To much to-do about it, says the bishop-elect.

The Roman Catholic bishop announces, with “great sadness”:

It is with great sadness that I have received a letter from Bishop-Elect Susan Haynes stating that, due to the controversy of the proposed use of St. Bede Catholic Church for her consecration as the bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, she has decided to find another location for the ceremony to take place.

In granting permission for this ordination to be held at St. Bede, we were welcoming, as the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council encouraged, those who have in common with us “the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit” (Decree on Ecumenism, 3). We were following the example of St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis who enthusiastically engaged in ecumenical outreach and hospitality.

Editorial note: If I can’t match the Catholic bishop’s sadness in this matter, I still find a respect for the Episcopal bishop-elect, whom I find typical of Episcopals, based on decades of sporadic contacts with them. If they are unduly easy-going in matters of doctrine and discipline, they are also, I have found, easy to deal with. So God bless the bishop-elect and may she find some other venue for her consecration.

via Bishop Knestout Statement Following the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia’s Decision to Change Consecration Location

Two men speak for many:

At the end of our reflection, we feel the need to confess our love for the Church. We have wanted to give our lives to her as Christ offered his own. We will never abandon her ever! On our right hand we wear the ring which reminds us that we are bound to her in a definitive covenant.
It is solely our love for the Church that led us to pick up the pen in order to write to all of you.

We live in the sadness and suffering of these difficult and troubled times. It was our sacred duty to recall the truth of the Catholic priesthood. For through it, all of the beauty of the Church is implicated. The Church is not only a human organization. She is a mystery. She is the Mystical Bride of Christ. This is what our priestly celibacy unceasingly recalls to the world.

It is urgent and necessary, that everyone – bishops, priests and laity – no longer allow themselves to be impressed by the bad arguments, staged theater, diabolical lies, and fashionable errors that want to devalue priestly celibacy.

It is urgent and necessary, that everyone – bishops, priests and laity – rediscover a perspective of faith on the Church and on priestly celibacy which protects her mystery.

This perspective will be the best bulwark against the spirit of division and politics but also against the spirit of indifference and relativism.
In these difficult times, the only fear that each one of us ought to have is hearing the Lord say one day “that hard word of reproof […]: ‘Accursed are you because you kept silent.’ Alas! Keep silent no longer! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that, through keeping silent, the world is depraved, the Bride of Christ has gone pale, her color is gone, because her blood has been sucked out of her; that is […] the Blood of Christ, which is given through grace […]. Sleep no longer in negligence; do what you can with the present time.
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Originally published on Marco Tosatti’s blog., Jan. 16, 2020.
Translated by Giuseppe Pellegrino

via Antonio Socci Readers