The following comes from a September 3 Record Net article by:
STOCKTON — Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, who has overseen the Diocese of Stockton for 17 years, is expected to submit a letter to the Vatican in December informing Pope Francis he is poised to retire.
On Dec. 22, Blaire will turn 75 years old, which by Canon Law requires him to submit a letter asking for permission to retire. However, it is unknown when exactly Blaire would leave the diocese.
It is standard practice to write the letter informing the pope and officials in Rome, but nobody can predict how long the process will take, said Sister Terry Davis, a spokeswoman for the diocese.
Fitzgerald: Bishop steered with faith, diligence
The following comes from a September 17 Record Net article by Michael Fitzgerald:
Though Bishop Stephen E. Blaire is too diplomatic to say it — but I’ll say it — his predecessor, Bishop Donald Montrose, was a company man whose morally flaccid cover-ups of molester priests ensured perpetual litigation.
And, ultimately, the diocese’s financial ruin.
The diocese paid out tens of millions to a seemingly endless procession of victims of a black hole with a white collar named Father Oliver O’Grady.
“I thought, ‘OK, we’re beyond this,’ ” Blaire recalled. “But we were never beyond it.”
Finally, in 2014, the diocese crashed into bankruptcy. Blaire hopes it will emerge by the end of this year. The loss of moral authority will take longer to repair.
Though impoverished, Blaire’s diocese did more good works than one can credit in this space.
He created a progressive Environmental Justice Office, the only one of its kind in an American diocese. It tackles issues from asthma to urban planning.
Well aware of the poverty many Latinos flee, he supports immigration reform that keeps families together and rejects scapegoating.
He supported the rights of the workers at O’Connor Woods to unionize and called for management to stop stalling and give them a contract.
He went before the U.S. Congress to urge a raise in the minimum wage.
Blaire, like the Church itself, laid down some laws painfully at odds with modernity. He supported Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California.
But he took pains to add, “This is not in any way to diminish people who believe differently.” In that respect, he’s a chip off the current Pope. Faith, not condemnation.
Blaire led the diocese through its most difficult days. He set a new tone. He pursued the ministries — the Spanish masses are overflowing — and positioned the diocese to recover financially.
I would expect Bp. Stephen Blair to consistently show his lack of moral fiber and character and instead resort to blaming his deceased predecessor (Bp. Montrose slandered as “a company man”). Utterly shameful, but consistent for a man like Blaire.
There were other cases in which Bp. Blaire, which anyone can read up on, where he should be the last to point fingers at dead men. At last we will soon be done with a man of such low character in such a high office.
Correction: It appears the Record Net writer of the article, not Blaire, makes the assertion blaming Montrose, so I fully hope Bp. Blaire did not tacitly endorse it.
Blaire however did have many other cases where he maintained clergy of low character in Stockton diocese, besides the notorious Oliver O’Grady, and he has to accept that legacy. Montrose, who I encountered on a couple occasions, was a good man. I am sure he would do everything possible to “save a priest’s vocation” (In those days, all the “experts” said abusers could be re-habbed: the same experts who now say the opposite.)
Even so, Blaire could have insisted the writer change the final draft, since it is an interview, and avoid the wink-wink slander of…
..Montrose.
Oh how so quick some people are to believe the worst of others. Note people the gross error of Campion, which he hastily corrected, ascribing to the Bishop some falsehood which actually came from the writer!
Campion’s is NOT an objective, level-headed, sane POV here folks. His error has proven it. He’s all too willing to ascribe the worst in the clergy (and he calls himself Catholic?), almost automatically, almost knee-jerk. People, I believe CS Lewis wrote something about this pathology: “Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”
A complete and utter failure as bishop. Did Blaire ever preach salvation and the true role of the Catholic Church? Probably not, with issues of economic “justice” and the environment being much more important to him. No wonder Catholics are nincompoops about the Faith. He should have gone at 55. One hopes that Francis immediately accepts Blaire’s retirement and puts in place a true Catholic leader, someone imbued with Catholic Tradition. Someone who . . . (blink, blink) . . . hahaha. Stockton will get Fr. Harry the Hand-Holder, who will love the Democratic Party and see nothing amiss about voting for Hillary.
When its reduced to writing , its libel, not slander; slander is spoken.
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If Bp. Blaire had spoken of blaming deceased Bp. Montrose within an interview, it would have been slander; however it appears Michael Fitzgerald, the writer, proposed the idea: probably because Blaire is a favorite of the virtual secular atheist/socialist welfare crowd. So, you are right, the writer libeled Montrose.
