UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
Brittie Perez (Brittmarie Janson Perez) has sent me another excellent essay that I’m delighted to publish today. Readers who have followed this blog will perhaps remember that I’ve previously published other pieces by Brittie — here and here. What follows is Brittie’s latest text, entitled Non Posso Piu:
The Italian phrase, Non posso piu, can be translated in any number of ways. Here it functions as “I can’t put up with it any longer.”
What is that “it” with which I can no longer put up?
The atitudes and behavior of the hierarchy who control the Catholic church.
My protest comprises non-attendance at the church which I attended here in Italy, built by my ancestors and now presided over by a well-meaning, innocent Italian priest. Assigned to the parish only a year ago, the priest presided over the splendid funeral given by the town to my late husband. To be assigned as the sole priest of this litte town had been a step up for him as, due to his lack of liturgical sophistication, the bishop of our diocese had kept close, allowed him to preside only over funerals, and bullied by his fellow priests. Though he will be astonished at my drastic action because he brings me Communion when I am ill, he is not as naive as most think. When I told him I was writing a piece on Kiko Arguello and the Neocathecumenals, he told me that, after attending a Neocathecumenal “mass” at the invitation of a fellow priest, he flatly told his host, “That is a sect.”
After seven decades of church going, what was the drop that finally caused my cup to overflow?
Like thousands of Catholics, my road out of the Church was well paved. In fact, I had taken that route in 1993 when the huge pedophilia scandal in New Mexico erupted leading to the resignation of Archbishop Robert F. Sanchez. However, I won’t go into all the causes of my dissaffection here. Just the fact that I have given this to Bill Lindsey for Bilgrimage should suffice. But as the devil is in the details, I must admit that Pope Francis’ meeting with Kim Davis, with all the Machiavellic machinations it involved, opened wide the EXIT gate.
Paradoxically enough, the last drop was an article in the Italian magazine Jesus, published by the Catholic Paulist press in Rome. In the April 2015 issue, I found an article by Mauro Castagnaro on the case of Chilean Monsignor Juan de la Cruz Barros, appointed bishop of Osorno over the protests of the victims of the sexual abuse by Fernando Karadima, victims who accused Barros of having covered up for Karadima. Details of the case can be found in Jason Berry’s “Chilean cardinals close to pope stained by abuse cover-ups,” published by NCR on 29 April 2014.
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