My question, though, is what do you expect the pope, bishops in union with him and priests in union with them to do or should have done?
From Rorate Caeli:
The crisis into which we are all immersed—there is no escape—is showing forth in a clear way, clear at least with those whose eyes are not clouded by false piety, the complete irrelevance of the Catholic Church within this crisis. The Catholic Church throughout her two thousand year history has been involved in very many crises: heresy, war, plague, ecclesial strife, famine—you name it and the Church has been involved in these crises within civilization, which civilization in the end means people, not merely groups of people, but individuals: he and she and their children. And the reaction of the Church in the past was to be radically involved with the crisis facing the society in which she lived. This is not to romanticize the past as if bishops have always responded to these crises of life and death in the best possible way. But we do have the image of St. Aloysius Gonzaga carrying victims of the plague in Rome to the hospital on the Isola Tiburina. But then again, Aloysius was not a bishop or even a priest. He was just a Jesuit novice.
From Rorate Caeli:
The Pandemic Crisis: The Absence of the Catholic Church -- The Dereliction of Duty of the Hierarchy
And what do we see today?
2 comments:
Fr. Cipploa writes, "It is not romanticism to hope that our bishops and priests would follow the examples of St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century during the plague in Rome processing through the streets of the city pleading to God for an end to the plague. It is not romanticism to hope that our bishops would follow the example of St. Charles Borromeo during the plague in Milan in the seventeenth century who was so deeply present to his people at his own risk."
Here's the difference between Gregory, Charles, and the priests and bishops of today.
Gregory and Charles were not epidemiologists. Epidemiology did not exist in their day and time. Gregory and Charles were ignorant of the means of the spread of disease.
Gregory and Charles were not aware that by travelling through the towns and villages with large retinues, by visiting the sick in homes and hospitals, such as they were, by embracing and anointing the dying, by providing communion/viaticum on the tongue, they may well have been contributing to the spread of whatever illness was plaguing the population.
It's a nice thing to paint oneself as a "hero" by wanting to ape Gregory and Charles. I suspect Fr. Cippola feels pleased with himself for lambasting his ecclesiastical superiors.
I think his position is un-historical and self-serving.
Yet, YOU, and your kind ignore science all of the time: holding hands, kiss of peace, common chalice. Fyi, abortion which your party promotes even during this pandemic is NOT healthcare nor an essential service. God cannot resolve contradictions, but apparently YOU can.
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