ST. CLOUD (MN)
St. Cloud Times
Sept. 16, 2019
By Peter Donohue
I have been hesitant to tackle this topic since June, when I read an article by James Carroll in The Atlantic. My indecision was immediately erased recently when I read the results of the investigation into the expenditure of diocesan funds by Bishop Michael Bransfield in West Virginia.
What seriously offended me was the bishop’s closure of Catholic schools as he spent $2.4 millionof diocesan funds on private jets, luxury hotels, limousines, jewelry and fine dining between 2005 and 2018.
Carroll describes the Catholic Church as “the largest nongovernmental organization on the planet, through which selfless women and men care for the poor, teach the unlettered, heal the sick, and work to preserve minimal standards of the common good.” He correctly points out that Vatican II, way back in the 1960s, defined the Catholic Church as the “People of God.”
The role of the clerical hierarchy in the church is that of servants of those people, not placed above them as rulers. Symbolic of this change brought about by Vatican II was moving the altar down from on high into the midst of the congregation.
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