Fauci and the Bishops

Many Catholic laity were outraged, with some formally objecting to their bishops, all to no avail. Dr. Ralph Northam, Democrat Governor of Virginia at the time, simply scoffed that people could pray anywhere, so what was the problem? Meanwhile, Northam smiled on abortion after birth, left the liquor stores open, and protected the abortuaries, arresting pro-life protesters who dared to gather outside.

After all, they were violating Fauci’s mandatory “Six Feet for Social Distancing” rule.

Yes, Fauci ruled – but, on reflection, what could Virginia’s bishops do?

Using the pretext of clerical sex-abuse-and-coverup allegations, Democrat Attorney General Mark Herring had acquired the confidential personnel files of every Catholic priest in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in both the Richmond and the Arlington dioceses. Among other confidential medical and psychological reports, those files contain every letter sent to the bishop by any member of the public lodging a complaint about any priest in his diocese.

But complaining about what? The writer could rant about anything from a disquieting sermon or a lousy organist to an allegation of a suspicious act by a priest that might violate the stringent rules contained in the USCCB’s 2002 “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” regarding the disciplining of those priests and deacons alleged to have broken them.

Several other states were conducting similar investigations in early 2020, most of them “under the radar.” Did Catholic bishops want to poke the sleeping bear by defying the COVID mandates and keeping the church doors open?

On reflection, bishops throughout the country chose the better path – “Silence is Golden.” And today, the uproar surrounding the Fauci revelations and the outrage of Fauci’s refusal to respond has thrust the crisis back to center stage.

And for good reason.

Consider: Joe Biden, or his autopen, pardoned Fauci for any and all crimes he might have committed during his tenure in office – and there were a lot of them. As a result, Fauci can now freely address all the facts of the issues, secure in the confidence that he will be protected from any and all legal repercussions. He can truly “tell all,” and finally pull back the curtain on the horrors that he wrought on the American people and, for that matter, on the world at large.

Because Fauci was, after all, “The Science.”

But What About the Bishops?

America’s Catholic bishops are in a surprisingly similar situation. They, too, face serious allegations that they have never adequately addressed.

For several decades, today’s bishops and their predecessors have embraced policies that have cultivated and perpetuated homosexuality among the ranks of the clergy and, especially, the hierarchy. The practice has been going on for years, long before the “Sex Abuse and Cover-Up Scandals” broke into the broader public record a quarter-century ago.

Church leaders from Joseph Bernardin to Theodore McCarrick, Rembert Weakland, and Roger Mahony fomented the foul practice throughout the country for decades. They then promoted their complicit confederates through the ecclesiastical ranks.

Like Governor Northam, they scoffed when they were reminded of the Ten Commandments, the rights of the laity, the innocence of children, and the demands of their consecrated vows.

And surprise – they were immune from prosecution – just like Fauci. And they still are. In 2002 they promised to “put the scandals behind us,” and pledged “transparency and accountability” to the laity. Yet today, like Fauci, they smirk in smug silence.

Consider: they alone possess the authority to correct their own errors. Yet they steadfastly, even brazenly, refuse to do so.

After all, what can the laity do about it – turn to another Luther or Henry VIII to deliver us?

No way.

We can’t.

And we won’t.

Our bishops know that they are in charge and that there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Mahony (yes, he’s still a cardinal) spent a cool billion staying out of jail waiting for the statute of limitations to heexpire. In January 2013, his successor, Archbishop José Gómez, acting on the basis of the evidence that Mahony had hidden, barred Mahony from all performance of administrative and public duties.

Like Fauci, Mahony defied him. “I’m a cardinal,” he scoffed, pirouetting around the archdiocese to various Confirmations and public events, pompously posting on social media from Rome during the conclave that elected Pope Francis, and finally culminating his triumph with his sanctimonious closing of the casket during Pope Francis’s funeral.

Bottom line: the bishops have promised the laity “transparency and accountability,” while apparently having no intention whatsoever of delivering on their solemn pledge.

Like Anthony Fauci, they are “the authority.” Like Fauci, they are silent. Yet, like Fauci, they have no worries: they are their own judges. They write the canons by which they judge themselves. They then appoint the judges and sit on the juries, if their beleaguered victims manage to bring any cases at all.

And such cases are rare indeed.

Clearly our bishops have nothing to worry about. There will be no repercussions. Not then, not now, not ever.

Yet, consider: they can come clean. They can tell all without fear. They can deliver all the transparency and accountability that they have promised, and that we are demanding, without the threat of any reprisal at all.

And yet, they won’t.

There has to be a better way.