Fr. Richard McBrien's Common Law Wife

Our friends at the Dallas Area Catholic Blog seem surprised to learn Richard McBrien had a common law wife.

I didn't think there was anyone left in Christendom who didn't know!

I wondered if she stood beside the casket as a grief-stricken widow but I haven't connected with local sources to find out. Michael Voris cracked open the nut. His video is linked on the blogpost.

It isn't just priests with male lovers who are on the Pope's no-judgment list.

Look, priests fall. Lots of situations have happened over the years and each one of them is different. They should be evaluated upon whether it is a slip up that needs an ax taken to the root and some intensive spiritual work - and a new assignment. Or, its a situation where a priest has been shacking up with his male or female lover or lovers for years. Or one after the other - without any intention of being celibate.

Those things require two different responses. But something is screwy with how judgments are applied.

I've seen a chancery excoriate an orthodox heterosexual priest and strip him of his faculties for a slip up with an adult woman. All the while knowing numerous dissenting priests had been shacking up with their lover or lovers for decades and they are in good standing.

Everyone knew Richard McBrien had a common law wife. Everyone, all the way up to the Holy See. They let him do it openly.

Dissenting priests who shack up with a floozy or boyfriend-up for decades - they give them nod and the wink.

An orthodox priest who sets up 24 adoration - they go after like a team of wild horses.

Much like the screwed up priorities of rebuking a woman pregnant with her eighth child and giving good press to a transgendered woman.

You'd have to be an idiot not to draw the painfully-obvious conclusions.