocation, in New England, but there were many disagreements on religion, all the time, and splits from various denominations. I have a distant ancestor who was a Congregational minister, which split from the Church of England, and he wrote a weekly column for his local newspaper. He was very popular, said to be very good with young people. I have some of his writings, and he said that he modeled his ministry after the Gospel of St. John, his favorite. He and his wife were very involved in charity work. They had paid musicians to sing choral works for church services. I also have a silver chalice of his, given to him at ordination, with his name inscribed on it– it looks like Catholic priests’ chalices for Mass. His denomination had very frequent Communion services. I once showed this silver chalice to a priest, a family friend, at our church, long ago. We asked him to say a Home Mass, for a special occasion– and he decided to use this silver chalice. So, it is very special– it once held the Real Presence of Christ! The minister had frail health and died young, in his early 30s, leaving a grieving widow and a young son. A huge number of mourners attended his funeral. He was said to be very kindly, charitable, humble and Christ-like, never “snobbish” or “uppity,” like many in the ministry, who were from wealthy families, highly educated, “snobbish,” and not very Christ-like.
My distant ancestor who was the young, New England minister, of the Congregationalist Church, does not seem to be aligned with the typical Puritans whom I thought established the Congregationalists. His church and its types of services seems very similar to the Anglicans. But this young minister did not live in the 1600s, he lived in a later era. The information that I have is not the original, it is all photocopies, and this information is also in an old genealogy book. I once tried to get some information on Congregationalist churches, but they seem to have disappeared. And the few that I could find, are extremely modernist, liberal, secularized, accept women and LGBTs in ministry, and do not have Anglican-type formal services or formal Communion services. No similar altar vessels, such as this silver chalice. And no church historians available, to explain anything, either. History is a very peculiar thing, with all sorts of strange things that may occur. I know that Old North Church– Christ Church– of Boston– the one involved in the famous Midnight Ride of Paul Revere– is an Episcopal Church, and was loyal to the British King, until the American Revolution broke out.
Most of the churches of today, called “Congregationalist,” that I tried to find, seemed to be actually linked to other denominations, such as the Church of Christ, or even a Baptist denomination, but had the name of “Congregationalist.” The silver chalice is now with another relative, but they just view it as an interesting and peculiar piece of genealogy and history.
The chalice and paten given to a Catholic priest at ordination are holy, they are sacramentals. The new priest’s name, date of ordination, and a favorite personal motto, or Latin phrase, is usually inscribed on the bottom of the chalice.