Not to Beat an Annoying Drum but…

Fellow Catholic parents, you might as well tell your kids now to expect nothing from the Catholic hierarchy and let them be pleasantly surprised if the bishops somehow do as they ought. The main victims of the hierarchy’s errors almost always seem to be our youth. Because of that, nobody should be shocked that Covington High School’s bishop threw the youth under the bus almost immediately. You could see the rush to disavow from a mile away, or at least you should have. It’s like they have to keep following the same script of the same awful play.

We’re not children. We know very well by now what “fake news” is and that we need to verify before making condemnations. I will say, though, from day one I had to remind many of my Catholic friends that the nicely cut video gave us ZERO knowledge of what actually happened. Honestly, from the clip, I had no idea if the Covington boys did as CNN said or if they actually kept their cool. (It turned out it was the latter unless you’ve got an agenda to push.)  Could have gone either way and that should have been obvious. More of the story leaked out hour by hour as become the status quo with most supposedly salacious new stories. Why are we still falling for this? We need to get it out of our heads that people are basically decent. We’re not in Kansas or the latter part of the 20^th century anymore. People have absolutely no qualms about lying through their teeth. And, in addition to lying through their teeth, people also have no problems making threats at quite innocent people. Nobody should be throwing out condemnations these days because you are probably also condemning them to death threats, bombing threats, vile threats and a wholesale denial of reality even when it’s played for them in a two-hour video.

So, Catholic bishops, willing to try to cover their own behinds and so willing to throw high school students to the wolves to do so, are disgusting. Yes, this mistake was made by so many other Catholics but most of those good Catholics have apologized to the hilt for the rush to judgment. Bishop Foys? He’s ordered a third-party investigation versus just simply watching a two-hour video which even changed Jake Tapper’s mind for heaven’s sake. How about you exercise a bit of due diligence, Bishop Foys? I mean, when Jake Tapper gets it and you’re still wrestling with an apology, you’ve got problems.

It seems someone is suggesting that these students skip their confirmation to protest Bishop Foys. Please don’t. When you let bishops keep you from the sacraments for their bad behavior, you lose, not them. The graces from the sacraments help sustain our faith. Nobody should turn their back on those graces for any reason. I’m here to tell you that you can still receive graces from the sacrament no matter how bad a prelate is. I’m sure my old bishop might regret to this day ever confirming me. That’s a warning to some bishops. Careful who you confirm. Might come back to bite you.

And let me explain this to our dear bishops. I know some get this but you all need to know most Catholic moms will defend their children when they are harmed. In fact, most moms will defend any child being harmed. We take that millstone thing very seriously. My children, of various ages and sexes, are out at events like the March for Life quite frequently. We will continue to do so. We will continue to stand in the public square for whatever just reason we can find. If the bishops ever did this to one of my children, I would, first, have to explain to my kids that this is something that can happen when one follows Christ. I mean, Christ Himself was denied by his apostle and almost all the rest ran away. Why should we expect less than that treatment? Next, I would make sure the hierarchy in question knew of the mistake they had just made whether it be the school, the bishop, or the entire USCCB. They wouldn’t get to treat my children that way without hearing a little bit from me. I’d be parked at the chancery office every day until the situation was rectified truthfully. His excellency might have wanted to run the possible outcomes to these boys through his head before disavowing them. No matter the pain to him, he should have been a shepherd to those in his care. Heck, even if the “fake news” wasn’t fake, their faith should have come first. While it shouldn’t be the case, the reality is that many lose their faith over things like this. Here’s hoping these boys’ faith and resolve to save the unborn are deepened by their suffering and persecution. If not, the father of lies wins.