“Tribute” → “Justice” → “Synodality”-Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent & Day 8 Prayer for the End of Silence and the Beginning of Synodality Regarding the Diocese of Amarillo’s “Tribute to Bishop Matthiesen”

I hear the word tribute echoing through today’s Scriptures.

Judah is promised a scepter, a kingship that draws tribute—not as flattery, but as recognition of justice rightly ordered.
The Psalm sings of a king whose rule defends the afflicted and saves the children of the poor.
And then comes the Gospel’s genealogy: a long, stubborn procession of sinners and saints, kings and cowards, women wronged and men redeemed—all carried forward not by polish, but by Providence.

This is not a lineage scrubbed clean for public display.
It is a lineage that refuses to hide its scars.

The Word does not pretend that history was tidy.
The Word enters it anyway.

“If Boston is the fault line of the child sexual-abuse scandal that has convulsed the Roman Catholic Church, then few places have felt the aftershocks more deeply than the Diocese of Amarillo.”
New York Times
August 24, 2002

“Since apostolic times, the Church has seen the liberation of the oppressed as a sign of the Kingdom of God. “
Dilexi te, §59

Meditatio

As Christmas draws near, the days grow small beneath its approaching weight, like candles surrendering to sunrise. The O Antiphons now sound like solemn bells, tolling not urgency but truth.

Today’s cry—O Wisdom—does not flatter me. It unsettles me.

And so I confess a shift in my own heart.

A tribute built **by John Salazar for Bishop Matthiesen**—whom Matthiesen kept in ministry **against the counsel of cardinal archbishops**, giving him a “second chance.” That second chance resulted in the sexual assault of youth in our own diocese. And just before he was defrocked and sent to prison, **he raised this monument** in Bishop Matthiesen’s honor. Its presence remains a painful reminder of “serious mistakes” that harmed the very flock Bishop Matthiesen was meant to protect.

“Bishop Matthiesen — a shepherd whose legacy in our diocese still asks hard questions of us today. May truth, healing, and justice be the final word.”
Photo used by permission of Douglas Kirkland/Corbis via Getty Images

I began these days praying for the removal of the Diocese of Amarillo’s blasphemous Tribute to Clergy Abuse.
But after long silence, after no answer at all, I am forced to consider another possibility:
perhaps silence itself is the greater sin.

If the tribute to Bishop Matthiesen—raised while a convicted abuser served as pastor—were truly righteous, then surely it could endure the light of discernment.
If it were just, it could survive listening.
If it were holy, it would welcome Synodality.

But silence does none of these things.

And so my prayer widens: not merely for removal, but for conversation—for the Church to do what she has always done best when she is most herself: gather, listen, argue, repent, and be reborn.

The genealogy of Christ teaches me this much:
God does not erase troubled ancestors.
He redeems them—by telling the truth about them.

Contemplatio (Chestertonian Synthesis)

The last Centennial banner lies in a heap at St. Mary’s Cathedral, giving me pause, because the Diocese’s *Tribute to Bishop Matthiesen* remains. Is it a sign that a centennial meant to honor faith and mission cannot stand upright while that wound remains untouched.

It is a curious thing that the Church, which believes God became a baby in a borrowed stable, sometimes fears honest questions about borrowed honor.

If Christ was not ashamed to enter a family tree that included betrayal, violence, and exile, then the Church should not be afraid to examine her own memorials.

Truth is not the enemy of tradition.
Silence is.

ORATIO

Day 8 Prayer for the End of Silence and the Beginning of Synodality

O God, Creator and Redeemer of human nature,
you willed that your Word take flesh
not in abstraction, but in history marked by frailty.

Look with favor upon our prayer:
end the silence that shields harm,
open the ears of your Church to discernment,
and grant us the courage to walk together in truth.

May Synodality replace secrecy,
listening replace fear,
and your justice flower where silence once ruled.

Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Actio (Action — Laudato Si’ & Synodality)

” Nature is filled with words of love, but how can we listen to them amid constant noise, interminable and nerve-wracking distractions, or the cult of appearances?”
Laudato si’ §225

Memorial in the Grotto of St. Mary’s Cathedral. The inscription says:
“**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.**“

Today I will practice Synodality by choosing listening over assumption.
I will attend Mass and pray intentionally for the courage of communal discernment.
And I will remain present—not loud, not silent—but faithful, trusting that truth spoken in love is never wasted.

🎵 “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”

One cannot get enough of this song during Advent. It waits instead of demands. It names captivity without pretending it isn’t there—and trusts that Wisdom arrives not through silence, but through presence.

🎬Movie: A Man for All Seasons (1966)

Because conscience is not stubbornness—it is fidelity under pressure. And truth spoken calmly endures longer than any tribute carved in stone.

Email to Bishop Zurek

Subject: Request for Dialogue Regarding the Tribute

Your Excellency,

I am writing to apologize if any of my previous communications about the tribute to Bishop Matthiesen came across as threatening or coercive. That was not my intention, and I regret any words that suggested pressure rather than prayerful discernment.

Silence has been painful, but I remain committed to walking with the Church, not against her. I respectfully ask for conversation, not conflict, so that this matter may be addressed in the light of truth, charity, and healing.

Thank you for your time and pastoral care.

Respectfully in Christ,
Darrell Glenn
Diocese of Amarillo

My Story

Photo used by permission of Douglas Kirkland/Corbis via Getty Images

I was one of “the few” Bishop Zurek spoke of in this letter. He first posted it in August of 2019, and in response to my, “calling out all the more“, he kept reposting it atop the diocesan news page until December 11, 2019. There it remains to this day.

Fr. Ed Graff, brought here from Philadelphia by Bishop Matthiesen, was arrested in 2002 for sexually assaulting a minor and died later that year in jail. Despite the harm linked to his ministry, he was buried in an honored section of Llano Cemetery among our pioneering clergy — a decision that continues to wound survivors and raise hard questions for our diocese.

Bishop Matthiesen, who rode the white horse of public activism even as he brought abusive priests into our diocese such as John Salazar—wounds that still mark us today. I spoke with him often, pleading with him to reconsider his “no regrets” about bringing those priests here…
Bishop Yanta, who sought to enforce the Dallas Charter even when Bishop Matthiesen resisted him, and who bore the personal and pastoral cost of doing so. I met with Bishop Yanta about Bishop Matthiessen’s “no regrets” stance. He listened. He believed me. He acted where he could. And when he retired, he urged me—quietly but firmly—to keep speaking out.
Bishop Zurek, who told the Diocese of Amarillo he had “no facts” about the Philadelphia report even as Amarillo’s connection to that tragedy was headline news. When I continued to speak out, as Bishop Yanta had once urged me to do, he later wrote that I was not among the faithful and loyal disciples whom the Lord Jesus desires.