Did The US Bishops Declare "War" Against The Pope?

The U.S. bishops seem to be sending out a message that they are not on board with how Pope Francis deals with homosexuality. And they are letting the pope know that they believe homophobia equates to Catholicism, in a manner of speaking.

The bishops are meeting in Baltimore for their annual jamboree, and part of the agenda is the battle brewing between the bishops and the beloved Pope Francis. After the Vatican synod last month, some bishops are mad that the pope seems to have abandoned the "hardcore homophobia" that the Church has espoused for centuries.

image courtesy of queerty.com

John Thavis, a former Rome bureau chief for Catholic News Service had this to say: “Many of the U.S. bishops have been disoriented by what this new pope is saying and I don’t see them really as embracing the pope’s agenda.” 

Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, RI, on the other hand, said that the synod was “rather Protestant.” Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, said that the synod created confusion about Church teaching. He further stated that “I think confusion is of the devil.” Cardinal Raymond Burke, former archbishop of St. Louis, said that the Church is risking a schism by moving “contrary to the constant teaching and practice of the Church.”

The pope, however, showed them who's boss. Queerty has this report:

Pope Francis sent the bishops a strong signal about where he stands by formally demoting Burke just two days before the bishops met. The pope busted Burke to the ceremonial position of protectorate of the Knights of Malta. The move was a brutal reminder of just who holds the power in the Church.
Some of the bishops have been trying to paper over the differences by madly spinning the press.

“What I heard and read, the real synod was divisive, confrontational, partisan, and dwelt only on same sex-marriage, cohabitation and divorce,” New York’s Timothy Dolan said Monday. “In fact it was plodding, even at times tedious, but it was a synod of consensus.”

Dolan is going to have to revisit that statement in the confessional, because it’s clearly untrue. The document that the synod originally floated was much more pro-gay. It was watered down because the conservative bishops, many of them from the U.S., blew a gasket. That’s not the definition of consensus.

The fact is, the landscape for the U.S. bishops has changed, and they don’t know how to deal with it.
“It used to be your career in the church could be advanced if you took a hard stance on issues,” the Rev. James Bretzke, a professor of moral theology at Boston College, told the Boston Herald. “Pope Francis wants people who are more bridge builders instead of bridge burners.”

That won’t stop the hard-core homophobes from taking a few more bridges with them before they go. They’re probably hoping that the pope is standing on one of them.

Looks like things are about to change, hopefully for the better.


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