A GROUP OF PROMINENT Chicago priests has requested a meeting with Archbishop Francis George, telling the Roman Catholic leader that criticisms he has made during parish visits in his first few months on the job "left damage in your wake.''
George, according to their report, has been tagged by some with the unfortunate nickname "Francis the Corrector.'' The sobriquet refers to the archbishop's reported disapproval of some practices he has encountered, from the order in which lay ministers received communion at one parish to the absence of kneelers in a seminary chapel....
In addition to the communion practice and kneelers, specific concerns listed in the report include George's intervention in the debate in Oak Park over gay rights, his insistence that priests wear gray vestments at funerals and comments he supposedly made regarding foreign priests -- comments the archdiocese has since asserted were misreported....
"We will resist being treated as branch managers for some huge international corporation who simply take orders from headquarters, be that at the Vatican or at the Pastoral Center (which serves as archdiocesan headquarters),'' the report asserts.
Boy, these are some serious issues the Cardinal should be commended for taking a firm stand on. I can't imagine how many souls must have been endangered by Mary Smith getting her eucharist before Bob Williams. :-)
George's intervention in the debate in Oak Park over gay rights, his insistence that priests wear gray vestments at funerals and comments he supposedly made regarding foreign priests -- comments the archdiocese has since asserted were misreported....
And on the one issue which was actually WORTH a hoot, the archdiocese backpedals from the statements -- the issue over Oak Park "gay rights." I'm sorry, this doesn't sound like a hard-core faithful Cardinal; it sounds more like the wishy-washy bishop depicted in the letters that started this thread. I went to the link you provided, and read it; and then it occurred to me that the one thing on there that was of substance that he had allegedly taken a firm stand on (earning himself what has become a desirable nickname from the perspective of orthodox Catholics) -- the school textbook -- he pleaded innocence and said that he was merely critical of it. It doesn't sound to me like he deserves his nickname.
Can you tell me some things that he has actually done that are meritorious, in your opinion, for holding firm to the faith? He obviously failed on protecting the souls of his flock, with regard to the General Absolution. And neither of the articles you posted really present anything of real weighty substance that he's had to take a firm stand on. What gives you the opinion of his greatness? (BTW - I know that my post has had some sarcasm in it, certainly not directed at you, but I'm asking this question in sincerity -- I would really like my opinion of the Cardinal to be corrected by facts that you can provide)
Clean them all out, I say. Better to have one good and holy priest in an entire archdiocese helped by laymen than a network of leftist homo boy seducing so-called Catholic priests.
Better millstones around their necks etc as Luke put it.
Your comment was really unnecessary.