Is it NORMAL for a lay Catholic in the United States of America to be encouraged by a bishop to fill the Cathedral at the 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month to commemorate Pandemic Day rather than Veterans Day?
Bishop Patrick J. Zurek invites everyone throughout the Diocese of Amarillo to attend and take part in a Te Deum Mass Thursday, Nov. 11 at 11:00am at St. Mary’s Cathedral, 1200 South Washington.
“During the last Presbyteral Council Meeting, one of the priests suggested that we celebrate a special Mass for the Diocese of Amarillo commemorating the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic,”
Bishop patrick J. Zurek
This week I’ve been counting down to the 2021-2023 Synod entitled “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission” There are 2 days until the solemn opening on the 9th – 10th of October 2021 in Rome and 10 days until the Diocese of Amarillo is expected to celebrate the local ceremony on the 17th of October; however the local celebration may not occur since Bishop Zurek seems more intent right now on erecting another current sign of the “serious mistake“, by changing Veterans Day to Pandemic Day, rather than journeying and listening to his diocese.
Words in italics indicate passages pulled from the Preparatory Document for the Synod 2021-2023.
We cannot ignore the variety of conditions in which Christian communities live in the different regions of the world. Alongside countries where the Church welcomes the majority of the population and represents a cultural reference point for the whole of society, there are others where Catholics are a minority; in some of these countries, Catholics, together with other Christians, experience forms of persecution, including some very violent ones, and not infrequently martyrdom.
If, on the one hand, a secularized mentality tends to expel religion from the public space, on the other hand, religious fundamentalism, without respect for the liberties of others, feeds forms of intolerance and violence that are also reflected in the Christian community and in its relations with society.
Christians not infrequently adopt the same attitudes, even fomenting divisions and opposition, including within the Church. It is equally necessary to consider the reverberation, within the Church and in its relations with society, of the fractures caused by reasons of ethnicity, race, caste, or other forms of social stratification or cultural and structural violence, which run through the latter. These situations have a profound impact on the meaning of the expression “journeying together” and on the concrete possibilities of doing so.
May “the few” find their hope in the Lord, and may Bishop Zurek listen to the words of the Son, so that through persistent prayer we continue to point out the current signs of our “serious mistake“, such as this memorial which was raised by John Salazar (an already convicted sexual abuser) honoring Bishop Matthiesen, a former bishop who went to his grave with, “no regrets” for giving Salazar a “second chance”. Salazar used that chance to land himself in prison for sexual abuse again at the parish of which this Religious Education Center is a mission.
“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 Matthiessen’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.
“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.”
““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)
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