Bishop Doran’s bold naming of sin

On the other end of the scale, we have Bishop Doran of Rockford, Illinois. What did they put in his coffee this week? He launches a scathing rebuke against the Democrats, the culture of death, radical feminism, and homosexuals in his diocesan newspaper column dated August 10.

Many of the issues that confront us are serious, and we know by now that the political parties in our country are at loggerheads as to how to solve them. We know, for instance, that adherents of one political party would place us squarely on the road to suicide as a people.

The seven “sacraments” of their secular culture are abortion, buggery, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, feminism of the radical type, and genetic experimentation and mutilation. These things they unabashedly espouse, profess and promote. Their continuance in public office is a clear and present danger to our survival as a nation.

Buggery! How often have bishops tap-danced around sin, using every euphemism to avoid calling it what it is. But Bishop Doran is bold here, especially considering the recent confirmation that “buggery” affected even the highest-ranking leaders of a neighboring diocese.

Thank God for bishops who don’t pussy-foot around sin and instead speak strongly and with courage. He doesn’t even hesitate to name other priests as part of the problem.

I ran across, in one parish, prayers of the faithful with the intention that “we pray for those who work and demonstrate for the cause of life and the unborn, the aged and the defected, that they may persevere in spite of the ridicule they receive sometimes, even from pastors and priests.” I shudder to think that might be true. We know from the sad experience of recent years that some Catholics (even among priests) are so warped and perverted from their Catholic vocation, that they are capable of enormities. But, they should know that it was no prelate or bishop or pope that said, “Suffer the little children to come to me and do not hinder them” (Matthew 19:14). The Invisible Head of the Church will one day come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire, particularly those who have either by acts of omission or commission, destroyed innocent human life.

But the courage should not end at naming the problem. As bishop, Doran has tools at his disposal to call his people, especially his priests, to repentance and conversion. Will he do so? That’s the next step.

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