Thursday 16 May 2013

The Bureaucratic Bishop (a reflection on Freyr's Post)

This post began as a reply to Freyr's post, but, being somewhat long, I decided to create a post of it. Freyr rightly points out in his post on the corruption of what a conference should be, that lack of responsibility is a major defect in the functioning of the Conference. The "conference" has ceased truly being one, and has turned into an unaccountable and irresponsible nightmare needing to be abolished. Really, I should not have been shocked to the CCCB not wishing to ascribe any "blame", "responsibility" etc. for the Lahey fiasco. 

This myopia continues unabated.... to whit the somewhat bizarre - mild words - "Roman Missal .ca" website (again under the CCCB - which sub-committee determines the information - who knows - do even the bishops?)  that contains a link to an article, and other "educational" materials that are gravely suspect of heresy. I shall be posting on this aspect of CCCB detachment for reality shortly. 

All of this asks some serious questions: Pope Francis is moving in one direction, the bishops in another, the Pope is a real Pastor; most bishops are faceless administrators...

As an example of the local church moving away from the desires of the Supreme Pontiff, consider the Toronto Archdiocesan Plan. Have you read it? Can you decode it? Is there something for you? (Ah, how bureaucrats love "Plans"!!!)

This Plan obfuscates the real, serious issues: how is this Plan going to make the local church truly a local church? Could it not be time for a restructuring? Do we really need a huge archdiocese? Could it not be time to break it up - WHILE at the same time ABOLISHING the CCCB? Indeed, without the abolishment of the CCCB, a breaking down of the archdiocese would just create another series of local bureaucracies further distancing the lay faithful, while digging even deeper into the local widow's handbag for the few mites left. 

I can inform all readers that my reference to cash is based on personal knowledge, not just some angry reaction, but inside information - whereby one of the local Toronto auxiliaries identified that the archdiocese has made a financial calculation of well in excess of $100 million dollars that should be targeted. This calculation was based on each parish church having at least one parishioner who would bequest his or her property to the Archdiocese. Sounds very, very mercenary to me. 

Friends - keep your wallets shut tight. Find good, holy priests to support. 

3 comments:

Freyr said...

The CCCB... just say no! I can't think of a single reason to pay the least bit of attention to them.

Freyr said...

I just spent some time scanning the Archdiocese of Toronto website to find which Pastoral Region my parish belongs to. To my dismay I could find no information about pastoral boundaries or which auxiliary was responsible for my region. Is this information confidential or something? The last time I remember seeing an actual map of the diocese with parish boundaries drawn was some 30 years ago on the wall of the Catholic Information Centre.

Barona said...

Write to Cardinal Collins...

yet, what does it say about an organization that has a website jammed with non-essential information; yet, on the key issues of its bishops - silence....