After The Synod, Bishop Strickland Challenges The US Bishops - What Will It Take?

On Wednesday, November 13, outside the USCCB meeting in Baltimore MD, Defend Life coordinated a Rosary to pray for our bishops.  As he had in previous years, Bishop Joseph Strickland, Bishop Emeritus of Tyler, TX, led the attendees in that day's Rosary.  

Recall that His Excellency was ousted from his diocese by Pope Francis for daring to challenge the bilge that spews forth from the Vatican on a regular basis.  That happened almost exactly one year ago.  That was an insult to not only His Excellency but to all faithful Catholics.  A few days ago, we received word that the Traditional Latin Mass was banned from Bishop Strickland's former cathedral in Tyler.  The Latin Mass was also banned in four other parishes in the diocese.  This move happened exactly one year after Strickland's ouster.  Now, only St. Joseph the Worker parish, entrusted to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, is permitted to celebrate that Mass. I've no doubt this is a direct slap in the face to Bishop Strickland and the Catholics who have appreciated him.  The timing of this move is too coincidental.

Getting back to Wednesday's event, Bishop Strickland led the gathering in the recitation of the Angeles, and then the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary.

After the Rosary concluded, Bishop Strickland read an open letter to the bishops.  The text appears below, and a video recording of his verbal delivery is embedded in this article.  As you will see as you read below, Bishop Strickland rebukes the great majority of his brother bishops, not only of the US, but from other countries.  In particular, he excoriates them for their silence regarding the synod that just recently ended.  The pope's document is found here.  In his letter, Strickland points out the all-too-obvious truth that the pope has abdicated his responsibility to guard the Deposit of Faith, and is endeavoring to deform it into a monstrous mockery of the same.  Indeed, in this synod, Francis has attempted to shatter the structure of the Church into a disparate conglomeration of local "synods", facilitating Francis' abdication of his God-given responsibility as Guardian of the Deposit of Faith.  Indeed, we now see a so-called "Mayan rite" in Mexico, newly approved by the Vatican, replete with pagan rituals and trappings.  We will be hearing of future similar episodes.

Strickland asked the bishops, "what will it take" for the them to act in accordance with their own Divinely-ordained mandates.

We laity are also likewise challenged to take our responsibilities.  He asks "what will it take" for us to speak out if our shepherds won't.  Let's face it, Marylanders!  That is our situation.  Our shepherds aren't speaking out.  In fact, they are openly contributing to the decay of the Church.  I've written enough about that in this blog.  The latest just happened over this election cycle, with the Maryland bishops deliberately hobbling worthwhile efforts to stop the "reproductive freedom amendment", that sadly became a part of our state constitution.

Bishop Strickland is correct.  No more do we dare, in the face of episcopal malfeasance, look the other way and pretend that we don't see it.  We cannot go merrily along in our own parishes and pretend that this ever-worsening debacle won't impact our children and grandchildren.  We must learn our faith ourselves and teach it to one another ourselves, so that when it is preached from the pulpit that same-sex marriage is just an alternative lifestyle or that hell is not a reality or that the Sacraments are optional and so forth, that our loved ones can discern the error and not be afraid to rebuke the one spreading that spiritual poison.

My lay friends, it will cost us.  It may cost us friends in our parish.  We may find ourselves kicked off the parish council, the choir, religious education, Knights of Columbus councils, etc.  I believe that is what is known as "white martyrdom".  We cannot fear it, for we cannot deny the truth nor Our Lord. 

What will it take?  And now, Bishop Strickland's letter.

The Letter Is Delivered

Dear Bishops, 

You gather here today, present-day apostles, as the Church and, therefore, the world stand perched on the edge of a cliff. And yet you who are entrusted with the keeping of souls choose to speak not a word of the spiritual danger which abounds. Today we stand on the cusp of all that has been prophesied about the Church and the abominations which would come forth in these times, a time when all of hell attacks the Church of Jesus Christ, and a time when the fallen angels of hell no longer seek entry into her sacred halls but instead stand inside, peeking out of her windows and unlocking doors to welcome in more diabolical destruction.

I think that St. Jude had men such as many of you in mind when he described men who feast “together without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water, which are carried about by winds, trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion; wandering stars…” (Jude 1:12-13).                     

Many people have asked what it will take for more than a few bishops to finally speak up against the false messages constantly flowing from the Vatican under the leadership of Pope Francis, and I ask myself the same question over and over: 

WHAT WILL IT TAKE? 

Do you not know that Our Lord will send forth His avenging angels to heap coals of fire upon the heads of those who were called to be His apostles and who have not guarded what He has given unto them?

And yet almost all of you, my brothers, stood by silently watching as the Synod on Synodality took place, an abomination constructed not to guard the Deposit of Faith but to dismantle it, and yet few were the cries heard from you – men who should be willing to die for Christ and His Church.

The Synod’s final document has been released, yet with the sleight of hand which is so characteristic of the Francis-controlled Vatican. By drawing attention to the issues which worried many, they have slipped in what was always their real goal without anyone even noticing. What they were after in the first place was the dismantling of Christ’s Church by replacing the structure of the Church as Our Lord instituted it with a diabolically-inspired new structure of “synodality” which in actuality is a new church that is in no way Catholic.

We now see the prophetic words of Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen unfolding before our eyes: “Because his religion will be brotherhood of Man without the fatherhood of God, he will set up a counter church which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content, it will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ …” (Radio Broadcast; January 26, 1947). 

With the push for “synodality,” we see that the enemies of Christ are putting before us, as Archbishop Sheen says: “a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion – one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God’s.”

WHAT WILL IT TAKE? 

