source: Father Ray Blake`s Blog Obedience and Parrhesia
The Crown was made by B Pius IX himself
I remember being told of one of the Welsh bishops being with the rest of the Bishop's Comference at the English College, they all went out to dinner in small groups but left him in the College alone, they were side-lining him. One of my friends, then a student, now long since ordained, felt so sorry for him, he gathered a small group of his fellows and took him out for a drink. Clergy, even Bishops can be unpleasant, just like little children in their excluding of someone with whom they disagree, especially if they are being called to obedience in Christ, and to a more rigorous path. Cardinal Burke since his sacking from the Signatura has apparently lost his smallish salary but more significantly his office and secretarial help but I suspect the thing that really hurts isn't that, or the public humiliation in front of the whole Church but it is the realisation that former friends and colleagues are no longer that friendly, and others just ignore you. Being 'excluded' is my idea of hell.
Being a bishop should be like herding cats, love unites us in obedience to our Bishop and to the Pope but first we are servants of Christ and to his Gospel, if we don't defend him and his teaching we are no more than hirelings. As the Holy Father reminds us we should speak frankly with our Father's in God, we are supposed to be son not cowering surfs, that might be a positive quality of an employee of a multi-national corporation but not a member of the Church, for a Christian it is a sin. In the same way religious obedience, the promise we priest's take demands that we do not allow our superiors to risk their souls and the souls they are entrusted by Christ, they are supposed to lead their flock to Heaven not to Hell. What son would watch his father fall into sin and do nothing, what priest would do it?
Cardinal Burke last Tuesday called us priests to use every means we can to safeguard the teaching of the Church, I urge any reader to do the same, even if it risks getting our heads cut off or being crowned with thorns.