In fact, my not-high opinion of Blaire, besides the Fr. Michael Kelly case and the Fr. Leo Suarez case, is based on him being credibly informed of abuse in the case of Fr. Oskar Pelaez—which abuse he declined to report to police authorities.
Bp. Robert Finn of Kansas City, MO was removed for allegedly failing to report an abuse claim; that is what is happening now to Card. Pell, to try to prevent his reforms of…
..of the Vatican Bank—very possibly spread by Monsgr. Battista Ricca and his coterie to protect their slush funds.
And Bp. Blaire? Well, being a well-placed socialist liberal, he skated.
Yes, it’s all about injecting drama and politics into the workings of the Church for folks like Campion. This gets tired and false, Campion. Not only does it violate Canon 1373, but it doesn’t really promote the kind of “free exchange of ideas” among the laity that you and other of your kind espouse. This is not free exchange of ideas. This is an effort to engender animosity and hatred against the anointed shepherds of the Church. Pathetic.
Pathetic water carrying, jon. Let actions speak for themselves, including those that are engendering animosity. Translation: Don’t shoot the messenger, much as you would like.
You call it “water carrying” True Catholicism calls it reverence and respect, in spite of who they are. There are proper channels for voicing legitimate concerns against bishops and priest, and guess what, it ain’t YOUR way. There is an agenda that you and others are forwarding for this irreverent negativity: and that agenda is not at all commendable. It is dissentious.
There are proper channels for the outcry of scandalized Catholics who are not going to be led to feed on Astro Turf anymore, jon. Your pretense of “irreverent negativity” is pretty much how the Pharisees spun it when Our Lord called them out publicly on their blatant hypocrisy.
But keep carrying water for the White Sepulchers. They’ll reward you with dead men’s bones. Nothing more.
What aint your way, jon, is God’s ways. So you may want to yield to the Truth and the reality that the Catholic Church is God’s Church. And He will hear the cry of His people. Even when the beating sticks like you are brought out in an attempt to quiet the masses who are starving.
Be off with you.
Well, indeed the Catholic Church is God’s Church. And to unjustly denounce its anointed ministers is a violation of the laws of the same Church. The scandal AMalley is the disobedience and dissent of folks like you from legitimate teachings of the Magisterium. That is amply substantiated here in your posts.
What is amply substantiated is the “just” denunciation of outrageous behavior from our shepherds, jon.
AMalley: begging your ear but you have not substantiated ANY of the challenges put forth before you to prove your point. NONE! You have fallen short all the time. I have mentioned several times that you have lost your credibility because you consistently provide no proof for the claims you post here. Therefore, your denunciations against the clergy of God’s Church remain unjust.
Jon would have stood by silent while these pathetic Bishops covered criminal acts by pedophiles in their midst. He part of the problem, his arrogance is astounding, citing “living magisterium” while children’s lives were destroyed… When in truth these men like, Mahony should have been physically removed from their offices, stripped of the collars, defrocked and thrown into the stree.
Crimes Bohemondi have to be reported to the police. That’s now part of policy in every diocese. However, we’re not talking about crimes here: we’re talking about a supposed Catholic layperson ascribing a mal-intention of a Bishop against his predecessor when the said Bishop haven’t even said anything on that subject. This therefore is not a crime committed by the Bishop, this is about the malicious lugubriousness and needless gossipy intrigue by Campion.
As far as I can tell, all of the commentators missed the most important point of the article. We all knew that he had to retire this year, but if we fail to understand this statement, we will see the continued decline in Mass attendance and the stature of the Church in American life:
” in 2014, the diocese crashed into bankruptcy. Blaire hopes it will emerge by the end of this year. The loss of moral authority will take longer to repair ”
The Church’s loss of moral authority as a result of the priest abuse scandal and its yet ongoing bundling is killing our Church.
No. The loss of moral authority results from Catholic leadership junking centuries of doctrine, of liturgy, of music, or art, all for the glory of Humanism. The disgusting sexual crimes that ensued are merely an obvious means to an end for the devil — a way to bankrupt the Church and bring it shame. No one wants to follow someone that hates themselves. The fall of the Church started and is fueled by the rejection of Church doctrine by its clergy and bishops, as well as the wholehearted embrace of modernity. Nothing more, nothing less.
The priest sex abuse scandal started before Vatican II, “Saint” Christopher.
