Source and Plummet: The Bishops Go on (Bread of) Life Support
Barron Mind, My First Series of Grievances
On all things wrong (and some things right) with the Catholic Church...
As fun as it is to poke the Barron (puns and all!), admittedly not all of his brother bishops go for his “blessed be thy gains” schtick. But ever since the first white Jesus appeared on some lord and lady’s wall tapestry, folks have tried to mold the Son of God into their own (privileged) image, and for the US Bishops said image increasingly guides them to a comparable sorry-not-sorry cultural antagonism. Specifically, their Jesus–a pious, occasionally petulant young man who thinks his mother is still a virgin–shares not only a certain “smartest asshole in the tomb” self-satisfaction (which, okay fair), but a militant (and belligerent) elitism. Basically, both versions are angry boys who get weird around girls (and gays), Barron’s is just more likely to vent about it with Jordan Peterson (ffs!).
If you ignore the Gospel entirely (which hey, we are Catholic after all!), this crusader mentality somewhat makes sense: as proud vassals of an ancient feudal system mourning the decline of so-called Christendom, the US Bishops seek to fashion themselves (and anyone who will listen) into the noble knights whom Jesus, aka the Prince of Friggin’ Peace, supposedly desires. The problem is, of course, that aristocracy is passé (as evidenced in the shall we say “mixed” reactions to QEII’s death; real Bolshevik vibes), and you can only be an elite if other people actually want to join the club. What’s worse for our bishops, their own lord and liege, some out-of-left(ist)-field Pope from the sub-equatorial provinces, seems to have his own, conspicuously “globalist” agenda.
All of which helps to explain why, in recent years, the USCCB seems to be growing increasingly unhinged. And there’s no better case study than their theologically bankrupt and pastorally scandalous penchant for eucharistic withholding.
Daddy Issues (and Decrees)
Yes, when it comes to sacramental grace, some of these dudes are total doms. The primary culprits, of course, are Benedict XVI appointees who take their cues from ‘God’s Rottweiler’ himself. Installed as part of the then papal agenda to position firebrand conservative bishops in opposition to the country’s most wayward (re: liberal) flocks, these aggro apostles are in many ways cut straight from the Barron cloth, squaring off against the laity like Cesar Milan going alpha on a dew-eyed puppy. This includes, for instructive example, enfleshed Dan Brown villain and rabid partisan hack Salvatore Cordileone, as well as his perennially-befrocked neighbor to the north, Alexander Sample (who may or may not also be a member of the Volturi).
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Both were installed as archbishops in the waning months of Ex-Benedict’s papacy, first Cordileone as head boy of notably left wing (and famously queer) San Francisco, then Sample in Portland, OR, his ally along the Western front. And even though the Pope Bene-dipped a mere month after Sample’s installation (making way for a kinder, gentler Holy Father), they kept the bad faith: Sample remains engaged in an escalating rhetorical assault on LGBTQ+ acceptance in defiance of his commie congregants; and Cordileone, who exhibits all the pastoral sensitivity Orin Scrivello, DDS, goes after gay marriage, weeds out supposed apostates from Catholic schools, and denies communion to Nancy Pelosi.
That last move (made with Sample’s vocal support, because clout-chasing) lands in the context of a broader deployment of the Blessed Sacrament as a conservative cudgel. In 2020, the revanchist right wing Christian political project suffered an apparently major (but in hindsight disappointingly mild) setback in the failure of Donald Trump’s reelection bid. Amid the resulting whitelash (and especially prior to the Dobbs decision), the bishops began to ponder who may or may not be deserving of the Lord’s unearned and infinite grace, especially with a lifelong Catholic as both president and political opponent. At the ground level, this involved a lot of punching down at gay and trans folks whom the clergy should honestly be grateful still bother with the Church at all. Meanwhile, up on Mount Olympus, the Bishops™ took up debate over whether to deny the sacrament to abortion-supporting (or sympathetic) politicians.
