LifeSiteNews did not hear back on an inquiry to the Archdiocese as to why Cardinal Cupich is keeping Father Phillips from performing priestly ministry.
No.
Oakes Spalding, a St. John Cantius parishioner and blogger, wrote that “This is of course a travesty.”
Spalding said he is convinced Father Phillips is innocent of any wrongdoing, whether moral, legal or civil, and that the charges are political and an attempt to quash a traditional Catholic parish.
“Hostile forces”
He further wrote the allegations were “seized upon by hostile forces in the Chicago Archdiocese and elsewhere as an opportunity to attack and destroy an incredibly successful traditionalist pastor and (perhaps later) the traditionalist order that he founded and the old Chicago church that he saved from the wrecking ball and turned into one of Chicago’s most thriving parishes.”
“The final result was not based on justice but on politics,” Spalding stated, and said those politics are not limited to that of Cardinal Cupich.
Blame Cupich?
“Catholic traditionalists and conservatives have assumed that the liberal Cardinal Cupich is somehow behind it all,” he continued, “not without reason, I think, given his past behavior and reputation. [As convinced opponent of the Latin mass] But I do not believe that blaming Cupich for all of it is correct, or at least, given what we know, entirely correct.”
Father Phillips had other enemies, Spalding wrote, and pledged to name names in a subsequent post.
I’m all ears. Spalding blogs at Mahound’s Paradise, where he is all over this story. Robustly, I might add.
Meanwhile, at One Peter Five, Matt Abbott, regarding the difficulty of finding out what’s going on, asks, “Has Cupich silenced everyone involved?”
Lot of cross-pollination in all of this.
Blithe Spirit 