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Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Cooperating with Evil is a Sin -- Especially When You're Wearing a Roman Collar!

Is this wolf in sheep's skin
wearing a roman collar?
My colleague Janet at Restore DC Catholicism posted a great video on the nine ways individuals participate in the sins of others. Cooperation with evil is, in fact, evil.

You don't have to commit a murder to be a party to it. The boyfriend who urges and pays for his girlfriend's abortion is every bit as guilty of killing their baby (perhaps more so) as the mother who agrees to it. The nurse who neglects a patient at the order of a doctor, participates in the death that follows. All those silent staff members complicit in the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo were cooperators in her deliberate murder including Bishop Lynch of St. Petersburg, FL who aided and abetted it using his bully pulpit to endorse it. In 2007 when Lynch retired, Bobby Schindler wrote an open letter decrying the bishop's support for Terri's euthanasia saying, "When bishops don't do their job, innocent people die."


Think of all those who say, "I would never have an abortion, but I'm pro-choice." They bless the killing agreeing that others who do it are within their rights. Somehow, I don't think that will sell well on Judgment Day, especially for those called to shepherd the flock.

Indeed, it is particularly troubling when those praising evil wear roman collars like the bishops eulogizing the way Alder Hey treated Alfie Evans and his parents. Cardinal Nichols and Archbishop McMahon praise the "professional care" the toddler received, although there is ample evidence that the child's death was desired and his "caregivers" did everything to hasten death including initially depriving Alfie of oxygen and water and refusing to feed him for over a day after his ventilator was removed. The media attention and Tom Evans' eloquent defense of his son probably forced the hospital to relent to minimize the negative attention. Is that "professional care?" I wonder if those bishops and the hospital staff ever skip even one meal.

In 1998 when Hugh Finn was starved and dehydrated to death in a Virginia nursing home in my own
backyard, two bishops blessed the actions of his wife Michelle who ordered the killing: Hugh's own Kentucky bishop, Thomas Kelly, and Richmond, VA bishop, Walter Sullivan. (The Arlington Diocese had no bishop at the time because of John Keating's sudden death in Rome.) Kelly and Sullivan both blessed Hugh's murder. It was a tragedy and a scandal, a double sin. First the sin of cooperating with evil and second the scandal that leads others to accept and imitate the sin. How many have used the actions of bishops and priests to justify their own evil choices?

The sheep mourn over the exile of their
good shepherd, St. Athanasius.
We have a particular contrast to their behavior with today's saint, Athanasius, who refused to be silent about heresy and fought the Arians with tenacity. At that time the Church and society were riddled with Arian leaders who denied the divinity of Christ. They did everything they could to stop that one man. It was "Athanasius contra mundum," the saint against the world! For his fidelity he was banished, excommunicated by Pope Liberius, and faced numerous threats to his life. But he never wavered in his defense of the faith. He was a good shepherd following in the footsteps of Our Lord. And almost single-handedly he pushed back the Arians and restored the integrity of the faith.

Would that we had more bishops like him in this age when man, rather than defending the littlest lambs, vigorously defend the wolves. Their cooperation with evil is a scandal to Holy Mother Church. May God have mercy on them. It would behoove them to re-read Jeremiah 23, "Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord....I will take care to punish your evil deeds."

St. Athanasius, pray for us!

6 comments:

  1. It does not appear that Alfie had good care. There was mold in his tubes that were not regularly changed. And blood on them too I read. This could lead to further infections. They wanted him dead before he turned 2 because then the parents could sue the pharmaceutical company that manufactured the vaccines as after he got them, he went into this condition.

    So many so called shepherds are hirelings that are not caring for the salvation of souls and 'go along to get along' with the winds of the day. Their souls are indeed in danger.

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  2. Couldn't agree more. We live in perilous times and many of our shepherds have abandoned us! Catholic laity today need to know their faith more than ever so we know when we are being mislead by the hirelings.

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  3. MAK: Great report, keep up your good work.

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  4. Someone might as well say it. That many shepherds are okay with the way Alfie Evans and his parents were treated is the logical direction of Amoris Letitia.

    If you don't believe that there are acts that are always and everywhere evil, then not only can you justify adultery but murder too.

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  5. From 1975 to 1993, hundreds of cops removed tens of thousands of people who were blocking abortion clinic doors, preventing abortions.

    Each of those cops made himself a formal accomplice in abortions. Removing an obstacle that you know is preventing a crime is to be an accomplice in the crime.

    ONE Catholic bishop (René Gracida) instructed the cops that making arrests in those situations was to make themselves accomplices to murder--and therefore orders to do so could not be obeyed. One bishop was arrested: Austin Vaughn, auxiliary bishop of New York. All other bishops refused to speak, or, like John May of St. Louis, said the police should obey all orders and "enforce the law, whatever it is."

    Thus, it is nothing new that bishops remain loyal to the State, even when the State is murdering innocent people. It has happened many times in history.

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  6. And yet we call them shepherds. No wonder the world is in such a mess. Lord, please give us shepherds after your own heart!

    Back in the 70s a friend and I went around meeting with clergy, both Protestant and Catholic, trying to get them to support and join rescues. We talked to the clergy council in D.C. I think Bishop Baum was there. We also met with Bishop Welsh in Arlington. The only clergyman willing to be involved was the Episcopal pastor Rennie Scott at Truro in Fairfax, but he wanted others to be involved. Bishop Welsh organized a prayer vigil at the abortion mill, but that was it. The sheep continued to rescue; the shepherds stayed in church. I always wonder what would have happened if one Sunday parishes all over the country had signs on the door saying, "No Mass today, your priests are in jail for trying to protect the littlest lambs from slaughter."

    Somehow, I doubt abortion would be legal today.

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