Silent Plight: The Four Horsemen of the Episcopate
A Bonus Grievance
On all things wrong (and some things right) with the Catholic Church...
Apparently, Catholic bishops are having a real media moment, and not in a good way. No, it’s not the usual suspects of Barron, Dolan and Cordileone, thirsting for the limelight by whipping up and inserting themselves in petty puritanical affronts, but instead a slew of unsolicited and self-inflicted minor league controversies (with major implications). I don’t typically publish again so soon, but between this episcopal dumpster fire and the direct intel I’ve gotten in response to my last report on the situation in Portland, there’s just too much going on to ignore.
Like some of you, I’ve been watching these stories with a mix of befuddlement, bemusement and repulsion for weeks. Still, because I write on matters actually and broadly affecting the lives of the faithful, I’ve also mostly steered clear in these humble epistles (aside from mocking Strickland’s outright buffoonery). But the confluence of these scandals, taken with other details coming to light, has me wondering: what does all this suggest about the unremarked experiences of the faithful, including lay, vowed and ordained leaders, under the ostensible guidance of their ornery ordinaries? Whereas my last column proposed the USCCB is drifting subtly towards a post-communion church, some bishops, it seems, have also aggressively embraced a post-pastoral one.
What We Do in the Shadows
What’s perhaps most illuminating about these recent sagas is that, outside of Strickland, none of these men seem to have sought fame, infamy, or even attention. Sample, for instance, didn’t make any splashy, self-aggrandizing media announcement, either about his transgender policies or the closing of his diocesan schools office—all of that leaked to the media via his dismayed and disgruntled flock. And, by every indication, it’s only the tip of the malice-berg. In the past few days, I’ve received testimony from contacts in ministry regarding the local reaction to this story and more generally to Sample himself, including that his claim (per the National Catholic Reporter) that he’s only “received some pushback or disagreement” on his gender identity guidelines doesn’t square with the overwhelming objections expressed by educators and ministers beginning with their dissemination back in January. Currently, many Archdiocese of Portland teachers are reportedly “losing it,” both over the guidelines and their punitive enforcement.
Of course, Sample should have anticipated this reaction (and likely did): a few years ago, he reportedly faced protests and Pride pins while celebrating Mass at the local diocesan high school, and has since refused to return. The emerging picture, then, is that of a bishop not only indifferent but openly hostile towards the concerns of the laity and the cultural context in which he serves. And it’s not just on culture war issues: in 2019, Sample allegedly “strongly insisted” members of his diocesan World Youth Day delegation to attend a Traditional Latin Mass, to which one youth minister later quipped, “Well, that really united all of us from around the world in one way: none of us had any idea what was going on.” He’s also not only outlined but reportedly strictly enforces a prohibition on Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion offering blessings for those who don’t receive communion. Admittedly a contested liturgical issue, it’s also a popularly accepted practice which some dioceses flatly permit it, some discourage it but with the good pastoral sense to offer alternative guidance, and many, if not most, don’t seem to address it either way, likely (and wisely) figuring it’s not worth the spiritual and communal cost of the fight.
Not only does Sample want the fight, but looking at Portland’s policy books, you get the sense that he makes his Sign of the Cross strictly with his middle finger. Specifically, while the Portland policy initially parrots USCCB guidance that the use of the lay eucharistic ministers is (to them) a non-ideal contingency in the case of insufficient availability of ordinary (re: ordained) ministers, Sample’s guidelines go below and beyond. For him, “the need to avoid obscuring the role of the priest and the deacon…by an excessive use” of such ministers “might…constitute a reason” to forgo distribution of the Precious Blood altogether (ALH 1.21.6). It’s often been argued that the male-only priesthood preserves clericalism at the expense of Holy Communion, but here Sample seems to propose this grave consequence as a nigh virtue. This despite his stated enthusiasm for the Eucharistic “Revival” as a means to elevate “the mystery we celebrate in the Holy Eucharist,” which, he tells us, drives “everything else we do in the ministry of the Church.” I guess the “we” here is simply himself and his fellow men of the velvet cloth.
Apostolic Impression
Some years ago, a teacher-in-training asked the priest instructor of one of their classes, “What do you do if you disagree with something your bishop says?” Visibly miffed, the priest replied testily, “Well, bishops are heirs to the apostles, so…” Flippant and unhelpful as this response was back then, in hindsight it also failed to anticipate another, sticky layer to this question, one increasingly relevant for ministers today: “What happens when your bishop disagrees with the Pope?” That is the precise dilemma faced by educators in the Portland Archdiocese, where Sample’s hardline approach on gender identity actually overtly rejects the pastoral approach of the “Vatican guidance” his proponents claim bolsters his position.
I’m talking, of course, about “Male and Female He Created Them,” the Congregation for Catholic Education’s 2019 foray into the public debate around gender identity issues. I’ve addressed much of the muddled, inconsistent anti-trans theological argument before, so here I’ll simply note what the Vatican document doesn’t do: namely, offer any novel doctrinal pronouncements or propose specific guidelines on hot-button issues like pronouns and bathroom usage. Yes, it trots out many of the expected theological and doctrinal suppositions implied from its “Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve” title, but its primary purpose is stated directly in the subtitle, “Towards A Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory in Education.” Indeed, its entire working framework is dialogical, “the methodology…best-suited to meet the needs of both individuals and communities.” Namely, to “listen, to reason and to propose.”
