A long-time and well-respected missionary priest for the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese, in a public letter, criticizes the bishop's statements that express partisan politics rather than sound theology.
Read below the fold. Father Gillgannon tells it like it is.
I remember Father Gillgannon from my childhood in a Catholic parish where Father Gillgannon was assigned. He was a kind priest -- well-liked by we children.
He writes that the Bishop seemingly has an agenda to identify fellow catholic clergy and laity as "orthodox" or "un-orthodox":
You give the impression you are not working from a pastoral model of unity with respect for diversity, a more traditional Catholic practice, but from an ideological desire for a narrow uniformity and an even narrower spirituality.
Perhaps the bishop wants to "purify" the diocese.
Back when I campaigned for Barack Obama, I felt as though the diocese attacked my and other supporters' motives -- that to support Obama was to support the (so-called) "culture of death". When the bishop went on the radio last November on the eve of the election, he used language that left no doubt about the Bishop's comdemnation of Obama supporters. (The Bishop's comments were so over-the-top that they came to national attention. In fact, Keith Olbermann did a segment about Bishop Finn's election-eve comments.)
During the campaign, many of those who volunteered with me revealed that they were Catholics. To meet other Catholics that didn't buy into the Bishop's right-wing rhetoric was quite refreshing. It seems that the Bishop's message is that to renounce his political positions is to renounce the church.
Traditional Catholic Social teaching has always praised the noble task of government and responsible political actors to protect and promote the "common good". The government is not the enemy of the people. It is the servant or so I was always taught in Catholic schools and seminaries. Are you suggesting a change in that teaching? Are you presenting a debatable political application, your point of view, as the only practical application of Catholic Doctrine? Thoughtful Catholics can and will disagree privately and publicly and be in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
Father Gillgannon cites his missionary work with poverty-stricken people in Bolivia and makes a simple and direct statement:
Without the economic solidarity of the common good written into law the poor and marginalized will always be left out.
Father Gillgannon boldly addresses the "pro-life" issue...
Later when some 60 or so Catholic Bishops of your generation condemned the new president on pro-life issues you failed as teachers. Your style and your strategy finds resonance with only a small segment of the Church and the wider American public you would like to influence. You may think of yourself and the others as defending human life by speaking the "truth" to power but you seem to most of us as pushing your own political agenda and not the wisdom of Catholic teaching. And worse, you give the impression that those who disagree with you are opposed to the defense of life.
How pro-life have you been on Iraq and Afghanistan? Have you questioned the new American practice of hiring the poor and the marginalized without other job opportunities as mercenaries to fight and die in our wars?
Of course this is a rhetorical question. Haven't heard much from the Bishop (or at my own church) about the wars.
We've heard an earful about how the 54% of Catholics who voted for Obama support the "culture of death". The Bishop's latest pastoral letter (co-authored with the bishop of Kansas City Kansas) uses tortured logic to suggest that Jesus wants people to fend for themselves! (I personally was amazed that the bishops tried to find some religious justification to kill Health Care Reform.)
This didn't escape Father Gillgannon's notice:
Another problem of concern is the pastoral document on the 2008 elections you authored. You, Bishop, and many bishops of your generation, seem to be proposing a one-issue public dialogue on political candidates and platforms which deny the Catholic Tradition of social teaching on a wide range of issues expressed in the Seamless Garment social teachings of Cardinal Bernardin and his generation of prelates. And which I was taught in the seminary of the '50s and later in the documents of Vatican II.
And, the final paragraph suggests that the "emperor has no clothes"...
You do not have a coherent or compelling vision of Church teaching or of pastoral strategies that can convert people and change their attitudes and actions. That is why your leadership, and that of many other American Bishops, is questioned so deeply. Our church is more divided among leadership and faithful than at any time in my life of 76 years, and 51 years as a priest.
As a Catholic, I was raised to have concerns for the poor and disadvantaged. I never felt condemmed by any clergy for my political viewpoints (which have evolved over the years). When Bishop Finn (in barely coded language) went on the radio and condemmed me, my parents, my family, and every other Catholic that supported Obama, he lost his credibility with me. (Yes, I know he did not personally condemn me -- rather, it was a blanket condemnation.)
"He that troubles his own house shall inherit the wind." The bishop doesn't get this.