I don’t understand people who get all excited about meetings of the US bishops’ conference. Sure, in the last few years there’s been some anticipation over matters dealing with the Scandal, but now it’s settling back into it’s old pattern of lots of talk about things that don’t matter much while the bishops gather in a fancy hotel somewhere and go out for nice meals at expensive restaurants. Meanwhile, the USCCBureaucracy can get back to running the whole thing for them.
After all, according to a spokesman for the conference, everything in the Church in the US is running so smoothly, there’s not much for the bishops to talk about.
The unusual degree of closed-door deliberations this time is not a policy change but rather the product of an unusually short list of items that require formal action, said Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Evidently, we’ve solved all problems related to the Scandal, liturgy, the quality of seminaries, diocesan bankruptcies, the closing of parishes, the flight of Catholics from the Church.
We don’t need to see the Bishops on EWTN or MTV or whatever. I’d rather they get in a closed room and bust each others balls in all seriousness. Drink a couple-a six packs and have a good family row. Didn’t St. Nicholas punch a heretic bishop in the face at one of the great councils? (My apologies to jolly old St. Nicholas if I got my facts wrong.)
My own bishop, +Joseph Galante of Camden NJ has been conducting “Speak Up Sessions” at every parish in the diocese. He’s at my church on the 29th. There’s so much to say.