His Awesomeness, Bishop Vasa

Good luck finding anything about this controversy on Bishop Vasa’s own diocese website.

Once again, the flock is the last to know. This controversy is another example of a bishop blundering into allowing a press hostile to the Church shape the public’s opinion of the Church and distort the Church’s teachings.

Nero is fiddling while Rome was burning.

Few are going to Mass and confession yet the battle that the good Bishop has chosen to fight is against his teachers none of whom I would guess have in any way shape or form have spoken out in favor of contraception, abortion, homosexual marriage and euthanasia. All I am sure have kept their opinions to themselves. Jesus succeeded because he did not exercise his omnipotence. The good Bishop thinks he can succeed by exercising his puny power against two hundred defenseless teachers. The good Bishop should ponder the example of Jesus’s restraint.

Beware the small minded prelate who thinks he can accomplish a transformation of a sinner into a saint by forcing a sinner to sign a loyalty oath. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana. Remember what pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) said

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

First the good Bishop comes after the teachers with a loyalty oath. Then they come after the godfathers at baptism; then they come for the parents who want to send their kids to Catholic schools; they they come for those who want to go to Mass and Confession. Soon there is not a Catholic left

The error of the perfect Catholics is that they view Catholicism as a status not as a process and want to measure it by taking a snapshot instead of shooting a movie. They are quick to declare that a baby in the womb is a human being in the first stage of development who shall pass through other stages including infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. However, they do not see a similar framework of development in the thinking of imperfect Catholics. To them, imperfect Catholics are defective so they are happy to “abort” them from a place in the Church. Perfection is uncomfortable with imperfection (but see, Mark 2:15-17). Imperfect Catholics are ostracized instead of welcomed. Yet, we are told that all of us are sinners. Go figure.

Instead of basking in the limelight on the roof of the Church with divisive loyalty oaths, wouldn’t you prefer a bishop who descends to the foundation of the Church where there is hard work to be done and preaches the following:

The path to the radical love burning for us in the heart of God starts at the Mass. Jesus, one of the most Holy Trinity, the Son of God Himself, while human, alive and vulnerable, successfully passed through the gauntlet of gruesome sacrifice – that is, through the agony in the garden, the scourging, the crowning of thorns, the carrying of the cross and His hanging from it (i.e., the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary). Wow! By Jove, He did it! He made it through! He finished the grueling race. He didn’t quit. Bravo! Congratulations! Thanks be to God! It is time to strike up a song, break out the food and drink and clap our hands in happy celebration! The most Holy Trinity gives us the opportunity to join in the happy celebration at the victory parties they throw for Jesus whenever a priest says a Mass. The victory parties that the most Holy Trinity throw for Jesus have taken place for more than two thousand years in every land across the face of the earth! And then the path to the radical love burning for us in the heart of God continues backwards in time through more than two thousand years of human history to the gruesome sacrifice itself. Through these two hoops of contemplation we must jump to get to the heart of God! When we jump through them, we discover that the nature of God is love. He passed through the gauntlet and then rose from the dead. Love enabled the former; omnipotence the latter. Hallelujah!

The good bishop is fighting the wrong battle. He is conducting a pre-emptive strike against 200 defensless teachers who have done nothing to provoke his wrath. Meanwhile, no one is going to Mass or to Confession. There are better uses on the good bishop’s time.

Nero is fiddling while Rome was burning – and in his mind he thinks he is doing a good job!

Wouldn’t wolves who don sheeps’ clothing also dissimulate by signing loyalty oaths? Wouldn’t they just continue the masquerade? Do you think signing a loyalty oath makes a difference to the wolves in sheeps clothing? The signing of a loyalty oath will not expose or deter a wolf in sheeps clothing. Think it through.

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. – Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)

Here is a more comprehensive draft of my thoughts about loyalty oaths

LOYALTY OATHS- FIDDLING WHILE ROME BURNS!

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. – Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)

“The mind’s direction is more important than its progress.” (Joseph Joubert)

Bishop Robert Vasa steps into the limelight on the roof of the Church by requiring loyalty oaths from “all 200 of his diocese’s Catholic schoolteachers” (Click Here). Bishop Robert Vasa’s purge of imperfect Catholics is a pre-emptive strike. None of the teachers expressed an opinion contrary to the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church. He is just fearful of imaginary hobgoblins hiding under his bed. What happened to the mentality that we are all in this thing together, perfect and imperfect Catholics, one for all and all for one? Shouldn’t we be marching hand in hand, arm in arm, in the company of one another, as one family, together as a Church on the escape route through the desert from the yoke of pharaoh to the promised land? Is there no room for sinners anymore in the Catholic Church (Matthew 9:10-13) (John 8:1-11)? Are there no more rooms in our Father’s house (John 14:2-3)? Must we forsake the exercise of our rationality and instead become mindless hand puppets of the Catholic hierarchy? Does not the Church want us to think for ourselves any more? Is a gnostic elite trying to take over the Church at the expense of us ordinary Catholics?

