What I said very early this morning on Archbishop O’Malley’s changes to closing orders:
It might, in fact, cause them to become even more entrenched and encourage others to begin because it looks like obstinance is being rewarded. That may not be what it is in reality, but you can be sure that the newspapers on Wednesday will portray it as such, especially when we see the quotes from Voice of the Faithful, the Council of Parishes, and whatever other pressure group wants to weigh in.
From today’s Boston Globe:
Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley, facing intense opposition in multiple communities to his efforts to close more than one-fifth of the parishes in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, has decided to reverse his decisions to shutter parishes in West Newton and West Plymouth and has met privately with those leading round-the-clock occupations of closed churches in Sudbury and Weymouth.
... The Council of Parishes, a coalition of 15 parishes unhappy with the closings process, issued a statement last night welcoming O’Malley’s actions, which council cochairman Peter Borre called “belated recognition of the severely flawed way in which the reconfiguration process was managed during the first half of this year.”
It’s not exactly difficult predicting this stuff. You could almost write the stories before the news happens.
O’Malley writes that all this makes him so depressed that he sometimes prays at night to be “taken home”. He wants to be dead? From a distance, this public admission seems to indicate that O’Malley is showing signs of clinical depression, maybe. Not a comforting thought. And now he decides to do this? And this is going to help in what way? I don’t know who’s advising him, but it would be nice if he could get someone in there with two grains of common sense…. Ok, I do know Sr. Janet Eisner from Emmanuel on the “committee” – and yes, I am now officially ashamed to be an alumna…
Doesn’t O’Malley understand this is the 21st Century and that actions are one thing and the spin of the MSM are another.
Is there anyone saying to the Archbishop as Charles Halloran (i.e. William Frawley) spoke to Judge Francis Xavier Harper (i.e. Gene Lockhart) in “Miracle on 34th Street”
in the last century how the MSM will spin his well-intentioned actions?
All this second-guessing and vacilliation undermines authority.
I think we are too often afraid of what the print media might say in their token few paragraphs about a very complex situation. I could care less about the constant drumbeat of negativity. If it isn’t obvious by now that they want the world to dance to their personal tunes, then we haven’t learned much. Probably the only one really experiencing personally the complexity of the weight that has been placed on his shoulders is the one who must daily carry the cross – and if he changes something in midstream then we should pray for him and his reasoning process for the good of the Church and not so we don’t once again look like blithering idiots to reporters – recently they have enough fuzz in their own navels for their own self meditation.
Another prime example of a person put in a management situation who has absolutely no administrative skills whatsoever. And I suspect, a lack of common sense to boot.
Just thank your lucky stars he’s not your average seventh grader’s english teacher, eh? He’d get eaten alive in broad daylight.