I am heart-sick over the “uncivil war” that has broken out in our Church.  I am experiencing some sleeplessness and my blood pressure is on the rise.  The Church that I love has already been damaged by the sexual abuse scandal and its cover-up.  But Archbishop Vigano’s letter has brought the damage to a whole new level and I imagine with a press that loves controversary over and above a search for truth, folks will be leaving the Church in great numbers.  I doubt that this ideological battle within the hierarchy will be quickly resolved.  I am tempted to retire to a quiet life of prayer.  But I won’t!  And I urge you to “run towards the fire” and do all that you can to save the Church.  Sides have been drawn and I am siding with our Holy Father.  There has always been this type of craziness and calumny within the Church.  I just hate that we are experiencing it in our day.  Praise God, what is Divine in the Church has always survived.
 
I think the following statement is well stated.  In response to a letter published on Aug. 25 by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Papal representative to the United States, San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy has released the following statement:
 
“This is a moment when the bishops of our nation, in union with the Holy Father, should be focused solely on comprehensively revealing the truth about the patterns of the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults by clergy in our Church, so that deep reform can be enacted.
 
“Unfortunately, in recent weeks ideological warriors within the Church on both sides of the spectrum have utilized the tragedy of victims of abuse to promote their goals. The dedication to comprehensive truth has been subordinated to selective targeting of enemies and tendentious distortions of the truth.
 
“Archbishop Vigano’s statement constitutes just such a distortion. It is not an attempt to comprehensively convey the truth. In its ideologically-driven selection of bishops who are attacked, in its clear efforts to settle old personal scores, in its omission of any reference to Archbishop Vigano’s own massive personal participation in the covering up of sexual abuse by bishops, and most profoundly in its hatred for Pope Francis and all that he has taught, Archbishop Viganò consistently subordinates the pursuit of comprehensive truth to partisanship, division and distortion.
 
“We as bishops cannot allow the pathway of partisanship to divide us or to divert us from the searing mission that Christ calls us to at this moment. We must make public our sinful past. We must engage and help heal the survivors of abuse. We must develop new, lay-governed instruments of oversight and investigation in every element of how we confront sexual abuse by clergy at all levels in the life of the Church. And we must reject all attempts to subordinate these goals to ideological or personal projects. For if we do not, we will have betrayed the victims of abuse once again.”
 
+Bishop McElroy
 
P.S.  After the 8am Labor Day Mass, I will be leaving for the Diocese of Savannah Priests Retreat at Marywood Retreat Center, south of Jacksonville.  I am grateful that Ken Douberly will hold Communion Services on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings at 8am.  I will pray for all of you.  Please, keep me in your prayers and let us all prayer for healing for the survivors of abuse.

Fr. Jerry Ragan