The error of the perfect Catholics is that they view Catholicism as a status not as a process and want to measure it by taking a snapshot instead of shooting a movie. They are quick to declare that a baby in the womb is a human being in the first stage of development who shall pass through other stages including infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. However, they do not see a similar framework of development in the thinking of imperfect Catholics. To them, imperfect Catholics are defective so they are happy to “abort” them from a place in the Church. Perfection is uncomfortable with imperfection (but see, Mark 2:15-17). Imperfect Catholics are ostracized instead of welcomed.

The way of God is persuasion not coercion. To get us to come home, God uses reason not force. Heaven is not a jail; God is not a warden; and, we are not His prisoners. We are free to come or go [ but not come and go] as we please. The most Holy Trinity lay their omnipotence aside and, instead, appeal to our rationality. They hold the opinion that our rationality is a mechanism that works. They do not override our free will with their omnipotence. They will not drag us back to our home in paradise against our wills kicking and screaming like recalcitrant children. They want us to figure out for ourselves that coming back home advances our self-interest. We benefit by going through the process of figuring it out for ourselves. God wants us to receive this benefit. God wants us to explore His mystery, majesty, and magnificence and, as a result of our exploration, come to the conclusion, through the exercise of our rationality, that a life with God is better than a life in godlessness. Yet, the good Bishop Vasa chooses coercion not persuasion. He wants to beat his teachers over the head with a loyalty oath. Nice guy.

George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” Let us remember what pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) (click here) said:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

In the light of Bishop Vasa’s purge, the above can be rewritten as follows:

First they came for the teachers,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a teacher.

Then they came for the godparents,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a godparent.

Then they came for parents who are trying to send their kids to Catholic Schools,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t sending kids to school.

Then they came for me and others while we were going to Mass and going to Confession,
and then there were no Catholics left.

The good Bishop is fiddling while Rome is burning. An escape is taking place from godlessness to God. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect. Yet, traffic on the escape route from godlessness to God is declining. The interest in experiencing close encounters with the living God at the landmarks that define the escape route is fading. We are pilgrims who are no longer making pilgrimage. We are dead in the water. We are no longer moving. We have put down roots in the hostile desert and have duped ourselves into thinking that sessility is good. Fewer Catholics are going to Mass; none are going to Confession. Mass attendance in the dioceses of Trenton as a percentage of Catholics is down into the teens The numbers are similar in the other dioceses throughout our nation. Yet, the small minded bureaucrats of the Catholic Church think that they are making progress when they circulate in place taking inventory, measuring our fidelity to doctrine, extracting loyalty oaths, etc. Circulating in place, however, is an illusion of progress – movement is being made but the movement is not towards God but in circles around ourselves. The true generals of the Catholic Church realize that we must be on our way. We are at war. It is time to march not to measure. Forward progress must be made in a new exodus led by the new Moses, the Catholic Church, from landmark to landmark on the escape route through the hostile desert from the yoke of pharaoh to the promised land. The true generals of the Catholic faith understand that in order to think Catholic we must first do Catholic. The bureaucrats of the Catholic Church have it backwards. They hold the opinion that thinking Catholic precedes doing Catholic. Catholicism, unlike coffee, is never instant. It is not created by the stroke of a pen on a loyalty oath. To become Catholic, we must participate in the escape marching from landmark to landmark through the hostile desert from godlessness to God. Only by passing from landmark to landmark do we know that we are heading in the right direction. Only by stopping at a landmark do we experience a close encounter with the living God. Only by experiencing a close encounter with the living God are we converted from sinner to saint. As we seek God, we are converted. The good Bishop cannot convert us; only God converts. There is no other way to do it. A loyalty oath, by the way, is not an example of a landmark that defines the escape route from godlessness to God. It is a needless diversion. When we arrive at the anteroom of paradise there will be plenty of time to take care of all of the administrative matters that so enthrall the bureaucracy of the Catholic Church – if they still strike us as important after we have arrived at the gates of paradise.