On the latter two fronts, it basically advocates for engaging in a discursive pedagogy on what it calls “Christian anthropology,” and while I can go into my (many) issues with said “anthropology,” the point here is that the Vatican’s approach is grounded in the diligent, patient work of respectful discourse and mutual learning, not rigid rule-setting. Schools, the document asserts, should be a “community in which the human person can express themself and grow in his or her humanity, in a process of relational dialogue, interacting in a constructive way, exercising tolerance, understanding different points of view and creating trust in an atmosphere of authentic harmony.” Moreover, the document argues, “The school must respect the family’s culture. It must listen carefully to the needs that it finds and the expectations that are directed towards it” (40). Both in substance and in execution, Sample’s gender document flies in the face of all of this, opting instead to dictate, disengage, and punish dissent.
Lords, Liars and Lunatics
I suppose this was always the risk with Francis’ administration weighing in on the matter, given his emphasis on melding consistency of doctrine with creativity (and empathy) of practice. For a growing number—or increasing percentage, at least—of right wing Catholics, the Church and the faith have little or nothing to do with pastoral practice, merely selective, often overstated doctrinal and dogmatic assertions. In this case, they predictably eschew the actual guidance (which, to be clear, I’m not necessarily defending) and giddily exploit the title and a few choice quotes to extrapolate behavioral mandates not present in or arguably even supported by the document itself (it’s hard to see how a student can “express themself” without the autonomy even to decide how they’re addressed). And, for an alarming number of like-minded bishops, the goal is not so much to shepherd a geographical flock as to transmogrify into some combination of feudal lord, combative culture scold and celebrity evangelist.
Which brings us back to Bishop Strickland. Oh, Joe…For those who don’t know, his troubles began with an ill-considered anti-Francis Tweet, in which Stickland brashly pronounced that he “rejects” the Pope’s “program of undermining the Deposit of Faith.” You’d think someone trained as a canon lawyer would understand or at least be ready to accept the consequences of full-blown papal rebuke, but maybe he mistook Francis’ relative patience with disagreement (especially as compared to his immediate predecessors) for weakness. Or maybe he’s just a diva. Prior to all this, this Roving Rector was known mostly as an outsized, QAnon-adjacent social media shitposter. As noted in “The Making of Bishop Strickland,” an excellent Where Peter Is profile by Mike Lewis, “Despite leading a diocese with only 55,000 Catholics, Strickland has more than double that number of Twitter followers.” Radio host, author, podcast guest…you get the impression of a longtime clout-chaser destined to fly too close to the sun. (Most hilariously, Lewis notes that, “Prior to 2018, most of the media coverage surrounding him had to do with his athleticism, such as a pushup contest during World Youth Day in Poland and his ‘Running Priest’ blog...” Eat the hollow cavity where your heart should lie out, Barron.)
But, again, the real story here is how his ruh-roh shenanigans have resurfaced and unearthed revelations about how poorly and irreverently he does his actual job of pastoring those 50K-plus East Texas faithful. Again, per WPI, in 2020 Stickland “publicly embraced countless conspiracy theories about both the pandemic and the vaccine” in defiance of public health guidance and Pope Francis. One can imagine the position in which this placed parish ministers and school personnel in conservative Texas, who during the pandemic were looking to their dioceses for clear, consistent and well-reasoned pandemic policies and guidelines, both to be able explain and defend, as well as to provide institutional and scientific cover. In addition, WPI reports on at least two women religious have been invited to minister within his diocese under questionable circumstances: one who said Pope Francis would “destroy the faith” given the chance; the other having been expelled from religious life by the Holy Father himself who is now allegedly working in one of Strickland’s diocesan schools. As the WPI piece put it, “Bishop Strickland appears to have quickly turned Tyler into a safe haven for fringe movements, showing little discretion or discernment…” Undermining the Deposit of Faith, indeed.
Pastoral Reproach
When it comes to these intransigent, egoist bishops, it’s tempting to console ourselves with the worn online adage, “Twitter isn’t real life.” After all, there are 241 active bishops in the United States, and even the most plugged-in Catholic can probably name only a handful—at least based on any public antics or embarrassments. But I wonder: how many dioceses are suffering in silence under bishops whose hostile mismanagement and pastoral ineptitude never trend or grace the pages of NCR? Because, for the most part, a lot of these guys are just petty tyrants, quietly terrorizing their own little fiefdoms.
Bishop Sika in Knoxville is a textbook example. One of the complaints against him is that he actively harassed and punished priests for speaking with the media. Recently, Fr. Rich Andre, CSP, took to Twitter himself to say this: “In my pastoral reflection this past week, I mentioned that a previous bishop instructed me to stop preaching on justice issues. Today, word came out that that bishop has resigned at age 65, 10 years before the typical retirement age for bishops.” He linked to the NCR article detailing Sika’s treatment of priests. Telling, then, that per The Pillar, at least some of his confreres at the recent USCCB meeting viewed their persistent reporting on Stika’s downfall as a “beef.”
It’s notable, also, that outside of Olson (who was appointed to Ft. Worth nine months in Francis’ pontificate), all these bishops are Benedict appointments. It was Ex-Benny, after all, who warned against “the secularization of clergy and the 'clericalization' of the laity.” Then again, he also said that “priests must distance themselves from politics in order to favor the unity and communion of all the faithful.” But who listens to popes these days?
Wearily,
G. Fault
[Note: As at least one reader noticed, the initial version of my previous column mistakenly said Charles Chaput had been archbishop of Washington, D.C., not Philadelphia. The part about his being the first ordinary of his diocese in a hundred years not to be named a cardinal was right. I printed a correction in the online link.
You can find and share the most updated versions of any of these meandering missives via grievous.substack.com. If you have a story idea, you can email me or DM me on Twitter. Thanks for reading!]