“As far as I can tell,” is limiting, YFC, especially when you refuse to look to the root cause of issues, opting instead for the most obvious (…and perhaps planned) culprit.
The “priest abuse crisis” didn’t happen in a vacuum. Much like the hijacking of the Catholic van by those bent on driving her over the cliff didn’t happen overnight.
But then, since you consider actual facts and history as little more than “conspiracy theory” perhaps you’ll buy the story of driving ourselves off the cliff being some grand proof of faith rather than presumption.
We are, however, admonished not to put Our Lord God to the test.
My post had nothing whatsoever to do with the CAUSES of the priest sex abuse scandals, but instead were aimed at its RESULTS. The moral bankruptcy that is the scandal resulted in the financial bankruptcy of the diocese under discussion, and the falling away of millions of American Catholics who saw through the hypocracy, and judged the American hierarchy as having lost its moral authority. As the Bishop points out, and as I quote, the financial issues will heal much much sooner than the wounds inflicted by the scandal’s impact on the moral authority of the Church. This seems such an obvious point, I’m surprised you even try to disagree. I’m not even sure what facts and history you think I’m belittling – the facts and history are well…
…the facts and history are well known.
I was 5 little letters over the limit at 10:18 am
YFC, the embracing of modernism and the lack of actual Faith began long before Vatican II also. Vatican II just turned the tap to the “on” position wherein it had previously been shut off. The “pastoral” practice of diluting the wine apurpose became official. (Kind of like cutting gold or silver with base metals. Or going off the gold standard to be competitive ;^)
“…The Church’s loss of moral authority as a result of the priest abuse scandal and its yet ongoing bundling is killing our Church.”
The priest abuse scandal was the fruit of the loss of actual Faith in the clergy, YFC. That is the cause of the loss of moral authority. And while sex sells, that is it is the most titillating for newspaper headlines, it is hardly the…
only issue at play.
And while I hear you saying “our” Church, we all need to remember that it is, in truth, God’s Church. That’s why playing god to the extent of mucking up the message and misleading the sheep results in rotten fruit and punishment.
[I see someone’s name which rhymes with “Yawn”, a professional operative, who is irrational, uninformed, and based mainly on attacks and insults appears to have posted above. I don’t read or respond to his posts FYI: disinformation and ignorance on display.]
Regarding Bp. Blaire, it is interesting that both he and Fitzgerald in the interview don’t discuss Card. Mahony, a former bishop of Stockton (1980-1985), in terms of the abuse crisis in the diocese (He was appointed by the infamous Pro-Nuncio Jean Jadot.) Yet in the horrific case of the Howard brothers, who were abused by Oliver O’Grady, they asserted in court testimony that Mahony had to have known of O’Grady’s flagrant behavior. Interesting: only Montrose, a dead…
..bishop, is blamed for the development of the abuse crisis in the diocese. A dead man blamed, two living hierarchs excused.
What’s the use of re-trying the case here? Are you not satisfied with our jury system? The jury saw all of the information of the case; YOU HAVEN’T. All you have are insinuations, intrigue, politics, negativity, dissent, and disobedience.
[I don’t read or respond to his posts of professional operatives whose posting name rhymes appropriately with “yawn”, FYI: disinformation and ignorance on display.]
In an interview of this sort, Bp. Blaire has final say-so,, and he certainly saw, or should have seen Fitzgerald’s libel of the late Bp. Montrose, cand could have asked the writer to correct it. However, as with the Oskar Pelaez case, he did nothing.
So much for respect for brother bishops. Save one’s own skin instead.
Ascribing mal-intent on another person, let alone another bishop, is NOT holy, sanctifying, nor commendable. You didn’t know what happened between writer and interviewee, so why forward your own negative intrigue? For what purpose. This is childish. Unbecoming.
Playing deaf, dumb, blind, and lobotomized is not holy either. We are told to judge the fruits and to beware of blind guides, jon. It is childish to pretend that that scriptural admonishment was there just for the purposes of filling space – as if those who wrote the bible were paid by the word.
So AMalley: that’s your problem. WHen asked to prove your assertions such as that they are “blind guides,” you haven’t been able to prove your point. You bring no facts to the table. Only rhetoric.
Indeed, jon, only rhetoric. That’s it. Nothing to be said. Everyone is just being mean and horrible and nasty and cruel and heartless and whatever adjective you’d like to add. Feel better?
