Time’s Up, Your Eminence

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Dear Bishops of the United States,

This open letter pertains to what is now known as "The Crisis" and comes on the heels of a letter I mailed on the Feast of the Assumption to Abp. Allen Vigneron, the head of my home archdiocese of Detroit. Given this widening scandal and the increasingly credible accusation that Pope Francis himself participated in the cover-up for ex-Cdl. McCarrick, I have chosen to publish my observations below as an open letter to all bishops, representing only myself, but hopefully giving voice to many other laity.

A few of you have spoken boldly and frankly about the decades of rot in the Church, the catastrophic effects of this crisis and, most importantly, its true roots and remedies.

More of you have approached this as just another defensive public relations exercise, mouthing the traditional mantra, "We are shocked and saddened," but the truth is you knew and did nothing or, worse, you remain complicit in the cover-up.

The rest of you, which may be a majority of the USCCB, would appear to have less direct culpability than the latter group, but also have shown less courage and forthrightness (so far) than the former. It would seem that you are hedging your bets until it is clear which faction will win out.

Spoiler alert: The faithful servants will.

To this large group of fence-sitters, it is time for you to make yourself known, lest Our Lord say, "Because you are lukewarm, I spew you out of my mouth."

So I ask you, "Where do you stand?"

Are you on the side of the truth coming out in this crisis — the whole, terrible and purifying truth?

Are you willing to defend all the truths of our faith against those who deny or conspire against it, even if they are fellow bishops, and even if it is proven that they include the Pope, himself?

Do you reject the conduct of predator priests, conspiratorial bishops and sycophantic lay apologists as not being about Our Father's business?

Are you willing to publicly admit that something went horribly wrong for decades in how we screened candidates for the priesthood and the episcopacy?

Are you determined to fix the causes of recurring scandals that sully the Church's reputation, deplete its resources and damage countless souls?

Do you agree that this crisis has at least as much to do with homosexual predation as it does pedophilia?

Do you support Church teaching that homosexual acts are offenses against chastity and intrinsically disordered, and do you enforce in your diocese the Church's prohibition against admitting men to the seminary or ordaining men to the priesthood who are afflicted with deep-seated, same-sex attraction?

Do you reject the popular apostasy of heterodox evangelists like Fr. James Martin who seek to legitimize same-sex offenses against chastity and promote acceptance of homosexuality within the priesthood?

Are you not outraged by the crimes and cover-up?

Are you not outraged by the faithful being fleeced by having our good faith contributions squandered into the millions of dollars to settle lawsuits for conduct we had every right to think would never occur?

Are you not outraged with unchaste, disordered and unrepentant men of the cloth whose secret sins and hidden crimes predictably play out with public dissent from fundamental church teaching with apparent impunity?

Are you not outraged with what can only be described as cowardice, complicity or conceit of compromised or co-opted bishops who show no fear of God nor love for their flocks?

Are you not outraged with the condescension and contempt some of your fellow shepherds have shown the faithful when they repay our trust with their dissembling aversion to proclaiming the truth, both of our faith and of this crisis?

Are you not outraged at seeing the Bride of Christ and Our Lord, Himself, mocked and scourged yet again, and not for the last time, due to the infidelity of faux priests and feckless bishops?

To you fence-sitters, but also to you faithful and faithless bishops, consider this: Accountability, transparency and forthrightness are what we, the laity, have a right to expect from you and from all clergy. By extension, we also have a right to expect your resignation if you will not uphold these principles.

So I ask you again, "Where do you stand?"

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