On the Texas Catholic web site today, everybody’s favorite Dallas diocese deacon/spokesman/editor writes a story about the criminal probe of the diocese and headlines it: “Bishop rallies staff, defends actions in midst of allegations.” Doesn’t it betray a kind of mindset when it’s your staff you rally about you when you’re under siege and not the tens of thousands of Catholics in your diocese? In the photo accompanying the article, Bishop Charles Grahmann is standing at an ambo, presumably in the chancery chapel, rallying his staff. He has gathered them about himself in front of the tabernacle, using the pulpit for what?
Observe the very careful statements made by the bishop:
vated by antipathy toward the Holy Father, but by (misplaced) sympathy. He looks at the totality of the Pope’s life and his accomplishments and believes that he has accomplished all there is to accomplish, and that, like a good and faithful servant, it is time to be welcomed to his eternal reward and all the earthly plaudits to which he is entitled.
But Buckley evidently doesn’t see what the Pope himself, and others, see as the value of the witness of the cross. As I said yesterday, there is a teaching in the example of the suffering servant, such that even if he nevers says another words, he can teach more about the Via Crucis than that which is contained in all his writings.
So, I don’t criticize Buckley for his column, but I would encourage him to see beyond the worldly categories and see that, like Christ’s suffering on the cross, a suffering Pope is a contradiction to the world and a sign of the mercy of God.