A rudimentary understanding of the papacy leaves us with the reality that Pope Francis has abdicated his responsibility to serve as the primary guardian of the Deposit of Faith. Every bishop makes this solemn promise to guard the Deposit of Faith, but the Petrine office exists primarily to be the guardian of the guardians and the servant of the servants. St. Peter received the office which bears his name when, after the Resurrection, Christ asked him three times, “Do you love me?” and St. Peter responded, “You know that I love you,” thus healing his betrayal as Christ endured His Passion. And Who is this Jesus Who Peter professes to love? He is of course Truth Incarnate; thus St. Peter is stating that he loves Truth. This leaves us with this question, “Does Pope Francis love the Truth that Jesus Christ incarnates?” Sadly, his actions and his policies which promote a relativized version of truth that is not truth at all propel us to a devastating conclusion: the man who occupies the Chair of St. Peter does not love the truth and seeks to reshape it in the image of man. 

There can be no bishop who is unaware of statements that Pope Francis has made that are unambiguous denials of the Catholic faith. For example, Francis has stated publicly that God wills the existence of all religions and that all religions are a path to God. In this statement, Pope Francis has denied an integral part of the Catholic faith. How many souls will be lost who will accept his erroneous statement that all religions will lead to salvation? What I find so difficult to understand is that modern-day apostles, men who are ordained to be guardians of the faith, refuse to acknowledge this and instead ignore or even promote this deadly falsehood. Every bishop and cardinal should publicly and unequivocally state that Francis no longer teaches the Catholic faith. Souls are at stake!

Therefore, I ask again: 

WHAT WILL IT TAKE? 

As successors of the Apostles, this situation must force the bishops of Christ’s Church to answer the pivotal question ourselves: “Do we truly love Jesus Christ, Truth Incarnate?” With a Pope who is actively opposing the divine truths of our Catholic faith, the responsibility falls to the bishops of the world to profess their own love of Our Lord, to guard the Sacred Deposit of Faith, and to oppose any attempt to dismantle the Truth.

Let us return to the fateful conversation between our risen Lord and St. Peter. When Peter responds, “Lord, you know I love you,” Jesus responds: “Feed my lambs” and again “Feed my sheep.” How is Peter to feed Christ’s lambs? With the Truth of course – with Jesus Christ Himself who IS Truth. 

And yet, where are those men whom the Lord has called to feed His sheep? Where are the successors of the Apostles who have promised to defend the sheep with their lives? They sit a few feet away, patting one another on the back, listening to words that they know beyond a doubt are not the Truth, frolicking with the darkness, and blaspheming the very Truth that the original Apostles died to preserve.

WHAT WILL IT TAKE?

You have words from those who spoke in Sacred Scripture, wisdom from the Sacred Tradition of the Church, and guidance from former Popes and a great multitude of saints that false teachers would come and that the holy faith would be attacked, and yet most of you have gone out into the battle wearing no armor, and have then reacted as one bewildered that his skin has been pierced by poison arrows. You have been given all that was needed to ensure that your heads were not turned by the lies of Satan. Why then have you gone out without the armor of God? It is YOUR responsibility, when you see poison arrows of falsehood falling upon men, to call out to them and say, “Put on the armor of Our Lord which is Truth, and you shall not be wounded.”  

And to the faithful, I put forth the same question –  

WHAT WILL IT TAKE? 

What if your shepherds do not rally? What if they have all accepted thirty pieces of silver, and they remain silent in the face of falsehood which further pierces the hands and feet of Our Lord? Then what will it take for you to speak up?

Many might say that it is not your responsibility; you can live Truth quietly in your heart. However, to speak Truth can never simply be the responsibility of someone else, because God has etched Truth onto the heart of every person. Therefore, Truth is each man’s property as a sacred gift from God. And never can anyone say that they had no Truth in them – and never can a man claim rightly that to find Truth he had to gather it from the wind, or he could only gather it from the words of another. The soul recognizes Truth and is nourished by it, and those who wither away from lack of Truth do not wither because they were given no portion of Truth in their own soul.

Indeed, Truth has instead been so suppressed again and again by such a person – and has been told so often to “stand down” – until it dares not raise its head. And this is why a man finds himself in such a sad state and why when he cries out, “It is not the fault of my own that I had no Truth or that I knew it not when I encountered it,” he speaks in error. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ, granting free will to those He loves, which is each and every person without exception, has given the gift of Truth to each and every one of us, so that if there is any predisposition in a man’s heart, then it is the propensity of the soul to vibrate to His Truth. Therefore, the soul when deprived of Truth lies dormant until it withers into something cold and hard. Have you not seen how even the angels of darkness recognize Truth and cannot do other than what Our Lord commands them – and yet they strive to hide Truth from every man unto each man’s eternal damnation? 

So I ask again – WHAT WILL IT TAKE? WILL YOU DIE FOR HIM? 

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland 

Bishop Emeritus 

As I bring to a close this letter that asks the question, “What will it take?” I would like to thank my collaborators, the Apostles and Evangelists, especially Saints Nathaniel and Jude. Why these two? Because they are not the most well-known or often cited of the Apostles and, therefore, I feel a kinship with them because I was an obscure bishop who should have remained obscure.

In the ballroom a few feet from here, men are meeting who could be described as a Catholic brain-trust. Many of them are brilliant, talented men who could have been at the top of any profession they chose, but they are bishops, successors of the Apostles.

Sadly, they are for the most part silent shepherds, unwilling to risk speaking up in the face of evil and destructive forces that threaten the Church. These forces have attempted to silence me, but there was no need to silence these men – they never made a sound.

I ask the faithful to pray fervently that all shepherds find their voices and say with me, “Que viva Cristo Rey – long live Christ the King, Truth Incarnate!”