That’s a step in the right direction for you AMalley (even if you may not be entirely sincere.) Admit your unjust and unsubstantiated denunciations against the Church and its ministers which violate Canon 1373. Admit your falsehoods and illogical negativity. Admit that you have not been reverent. Admit that you’ve been wrong.
Why don’t you write out what you want other to agree to – based on jon logic – and then we can go from there. That way your agenda will be clear. Since it has nothing to do with the truth of the Catholic Faith or truth of any kind, that’s why you’re meeting such resistance.
It would, however, be very helpful for you to enumerate your demands. I’m guessing it boils down to Simon-says-now which is contrary to the Faith, but that’s just me, jon.
I do love the “illogical” negativity though. That’s a good one. You may want to examine sycophantic water-carrying with regard to your own position. And the who behind whose water you are carrying.
That said, it is no denunciation of the Church to call out unjust ministers who are…
….the source of that which is being reported about them. It is rather hateful, jon, to support villains who use their collar as the means to destroy that which the collar represents. Shame on you.
But I’m glad I gave you a thrill for a little while ;^)
“It is rather hateful, jon, to support villains who use their collar as the means to destroy that which the collar represents.” Yeah, right. Prove that. Prove that members of the clergy today intend to destroy “that which the collar represents.” Go ahead. Prove it.
The Loss of Moral Authority is as Real as the Homosex Ephebophile Infiltration and Targeting of Adolescent Boys – which has bankrupted so much that could have been used for so much good – unlike enriching lawyers.
Still when – ‘anonymous’ Homoses (Paid?) Trolls play the scapegoat game, while cowardly hiding their identity / affiliation / paymasters – then we know the Rot Hasn’t Stopped – just morphed in to a ‘happy’ Propaganda Scam.
[Disclaimer: Invoking “The McDermott Rule”, if a professional operative, perhaps name rhyming appropriately with “yawn” appears (perhaps others), I skip the uninformed irrational stream and move on. May others be encouraged to do the same and so recover discourse on the website.]
I find it fascinating, regarding Blaire, how he failed to report credible abuse claims in the case of now-paroled Oskar Peleaz, yet retained his episcopacy, yet Bp. Finn (a Ratzinger choice) is sacked @ Kansas City, Abp. Nienstadt of Minn-St Paul (a Ratzinger choice), the same, for allegedly failing to timely report a single very old abuse case (It actually occurred under predecessor liberal “Happy Harry” Flynn, and now Card. Pell is on the ropes…
..for the same jacked-up allegations (probably spread by “Who-am-I-to-Judge” Monsgr. Battista Ricca at the Vatican Bank). Ricca’s serial-boyfriend novella, given the blind eye by Jorge Maria himself, thus condoning a tolerable level of corruption at the VB, deserves a theme song. ( Maybe, “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Him Now?”)
It sure is cool to be a Ricca-Blaire-Danneels-Bergoglio liberal bishop in FrankenKiche.
Yes, the contempt that this poster has for the hierarchy of the Church is reminiscent. It is the same song of those who are devoted to the beloved SSPX, sad to say folks. There is an agenda attached to their tearing down the Church, and that is to bolster attendance in these SSPX and independent chapels. The proof, if one must insist upon this, and I am obliged to supply one as I am making a claim here, is the Church Militant article from Sept. 2015 called “SSPX Poachers.” Link is below.
Folks, they claim they merely want to have a “free exchange of ideas.” People, Campion’s post is not a free exchange of thoughts. That’s baloney. Theirs is about tearing down the Church–not to build it up– in order to keep up…
attendance in their chapels. Follow the money folks. Follow the $$.
https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/sspx-hurts-advance-of-diocesan-latin-masses
Follow the money, folks, for sure.
Sadly, since Voris picked up a particular financial backer for “ChurchMilitant’, he’s been nothing but confused about the SSPX. His reporting this time last year cost him a huge following of those who used to support him. But that explains your confusion, jon, at least in part.
For you quote CM who does nothing but report on bad clergy to point out others who – hmmm – point out bad clergy.
God bless you, jon. Get some help.
Oh I’m perfectly fine AMalley: I am fine because I adhere to the successor of Peter. I am sure I am going to Christ when I am securely in Peter’s barque, not on your little tugboat, not even in a Lefebvrian yacht. No folks YOU WOULD WANT to be securely with Peter. You may experience some tempests and large swells, but be assured that you’ll get to Christ. Because God chose Peter.
jon:
I’m no SSPX priest. I haven’t offered a TLM in my life, not knowing how to do one. There is no money for me to comment as I do from time-to-time. And I’m perfectly fine with commentators ignoring your ridiculous citation of Canon 1373. That applies to specific acts of power. An example would be an organized campaign of harassment against the bishop because he transferred a parish priest against the desire of his parish. The canon says nothing against Catholics pointing out that favoritism exists in the Church. Or pointing out that the bishop made mistakes or has a selective memory.
