Catholic ping!
While I share entirely the general angst about the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, upon a few moments’ reflection, it does not seem so surprising.
It is perhaps a dirty little secret of the Church in (not “of”) England that over the centuries as a persecuted or discriminated against minority, they seem to have developed a certain modus vivendi with the Anglicans and Protestants that involved a rather stand-offish approach to Rome (thus the moniker “cisalpine Catholicism” applied to the English Catholics in the 19th Century, in contrast of course to “ultramontane Catholicism” as applied to the ardently pro-Roman Catholics of France, and England too, but in perhaps lesser numbers in Blighty). I think a book has been written about this, and I will try to find it in the stacks at home tonight, but as I recall, this is one of the themes. A coordinated theme is the link between this “cisalpine” attitude and the survival underground of modernist tendencies after St Pius X tried to eradicate them.
One (in)famous episode of this type was the defection of certain upper class Catholics to Anglicanism occasioned by the reestablishment of the hierarchy in England in the mid 19th Century.
Another morbidly interesting feature of this is the predominace of Irish-sounding names amongst the liberal bishops in England. One would have thought that coming from Ireland, with its own history in this area and kind of tribal loyalty mentality, they would have been more “ultra-” than “cis-”. I can only assume that chaps like Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor have lived in England so long that they have gone native.
This is not to impune all the many fine Catholics in England and Wales, just to note the rather interesting historical twist that seems to have occurred with regard to some.
V. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us,
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.