Why did the bishop who “set (his) face like flint,” and “was brought low” for trying to “break the vicious circle” the Amarillo Diocese’ was caught in with it’s “serious mistake” by refusing to tell “the victims of clergy sexual abuse” to, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well“; end up being the bishop who cannot “boast” about a building that will “take up his” name?
Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
But still they all wanna tell a lie
Ohhh everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die”
I agree with our bishop, Patrick J. Zurek, in putting forth in his Holy Week homilies this year the Encyclical of Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, as the standard for love and unity in our diocese. Today, let’s reflect upon paragraph #251 in that regard:
CHAPTER SEVEN
PATHS OF RENEWED ENCOUNTER
MEMORY
Forgiving but not forgetting
251. Those who truly forgive do not forget. Instead, they choose not to yield to the same destructive force that caused them so much suffering. They break the vicious circle; they halt the advance of the forces of destruction. They choose not to spread in society the spirit of revenge that will sooner or later return to take its toll. Revenge never truly satisfies victims. Some crimes are so horrendous and cruel that the punishment of those who perpetrated them does not serve to repair the harm done. Even killing the criminal would not be enough, nor could any form of torture prove commensurate with the sufferings inflicted on the victim. Revenge resolves nothing.
BOTTOM: A building named after his “benevolent” bishop by a priest admirer.
Bishop Yanta removed all of them and left them with no means of livelihood. That is why I (Bishop Matthiesen) created the Priests Emergency Relief to help three of them:
From a 2008 letter in which Bishop Matthiesen defended the “serious mistake”
This approach demands of us the decision to abandon a modus operandi of disparaging, discrediting, playing the victim or the scold in our relationships, and instead to make room for the gentle breeze that the Gospel alone can offer.
From a January, 2019 letter by Pope francis to TO THE BISHOPS OF THE UNITED STATES CONFERENCE
OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS on retreat. A retreat that Bishop Zurek missed in order to take a personal vacation.
Now that I have finished part of my experience with this “the few” I need to address you who are not part of them…Thank you for supporting Msgr. Colwell and Fr Roy. They and all my brother priests have given their lives for the service of the Gospel and the
From a 2019 letter in which Bishop Zurek uses the same “modus operandi” as Bishop Matthiessen
mission of Christ as manifested through their ministry in the Church. They are not seeking wealth or fame and certainly not power or control.
A Memorial in the Grotto of St. Mary’s Cathedral raised by Monsignor Waldow during Bishop Yanta’s episcopacy. Monsignor Waldow wrote:
“In memory of the death of innocence of the victims of clergy sexual abuse. When innocence dies…a life stops. It is essential that we never forget.”
