“Enough is enough.” Agreed-now do something

Atlantic bishops mounted their pulpits on Sunday October 4 and responded to the Bishop Lahey affair in various ways. Archbishop Anthony Mancini who took over Lahey’s Antigonish  diocese after the latter’s resignation, thundered from the pulpit: “Enough is enough.How much more can all of us take?” This is a good question but it’s one that Mancini and his brother bishops can actually do something about.  Collectively they have been unambiguous failures as leaders of a postmodern Catholic church.

Raymond Lahey always got high marks for being  a good pastor one who furthered the lay voice in the church. But like most of his confreres, he has not realized that absolutely new wineskins are needed in today’s church. Knowing many of these fine men I say without fear of contradiction that presently they seem to have missed a  fundamental truth of modern ecclesiology, the teaching on the sensus fidelium, that the Spirit is given to the entire church and not an ordained rump of clerical celibates. They are so fixated on the idea that they are “the teachers” that they have forgotten that they must first be the listeners and learners.They are operating out of a command model, a hierarchical structure which owes more to long gone monarchies than a discipleship of equals.

“Enough is enough”, Bishop Mancini stated. Agreed.

Would you please start listening to the baptized and equal members of your church?