Sorry, but even the canonist Edward Peters will disagree with you as he has written about this Canon. No “organized campaign” is necessary, though because of the systematic and repeated denunciations of the clergy here is enough to make one suspect that there is some sort of organized campaign here. No, just the mere inciting of hatred and animosity, which sadly occurs routinely among the commentariat of this here blog, is enough to trigger the violation.
And please, be honest and give us a break: the kind of comments here are not just mere “pointing out favoritism” or mere “pointing out that so-and-so is forgetful.” NO! The attacks here are heretical, malicious, unjust, and unconstructive. The Second Vatican Council, the…
Sacrifice of the Mass in the Ordinary Form, the Holy Father are all denigrated, belittled, ridiculed. Citing 1373 is not ridiculous if one cares, as clerics are called to do, for the welfare and salvation of the souls of those who transgress the law and those who may read their words and be scandalized.
Fr. Michael:
A noble effort to dialogue with one whose name appropriately rhymes with “yawn” (I actually skip/don’t read his posts, but always read yours); but that person isn’t ‘about’ fact, truth, reason, and I will say it, God. He is about power in the present New Church, and has said so many times.
Also, cant stand deceptiveness: After all, if you have to invent sock-puppet personalities such as “George R.” and “The Rose” to validate one’s viewpoints, well. Deception, hostility, unfulfilled efforts to humiliate others, and (if he could accomplish it) retribution against other Catholics. He is an excellent representative of his “church”.
I already know what he likely will say. The little recording…
Haahaa the McDermott/Campion rule: Pass over people who post logical things that show how illogical your own post is.
Yet another facet of Bp. Blaire’s disastrous left-wing pro-Obama leadership of Stockton Diocese (he was a major USCCB voice favoring the lie called the “Affordable Care Act” foisted on the American people):
While Blaire was so busy furthering the secular atheist left agenda, the number of priests actively working in his diocese dropped to 65 as of 2016 (there were at least 80 in 2000: Blaire was installed in Mar. 1999), and the diocese says they now have only 5 (use one hand to count them all, 5) total seminarians in all 7 years of training.
This is the classic legacy of today’s left-wing bishop, more motivated by political agendas than anything else. Stockton had one ordination this year (2016), one in 2015, and one…
… 2014: the same typical left-wing socialist bishop record you can expect for, in this case, a man who missed his vocation as a political activist. Too bad the quarter if a million Catholics in Stockton diocese may only have about 30 active priests in about 10 years.
But by then we can bring in Bergoglio deaconesses to get rid of those nasty patriarchal cultic priests!
You should really improve your logic skills Campion: it doesn’t necessarily follow logically that the Bishop’s espousing of policies that the American bishops also supported (but which your run-of-the-mill Republican would call “leftist”) would result in a drop in vocations. Correlation does not necessarily equal causation. You have to try better than this because you’re making many leaps in logic. You’re not compelling.
We have a ‘problem’ when any bishop retires. Remember, Chicago (liberal) AB Capich heads the US team that recommends suitable replacements to P. Francis who will be selecting the next (even more liberal?) bishop for Stockton. Some may say, it can’t be any worse. Pray that it is better but don’t look for a conservative traditionalist unless Stockton is a punishment (like Siberia). If Stockton is low on the ladder, maybe there is real hope. SIGH. How LONG Lord?
[Disclaimer: Invoking the McDermott Rule, no responses are made to the class of professional operatives’ (names rhyme with “yawn” or claim to be a fellow catholic—they are not) and their irrational and unfactual invectives. I do not even read their posts since I can learn nothing from them, except should I wish to practice how to insult or try to humiliate others.]
Now that soon failed Bp.Blaire leaves office, the new bishop may want to save hundreds of thousands of $$ by closing the worthless “Office of Environmental Justice. ” Perhaps funds can be diverted to the failing 11 or so Catholic schools left and the 2 Catholic high schools. No new schools were opened during his 17 year regime, and one, historic St Gertrude’s,…
..which served a predominately working-class Latino family population was closed due to “lack of $”—but liberal-class eco-justice, which accomplished nothing got funded. Oh, how we care about the little people!