St. John Cardinal Newman:
“. . . I fear we lack . . . firmness, manliness, godly severity. I fear
it must be confessed, that our kindness, instead of being directed and
braced by principle, too often becomes languid and unmeaning; that it is
exerted on improper objects, and out of season, and thereby is
uncharitable in two ways, indulging those who should be chastised, and
preferring their comfort to those who are really deserving. We are
over-tender in dealing with sin and sinners. We are deficient in jealous
custody of revealed Truths which Christ has left us. We allow men to
speak against the Church, its ordinances, or its teaching, without
remonstrating with them. We do not separate from heretics, nay, we
object to the word as if uncharitable; and when such texts are brought
against us as St. John’s command, not to show hospitality toward them,
we are not slow to answer that they do not apply to us.”
The Bishop of Madison, WI (preceded in kind by the Bishop of Lincoln, NE), does not have the problems that Newman describes.
Were there another 430 US Bishops who were like them!
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3 comments:
What does a Bishop know about manliness?
A person who posts anonymously is certainly not a man, rather a coward.
Dad29, if you are accurate in your assessment of the bishops here, then there seems no basis to expect that they would take their current disputes with federal policy to the point of incurring any personal cost.
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