Maybe I had my signals crossed on Bishop Braxton. I received the following from someone who knew him in the past:
He was appointed auxiliary bishop in St. Louis some years ago; he proved himself to be imperial, obnoxious, and liberal. As a matter of fact, he once asked some of his priests if they provided the National Catholic Reporter for all their parishioners. He expressed his dismay at the conservative nature of modern seminarians at Kenrick Seminary, spent 20K remodeling his rooms in the cathedral residence. Other outrages, too numerous to mention. The really amusing thing (to me) is to find the CTA types and the conservatives united in not wanting this appointment to happen.
So the liberal complaints are not about this bishop in particular, but about the process of the appointing bishops. The thing is, this is the way it’s been done forevercan/menwomen.shtml ] First is the tactic of provoking gender conflict. Feminists try to convince women to approved>1
I’m afraid in this case it’s just a human response to a truly awful bishop, not an ideological response to a good and challenging bishop.
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He also brags about his close relationship with Joe Bernardin, and is still the chairman of the Board of Trustees at his former Alma Mater, Louvain.
Catholics in Louisiana were offering to buy his plane ticket to Illinois.
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The pastor at St. George’s Parish yesterday criticized St. Jeremiah parishioners who last weekend circulated a list of about two dozen proposed repairs, saying the items are more wishes than actual needs. The friction comes about a week before the church communities are set to merge. St. Jeremiah’s will close as part of the Archdiocese of Boston’s reconfiguration and its parishioners will join St. George’s. While acknowledging St. George’s is looking to install vinyl siding and other ways to modernize the church, the Rev. Frank O’Brien said the list left on cars in the St. Jeremiah’s parking lot was over the top.
In other words, they’re overstating the situation in order to protray it most favorably for themselves.
Meanwhile, there was a tempest over the removal of air conditioners from St. Jeremiah to St. George. Those St. Jeremiah parishioners who had accepted the closing order wanted to take that property with them in order to benefit their new parish. But the minority staying behind characterized the removal as a nefarious attempt by the archdiocese to swelter them out of the church this summer. I think these people have been watching too many X-Files re-runs. For one thing, this is Massachusetts: 99 percent of Catholic churches don’t have air conditioning and for good reasons. They are mainly large stone buildings that reflect the heat and remain relatively cool in the day. And you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Sundays per summer that approach the necessity for air conditioning. It’s not like they took the heating system out. In any case, sympathetic Catholics in a nearby town donated several air conditioners to replace the lost ones. Now they can tough out their protest in comfort this summer. Give me a break.
