Cardinal O'Malley Prepares for Conclave by Reading the Fish Wrap

John Allen, Joan Chissiter and Bishop Gumbleton among his go-to guys for information on the Cardinals of the Catholic Church.

How are you preparing yourself?

Spiritually, I’m trying to focus on the seriousness of this, asking for God’s help in prayer. I’m also trying to learn as much as I can about my brother cardinals.

How are you doing that?

I downloaded Mr. Miranda’s material, because he has a page of just the cardinals who are going to be at the conclave. [Note: Salvador Miranda of Florida International University maintains a web page on the cardinals.] I had my secretary go through and take out the biography of each one. A lot of them, of course, I knew, but this was one way of putting names to the faces of those I don’t know. That’s especially true of the Eastern Europeans and a couple of the Africans. I’m trying to read articles, to become acquainted with some of these issues in the past faced by conclaves. Your articles are all very interesting too.

Interesting?

In what way?

When assembling information for his talking points in discussions about electing the future Pope why would the National Catholic Reporter even be on his radar?

When he needs to appoint the head of women religious would he tune into the Khadashians for his talking points?

When he is looking for attributes of future seminarians, does he turn on Charlie Sheen for an interesting perspective?

Wouldn't you send your underlings to run some google searches with keywords and come up with things they've authored, written, been involved in?

Wouln't you find out what his passions are? What he has done for the poor? What he has done to keep his flock in a state of grace?

Why would you cultivate your opinions on the writings and opinions of the journal whose authors undermine, discredit and blaspheme the teachings of the Church?

Do yourself a favor and take a few moments to listen to this interview on NPR in which CJ Doyle and Fr. Landry discuss their sentiments on whether Cardinal O'Malley is qualified to be the Pope. (On the right hand side of the page, download the audio file.)

CJ respectfully, yet tactfully explains that those both friendly and unfriendly with Cardinal O'Malley can all agree that he is not a hands-on or highly engaged administrator. CJ explains that though the Cardinal can't be blamed for the flood as he inherited it, after ten years, one would hope he would have some plan for flood control.The prerequisite skill set for being a Pope is handicapped by the ongoing trainwreck called the Archdiocese of Boston, which is certainly not a model of success for the Catholic Church.

Then Fr. Landry pipes in with his opinion.

Fr. Landry is one of the finest priests I know. He is more than faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church and he evangelizes them with zeal. But, what I deeply respect about Fr. Landry is, he takes his job as a physician of souls seriously.

I know that he deeply respects and loves the Cardinal... but the rooster just can't help coming home to roost and cockadoodledoo.

Let me show you what I mean.

Fr. Landry first speaks about Fr. O'Malley's quieting of the folly around the priests who sexually manipulated teenagers and young men as a credential for the papacy.

Fr. Landry highlights the Cardinal's sincere and great compassion for the victims. The Cardinal's work in trying to bring victims healing is to be commended. However, and I am sorry to say it, but it isn't enough that Cardinal O'Malley leave a room full of victims sobbing. Fr. Landry said that running out of the room sobbing is the only response of a parent. This is incredibly naive and dangerous.

What the Cardinal has done to 'ensure it never happens again' leaves our children vulnerable to a program where they are brainwashed in CCD and schools that their parents and relatives are sexual predators. Their innocence is subject to stories about relatives who rape them in pornographic detail. They are destroying relationships and trust of the their most intimate and trusted relationships and portraying the great gift of human sexuality as perverted crimes. Incredulously, there isn't a single story about the sexual deviants they ordain in seminaries and protect at the Chancery.

The foolishness so highly exalted also comes at a great expense to truth, justice, constitutional, civil and canonical rights of our priests, who at any moment can have their life's work and vocation destroyed with a false accusation as the system for investigating complaints is covertly and overtly operated by Mitchell Garabedian who is on a mission of malicious prosecution.

I have my own sentiments about the efficacy of the fix the Cardinal threw at the problem, some of which CJ alludes to in his interview. They threw money at it, but by no means did they fix the problem. The problem is the good old boys and it is very much alive and well.

The interviewer asks Fr. Landry to respond to the widely circulated charges that Cardinal O'Malley is not invested as an administrator.

When you cut to the chase, saying that one is 'not invested as an administrator' is a polite way of saying he appoints and hires people to delegate tasks to and then distances himself from any accountability. Such a person with this style of leadership has no idea what is going on under his nose. This is, in fact the manifestation of an administration of a good old boy network.

Most of the Bishops and Cardinals and in fact the Holy See itself manages their day to day operations using this style of management. This in and of itself does not have to be a fatality. It is only a fatality when you consciously select delegates who contradict Church teaching and manage corruption with the following:

Plan A: Patronizing the whistleblower with platitudes and meaningless drivel in template letters telling the whistleblower the Cardinal thanks them for their concern.

When the whistleblower does not accept said template letter, they escalate to Plan B.

Plan B: Form a committee which they stack with the Cardinal's cronies and drones from the Chancery to draw the conclusion that the Cardinal is not responsible or accountable for the things his crazy appointees and employees are doing and upon this finding, adjourn.

When the whistleblower remains dissatisfied, it's onto plan C.

Plan C: Maligning the reputation of the whistleblowers, intimidation tactics, threats and poppycock from Terry Donilon and the Boston Globe to cover up the wrongdoing and mismanagement.

Corruption thrives in this environment. Pedophiles, psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists take advantage of an administration which operates this way.    This is how Cardinal O'Malley's administration operates.  The thousands of people who have experienced it for the past ten years are less than edified about the hoopla that the problems have been fixed.

Let's get back to the rooster: What did Fr. Landry say about the administrative style of the Cardinal?

I'm recalibrating what he said but this is the essense of his message: He said the Cardinal is invested in his responsibilities but it is impossible to take all the actions necessary to teach, sanctify and govern.  Consequently the Cardinal hires people who stink and the mission is compromised.

Again, for those of us with children and relatives and loved ones being compromised, the Cardinal's 'investment' in the outcome is not acceptable.

A Cardinal invested in teaching, sanctifying and governing his people may indeed make the determination that the people he is delegating things to are responsible for the trainwreck.  But then, they find out whether the person can be re-trained to carry out the mission or they remove the persons and replace them with somebody who does.

Carrying on for a decade blaming theological malcontents who share his interest in the opinions in the National Catholic Reporter, while retaining them, just doesn't gel.

Fr. Landry did admit that if the Church is looking for a top notch administrator for a Pope, Cardinal O'Malley is not the man.

Cockadoodledoooooooooooooooo

The governance of Church teaching involves the critical and tactical requirement to recruit persons to whom they delegate based upon the stratagem to effect the outcome - the redemption of souls on your watch. In the case of a Cardinal, a capable collaborator needs to be a Catholic who zealously accepts the teachings of the Church and knows how to articulate, explain, evangelize and execute Its morals, ethics and principles in the practice of their appointment or employment.

Cardinal O'Malley selects people who cultivate their opinions from apostates - just like he does. When people start reporting the damage and destruction of the faith and souls, he blames them for carrying out his own agenda. When parents ask intervention to save their children or the people they love from the whackjobs he's put into place, the whistleblowers are caricatured as no good so and so's doing irreparable harm and are a disservice to the Church.

The last person we need as the cornerstone of our foundation is a Pope who wants to teach and sanctify by appointing and hiring people who reject Church teaching and then point to his tin ear when the faithful ask him to remove the delegate poisoning Christ's children.

It's the same old tired game.  

We're all winding up here for a check mate, so stay tuned.