This week posts are focusing on the implications for the Amarillo Diocese” of a synodal process that looks to hear from voices on the margins of the church. Implication #4 derives from the reality that not participating in this process would be another current sign of our “serious mistake“, since it is not just an invitation from Pope Francis, but an expectation from God…
““It is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the third millennium.”
FRANCIS, Address for the ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the institution of the
Synod of Bishops (17 October 2015)
The path entitled “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission” will
solemnly open on the 9th – 10th of October 2021 in Rome and on the following 17th of October in each particular Church, but there has been no talk of it in the Diocese of Amarillo.
Implication #4- Bishop Zurek may not want to reflect on a theme that is decisive for our life and mission because his expectations are that we just live communion by forgetting, not reflecting, on the current signs of the “serious mistake” .
This is the communio or the coming into unity of all the Faithful with their bishop and the Pope; this is the essence of being Church: one bread and one body! All the Faithful united with their own Diocesan Bishop and united with the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.
From Bishop Patrick J. Zurek’s observations made Sept. 15, 2021 during the annual RadioThon on St Valentine Catholic Radio
The harvest is abundant, so Bishop Zurek will need the laborers who are “the few” if we are to journey and reflect together on the journey that has already been made up to and since the “serious mistake“. The Diocese of Amarillo will be able to learn through Her experience which processes can help Her to live communion, to achieve participation, to open Herself to mission. Our “journeying together” is, in fact, what most effectively enacts and manifests the nature of the Church as the pilgrim and missionary People of God.
However, If Bishop Zurek does not accept Pope Francis’s Invitation, or meet God’s expectation to synodality, “the few” need to go on their way after shaking off the dust of Bishop Zurek’s episcopacy, and continue on mission, because the Kingdom of God is at hand.
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“Inasmuch as there could be serious legal implications for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles if we do fully disclose to you our concern regarding the Reverend John Salazar, Sch.P., by this letter I am informing you that the Reverend John Salazar, Sch.P. would never be allowed to minister as a priest in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in any way whatsoever given the circumstances of his case.”
From a 1991 letter from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to the Diocese of Amarillo prior to Bishop’s Matthiesen’s bringing of John Salazar to the Diocese of Amarillo. Bishop Matthiesen ignored this warning. Later he defended the “serious mistake” by stating that he never conducted his own checks of the priests – which included the Rev. John Salazar-Jimenez, and that it wasn’t until 10 years later that he learned some priests were not the first-time sex offenders that they purported to be when he agreed to hire.
A Memorial in the Grotto of St. Mary’s Cathedral raised by Monsignor Waldow (whom Bishop Matthiesen labeled as a “congenital liar”) 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.”
