The Wild West of Blogosphere Can (and Will) Revitalize the Church

As more and more people have flocked to the internet to discuss topics dear to their hearts, a lively, loud and argumentative Catholic blogosphere, which has challenged bishops, magnified Church controversies, helped attract new faithful and put off others in turn, has flourished.

It is true that the tone in the blogosphere is often angry – and sometimes not without cause. People have turned to blogs because they have not been heard, because their concerns are not being listened to or even taken seriously. If their criticism of local bishops is uncharitable, it is possibly because is a real rupture in the communion of the Church that needs to be addressed. I know of more than one case where Church authorities have attempted to shut down blogs that are critical, using arguably the same sort of aggressive tactics they accuse the bloggers of using.

Precisely.

The rupture needs to be addressed because a generation of Catholics has been robbed of their faith and we are going to put an end to it, the easy way or the hard way.

The easy way would be to set up a structure at the Chancery level where errors and omissions are disciplined and acted upon.  When they are not acted upon, the Nuncio, which is the next level of the structure, acts upon it.  If the Nuncio doesn't act upon it, the Holy See takes action.

Nobody rational expects the Nuncio or the Holy See to act on every letter and email.

But, when several thousand faxes cross your desk about a situation (in Boston) where the Cardinal has abandoned his See and the priest running the place has a 40-year history of working with the socialists and Marxists in the Democratic party and groups like Call to Action and Sr. Carol Keenan's crowd, and he is packing the place with his cronies to undermine the teachings of the Church -- our expectation is, there will be a structure to address it.

We brought the revitalization of the Church to blogosphere because the conflicts in our parishes and schools didn't get us anywhere but  being slandered, maligned and driven out of our own parishes and schools.

The Bishops, who are responsible for the governance of the Church, have ignored these complaints until things deteriorated to the point where the conflicts in our parishes and schools don't get us anywhere but being slandered, maligned and driven out of our own parishes and schools.   Things have escalated to the point where people who want the truth taught in schools and parishes are told they better not go out their back door without feeling terrified because of what is going to be done to them.

We have made it clear to the Bishops, the Nuncio and the Holy See, in writing, (for at least the last five years in Boston) that is not an acceptable.     We do not and will not accept this situation.

Sadly, in the absence of their not taking us seriously, we must move on to the hard way.  

1. A public crusade to expose what is going on at every parish, at every school and in every Chancery.
2. Leadership that takes the people from inertia to revitalization.
2. Escalating the communications to the Nuncio and Holy See.
4. Shutting off the flow of money to the Bishop (at the high-donor level and the widow's mite).

The governance structure of the Archdiocese of Boston no longer has a Bishop at Its head.  The power has been handed over to a group of wealthy lay people and there is chaos and pandemonium.

J. Bryan Hehir opened up the door to the Boston College National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management and they are in complete control of Cardinal O'Malley's See.

Catholics, especially Catholics who have undergone a conversion and acquiesce to the Church's teachings, have the tendency not to want to air the dirty laundry.   This era has come to an end and we are overturning the tables in the Temple.

It's the Wild Wild West.   We've been getting out of Dodge.

But if you look yonder up the road, you'll see we are getting out from behind our computers.  

We're baaaaaaaaaaaack.


***UPDATE -- ACTION ITEM ALERT

Boston Catholic Insider also has a Wild Wild West blogosphere post up today with the action item of writing to the Vicar General to not only express your concerns about the governance of the Archdiocese, but to ask him what the plan is to address those concerns.

The email is already drafted for you -- all you have to do is copy and paste it into and email, sign your name and hit send.     It doesn't get any easier than that.  

Visit Boston Catholic Insider now and send the Vicar General an email.