The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost!

The USCCB made Pope Francis' quarterback of pneumatic Roman quackery, the Colin Kaepernik of American Cardinals, a free agent and elected a real prolifer to head the prolife committee.

I linked to Michael Sean Winters so I could poach the best synopsis in Christendom:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this amounted to the bishops giving the middle finger to Pope Francis.

I am eating crow tonight!


First time in 40 years a Cardinal hasn't been elected. And here is the kicker: Dolan tipped the scale!

I'm actually shocked. I mean...the USCCB supported Carol Keehan and the nuns on the bus. You've got to be a pretty successful flunkee not to pull the wool over their eyes.

Over at John Allen's place they are calling it a "surprising upset".

In a surprising upset, Archbishop Joseph Naumann beat Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago to become head of the U.S. bishops' pro-life committee. The election will likely be viewed by many as a referendum on both Pope Francis and the bishops' pro-life policy engagement.

I know too that we are all feverishly praying that coming out of the closet may not pan out for the heretics after all.

I remember back in the 80's when I thought the Church was backwards on contraception. I flocked to priests who sold my soul to the devil. I knew exactly where to find them. They would not even absolve contraception in the Confessional of people sitting on the fence, as I was. They would tell you it isn't a sin anymore, its just a matter of time before its official, so it didn't need to be absolved. It took them 30+ years to elevate a pope who would use Christ's throne to muddle Church teaching enough to convince the uncatechized and those like me who were spiritually disoriented from mortal sin. He's created such malice for the Head of Christ in the Deposit of Faith, I honestly don't know if we'll ever get those people back. So upsetting because they are the people we love.

I've talked about this before, but I remember those days paying keen attention to what Pope John Paul II was saying. Although I resented him for it, his persistence kept the dying seed of truth watered enough that I never fully accepted what the heretics were saying. But, I wanted to believe them so badly I continued to use contraception for years. The lies of those priests kept me in a state of habitual mortal sin for YEARS. Oddly enough, I was very-well catechized. Just goes to show you that the combination of wanting to believe and the effects of mortal sin on the intellect can give you a pretty bad case of amnesia.

What broke my stupid streak was these priests eventually said things I knew could not possibly be true, proving themselves to be a liar. And I hate to admit that I didn't flock back to truth when I discovered the first liar. I went to another parish where a more conservative liar was pastor. And I did that a couple of times! All the while, Pope John Paul II consistently was teaching the Truth in the public square. I was so curious to know who was lying to me, I read his encyclicals, with a prayer to Christ to lead me to the Truth.

I wonder if that is what happened to this Body of Bishops? The lies from this Pope's circus just became so outrageous that it was enough to wake them out of their 40 years of diabolical disorientation? That and our fervent prayers?!

I am very worried about the permanence of damage done to people we love by a Pope leading people from the Truth to lies. It's the Bizarro world of my own experience.

Also in the news today, Cardinal Burke took the next canonical step and made the 'final plea' for clarity on the dubia.


Part of me wants to think the USCCB's 'middle finger' to the agenda has got to be shocking to the Holy Father. If he ever thought only a couple of educated Cardinals glued to Sanctifying Grace would resist, today was a rude awakening. US Bishops are not the sharpest tools in the shed and everyone knows it. As the canonical case against him makes its way across his desk today, the chances that his legacy is going to make history in ways he never anticipated just went up like a winning thoroughbred who relieves himself while the folks are singing My Old Kentucky Home at Kentucky Derby. He's got a problem and it isn't a little one.

But the other part of me remembers what he said in response to the uproar over the synod. He said something like the people he has been planning this with realize that there is going to be resistance and our plan is to carry on. That's what he said and I believe him. Just maybe, we'll be hearing a homily this weekend caricaturing the entire see of USCCB Bishops as rigid-sourpussed-creed-reciting-parrots who are detached from the people. The ridiculousness of that caricature isn't going to help his credibility one bit.

Either way, it's about to get interesting.