”In the Panhandle, it is hard enough to put this on and wear it every day,” he said, tugging at his collar, as he drove from Tulia to the student center in Canyon. ”Now, it’s excruciating. But I’m more convinced than ever that I need to put my collar on every day.”
Zero Tolerance Takes Big Toll in a Texas Diocese
Which of the following bishops does not have a building in the Amarillo Diocese named after him?
A. “But he was well liked by most priests, and the atmosphere in the diocese was congenial. Priests used to meet and talk about their ministries, their parishes, tell jokes. Now the whole atmosphere in the diocese is one of mistrust.”
An Amarillo Diocese pastor speaking about Bishop Matthiesen
B. “He’s the meanest man I’ve ever met in my life. I don’t know of a single priest who’s happy.”
A once prominent Amarillo pastor speaking about Bishop Yanta
C. “I am very happy and thankful to be here in the Diocese of Amarillo with Bishop Patrick J. Zurek to be able to work and collaborate with my fellow priests. My main hobby is cooking. The bishop and I have contests. He is a great chef, improvising dishes; I like to taste his creations.”
Another priest in the Diocese of Amarillo
But what sort of shepherds are they who for fear of giving offence not only fail to prepare the sheep for the temptations that threaten, but even promise them worldly happiness? God himself made no such promise to this world. On the contrary, God foretold hardship upon hardship in this world until the end of time. And you want the Christian to be exempt from these troubles? Precisely because he is a Christian, he is destined to suffer more in this world.
St Augustine’s sermon On Pastors from Today’s Office of Readings
In writing these posts to the Amarillo Diocese am I, as Bishop Zurek believes, demonstrating a “morbid disposition for arguments and verbal disputes“, that will lead me to “the Pit of Corruption” because I falsely “revealed to little ones the mysteries ” of the “serious mistake“; or am I “proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God“, by strenuously defending my “own rights and those of (my) family (and survivors of clergy abuse), precisely because (I) must preserve the dignity (we) have received as a loving gift from God“?
Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
We’d never know what’s wrong without the pain
Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same”
You keep speaking out!
Bishop Yanta’s parting words to me at a meeting just prior to his retirement.
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 #241 in that regard:
CHAPTER SEVEN
PATHS OF RENEWED ENCOUNTER
THE VALUE AND MEANING OF FORGIVENSS
Legitimate conflict and forgiveness
241. Nor does this mean calling for forgiveness when it involves renouncing our own rights, confronting corrupt officials, criminals or those who would debase our dignity. We are called to love everyone, without exception; at the same time, loving an oppressor does not mean allowing him to keep oppressing us, or letting him think that what he does is acceptable. On the contrary, true love for an oppressor means seeking ways to make him cease his oppression; it means stripping him of a power that he does not know how to use, and that diminishes his own humanity and that of others. Forgiveness does not entail allowing oppressors to keep trampling on their own dignity and that of others, or letting criminals continue their wrongdoing. Those who suffer injustice have to defend strenuously their own rights and those of their family, precisely because they must preserve the dignity they have received as a loving gift from God. If a criminal has harmed me or a loved one, no one can forbid me from demanding justice and ensuring that this person – or anyone else – will not harm me, or others, again. This is entirely just; forgiveness does not forbid it but actually demands it.
BOTTOM: A building named after Bishop Zurek” by a priest admirer.
“I was too focused on the needs of the priests rather than thinking about the victims,”
From “Bishop Accountability” in which Bishop Matthiesen defended the “serious mistake” by stating it was not until 2004 that he learned some priests were not the first-time sex offenders that they purported to be when he agreed to hire them even though he was warned not to assign them to parishes by other Church officials.
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.
Third is the constant mantra, “all the priests hate the bishop.” If anything, this behavior of “the Few” has strengthened the sense of brotherhood among us priests.
From a 2019 letter in which Bishop Zurek uses the same “modus operandi” as Bishop Matthiessen
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.”
