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"But in his new book, "Crisis of Authority," Msgr. Kelly states that the big problem actually is "the refusal of most bishops to be bishops, i.e., to guard the faith, rebuke those in error, to teach with the authority of Christ and, if necessary, to cut off heretics and schismatics from the body of the Church. The real problem is not theologians or errant priests but how the American Catholic Church is being governed."

This has been my point of view all along. Lazy, compromised bishops who are more concerned with their golf swing than they are with their prayer life or what's going on in their dioceses.

"There are too many cardinals and bishops acting like warlords and not like soldiers in the Roman Catholic Church, in which they took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Those vows, I'm beginning to think, must have meant nothing to these enabling "network" bishops. I wish there was something in canon law regarding deliberate fraud in the taking of vows. I would dearly love to see these luxury-loving, debauched, crooked, amoral, criminal "bishops" out on the street with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

"The priests and bishops are scared to death that they might be considered "out of step" or too judgmental if they ended this crap. Even though Vatican II was not supposed to include this baloney, no one has the guts to stop it."

BRAVO!!!

There is SO MUCH good stuff to discuss in this article, it's hard to know where to begin. I think I'll just let it go at this for now and see what comes up later.

"But in his new book, "Crisis of Authority," Msgr. Kelly states that the big problem actually is "the refusal of most bishops to be bishops, i.e., to guard the faith, rebuke those in error, to teach with the authority of Christ and, if necessary, to cut off heretics and schismatics from the body of the Church.

There's another twist to this -- the refusal of priests to become bishops.

Around 1993, I had the opportunity to have a frank one-on-one discussion with a very well connected priest. At one point in the discussion I asked him why John Paul didn't appoint better bishops.

He replied that the Pope had a very difficult time of getting priests to take on the burden of being a bishop. Over 2/3 of the the priests offered the position refused the Pope's offer according to this priest.

I have no reason to doubt this good priest.