Such political antics aren’t exactly new (remember the gay marriage panic and reactionary “Fortnight for Freedom”?), but the geo-political winds of Church hierarchy have shifted left (and south) in the past decade. While Pope Francis may not exactly be Che Guevara, some eight months following his papal election he did come out swinging with a manifesto of his own (yes, I know Che didn’t write the Communist Manifesto), which among other things set out to beat this this specific salvific Sword of Damocles into plowshares. Famously, he wrote that the Eucharist is not a “prize for the perfect”, but rather “nourishment for the weak (so go sob into your biceps, Barron), and you would think, for a bunch of guys who’d spent decades pointing to papal authority as tantamount to the word of God, this would put the matter to bed. Still, they proceeded to both eff around and find out: that aforementioned USCCB debate? Preemptively defanged with a rare public Vatican rebuke. Won’t let Speaker Pelosi receive communion in her home diocese? That’s cool she can get it at St. Peter’s Basilica, instead. (Francis also placed increasing restrictions on the Members Only, pre-Vatican II cosplay known colloquially as the Latin Mass.)
All of which serves to, if not stifle, at least stymie these bishops’ efforts and leave the likes of Cordileone and Sample to languish in Sodom and Gomorrah in want of that scarlet zucchetto. But as caretakers of a failing institution and emissaries to a rapidly changing culture which they resent and fear, they aren’t giving up so easily. Whatever the Pope may say, they continue not only dangle the sacrament like a prize, but wield it like a golden scythe, culling the already sparsely populated pews of dissidents and malcontents.
From Empty Tomb to Empty Carbs
The Eucharist, after all, provides bishops (and priests) with a comforting and coveted (by them, anyway) terrestrial authority: to not only call God literally to Earth, but also to determine who is worthy to stand in They/Their glory. Suffice to say, this is all about control, both the demanding rightwing social/political conformity and the reassertion of their own standing to do so. Unsurprisingly, the subsequent redemptive restrictions (both actual and threatened) always seem to pertain to purity culture lighting rods and never, say, war, police brutality or the inhumane treatment of migrants (I guess it’s kind of like an MPAA rating: it’s the sex that gets you, never the violence). Hey, Jesus may touch lepers, but increasingly among the collared class it seems the Body and Blood offered to Judas himself is perhaps a little too good for the sex-crazed masses.
The irony, of course, is that to the majority of their would-be serfs, these wheezing geese no longer lay the golden egg. No disrespect to Pope Francis, but at least stateside his assertion that the Eucharist is no prize is mostly likely to be met with a resounding, “Yeah, no kidding.” That’s because, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey, less than a third of practicing US Catholics actually believe in the Eucharist as the Real Presence of Christ, the very cornerstone of Eucharistic theology. To put this in perspective, it would be like polling Evangelicals on their “personal relationship with Jesus” and 70% replying, “Sorry, never met the guy…” This grand chasm between doctrine and popular belief has not escaped the hand-wringing attention of the USCCB, which in June launched the National Eucharistic Revival, a three year campaign meant essentially to restore the Source and Summit to its former glory.
Not an ignoble aim, in and of itself, but as always context is everything, and given their recent behavior this seems mostly like housekeeping, a clearing of the cobwebs of unbelief in their midst. Notably, in addition to their encapsulating their diminished influence over Catholic behavior in both the spiritual and political realms, the Eucharist also serves as the linchpin of the Sunday Obligation, drawing believers to participation through weekly worship (the decline of which being the primary source of the Church’s financial woes). Taken together, then, this catechetical corrective would not only ostensibly enable a cultural comeback for the Eucharist, but for the Bishops themselves.
Next up: [Spoiler alert! None of this will work, anyway.] Assuming there is a way to “restore understanding and devotion to this great mystery here in the United States,” we’ll look at why these guys are in no way up to the task. Until then…
Yours Most Aggrieved,
G. Fault