Words in italics indicate passages pulled from the Preparatory Document for the Synod 2021-2023.
This week begins the countdown to the 2021-2023 Synod entitled “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission” There are 5 days until the solemn opening on the 9th – 10th of October 2021 in Rome and 14 days until the Diocese of Amarillo is expected to celebrate the local ceremony on the 17th of October; although Bishop Zurek has been tight-lipped to his spouse about this upcoming journey.
““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)
We lose the capacity to realize
“I, as a lay person, do not always have all the knowledge”; while it is quite
probable that the deacon, priest or bishop has a much fuller picture of what is
actually happening.
Bishop Patrick J. Zurek,
“A Reflection on Christian Life”
Bishop Zurek wears the ring, but he has made it clear that he does not consider his bride as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. He divorces himself from the a past marked by the “serious mistake“, and the crucial transition in the life of the Diocese of Amarillo it has brought about. It is within the folds of the complexity of this context, in its tensions and contradictions, that together, we are called to “scrutinize the signs of the times and interpret them in the light of the Gospel”.
This week, while counting down to the opening of the Synod, some elements of the diocesan scenario most closely connected to the theme of the Synod will be outlined; but Bishop Zurek’s wife will not be like a fruitful vine unless His Excellency lowers himself to answer Pope Francis’s call to journey together; then God will bring our love to perfection and join us together in “Communion, Participation and Mission”; thus allowing the children to come.
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 diocese.
“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.”
