"Faithful Shepherds" - Where Does Your Bishop Stand? Website Rates The Bishops

[Cor_ad_Cor]

something should be done about it. Why should they continue to mislead others?

Fair enough, maybe so; but it’s NOT the role of those reading this site to do something about it. That belongs to his brother bishops and the Holy Father.

That being said, it looks to be in its early stages. I’m sure the website will get more cleaned up as time goes on.

You have much more faith in that than I do, especially considering the source.

increase accountability of bishops

That was another thing I noticed about this. To whom are they accountable? The site owners seem to have the wrong idea… it’s not you, me, or the site folks, but a much, MUCH higher pay grade.

 

[ZMystiCat]

My Archbishop doesn’t have enough information available on him. That said, Bishop Barron once referred to him as one of the greatest bishops in the modern-day (or American, can’t remember) Church. Take that for what you will, but I’ll take Bishop Barron’s word on it.

 

[twf]

The blatant disrespect many so called “traditionalists” show for the successors of the apostles, the legates of Christ, is astounding.

 

[misstherese]

Determining if bishops are faithful stewards of their calling should not be abrogated to some website like lifesite news, or worse yet, to comments from random laity. Bad plan with a bad execution.

I didn’t know it was Lifesitenews. That’s too bad, as it kind of hampers credibility. However, I do think the website is a good idea. The clergy are not the only ones apart of the Church. Us lay people are the Church, too. We are, I believe, called at the moment to be apart of a much larger role as the clergy are kind of stumbling and falling at the moment. Silence does no good. Truth should speak.

Fair enough, maybe so; but it’s NOT the role of those reading this site to do something about it. That belongs to his brother bishops and the Holy Father.

It is absolutely the role of those reading this site to do something about it.

The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.
[Code of Canon Law, Canon 212, §2]

According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful […]
[Code of Canon Law, Canon 212, §3]

It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly.
[Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 33, a. 4, ad. 2]

it is charity to cry wolf when he’s among the sheep, and even wherever he is.
[Saint Francis of Sales, Introduction to Devout Life, 3rd part, ch. 29.]

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Determining if bishops are faithful stewards of their calling should not be abrogated to some website like lifesite news, or worse yet, to comments from random laity. Bad plan with a bad execution.

I didn’t know it was Lifesitenews. That’s too bad, as it kind of hampers credibility. However, I do think the website is a good idea.

It is a terrible idea because it sets up an authority competing with the Church, which is the only authority on earth guaranteed to be guided by the Holy Spirit, according to our Lord. If some priest or bishop is teaching heresy, that should be brought to the attention of the Holy Father or the College of Cardinals for correction. But, if some bishop is not placing the emphasis in a manner pleasing to some group or another (like not publicly chastising pro-choice politcians) that is just their emphasis and should not be treated as a measure of “correctness.” It is not up to the laity to judge heresy separate from Church authority. There’s the real danger - establishing a competing authority to the one true Church. That’s how Protestantism began.

 

[misstherese]

It is a terrible idea because it sets up an authority competing with the Church, which is the only authority on earth guaranteed to be guided by the Holy Spirit, according to our Lord. If some priest or bishop is teaching heresy, that should be brought to the attention of the Holy Father or the College of Cardinals for correction.

I don’t think it sets up any sort of authority, just categorizes on one platform what the bishops have previously already made public. Many have no idea the sort of things their bishops have said and what sort of damage it might have done or might do. This allows the faithful to know in order to bring it to the attention of the Holy Father or the College of Cardinals for correction.

However, I think it would be best if instead of a small statement, the “evidence” should be given as well in order for the person to also make the judgment themselves, on whether or not to make it known to the pastors of the Church.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

It is a terrible idea because it sets up an authority competing with the Church, which is the only authority on earth guaranteed to be guided by the Holy Spirit, according to our Lord. If some priest or bishop is teaching heresy, that should be brought to the attention of the Holy Father or the College of Cardinals for correction.

I don’t think it sets up any sort of authority, just categorizes on one platform what the bishops have previously already made public.

The act of selectively quoting statements by the bishops (or non statements as in the case of not chastising public figures) implies a judgement on what is important and what is not. On top of that, this website actually has the arrogance to condense all that data into a numeric score. If that doesn’t imply a judgement I don’t know what does.

If someone wants to know what their bishop is saying, every diocese has a website where all his public statements are collected. The faithful can go there to find that information unfiltered by a third party.

Edit: Here is a statement from the “About” page on the “Faithful Shepherds” website:

For too long, lay Catholics have been without an authoritative accountability tool for U.S. bishops

See that? They are calling themselves “authoritative.” Wow.

 

[MichelleGeorge]

If LifeSite is involved in this I’m steering WAY clear of that site. Besides, looking at everyone’s replies, not worth it. It’s not like we can just up and change bishops if we disagree with them - well aside from leaving Catholicism altogether I guess.

 

[ZMystiCat]

Many have no idea the sort of things their bishops have said and what sort of damage it might have done or might do.

I’m not sure what advantage this site offers, though.

As @LeafByNiggle already pointed out, we can know what our bishops are saying by going to the website of the diocese. If you want a website to collect links to all their statements and maybe even make it easier to search by specific topics, great. But this site isn’t doing that. It’s scoring them by how well they align with what LifeSite news wants of them and appears completely open to abuses such as cherry-picked quotes. They’ve effectively turned a decent idea of a centralized database into a gossip-promoting site.

And outside of the gossip, I’m not sure what this offers to laity. Short of prayer, which we should be doing regardless, or armed uprising, which we shouldn’t do no matter what, there’s not much we can do. Sure, we could get an understanding of what to pray for, but that can be accomplished without all the gossip-y aspects of the site.

Beyond that, though, we can’t vote them out, because the Church isn’t a democracy, and while we can call for resignation, that power ultimately does not lie with us and is bound to be ignored if just gossip. Many of us also aren’t in a position to just pack up and jump around diocese at will, since a diocese is tied to a specific region where we also live, work, and/or go to school. I can’t pack up and go to the East Coast at a whim because some bishop over there is scored better than any bishop on the West Coast. Unless we live on the border between two dioceses, we can’t “diocese shop”, to borrow the Protestant term of “church shopping”.

In general, this just comes across more like those political sites that rate candidates in an effort to help us vote according to our ideals, just without the democratic foundation that those sites are operating under. Maybe LifeSite News does want to democratize the Church, and this is them attempting to put that into practice, but that’s absolutely not the right response we should be having.

 

[gracepoole]

The blatant disrespect many so called “traditionalists” show for the successors of the apostles, the legates of Christ, is astounding.

I’m not sure this specific site is the fault of traditionalists. Lifesite “News” would like categorize itself as conservative and orthodox. But I don’t know that the folks involved all attend TLM or veil at Mass or…

 

[Rob2]

Do ‘we’ have to play poker with saintly ‘quotes’?

We can if you wish .

I’m easy either way .

 

[fide]

IN today’s climate, that is a good question. The Church has always been pro-life - including the death penalty. In other times, the death penalty for intentional destruction of an innocent person’s life (murder) was a statement of pro-life - the life of the guilty taken in justice, as just reparation for the life taken from the innocent victim. In a sense the death penalty is the opportunity for the guilty person to repay for his crime - to repay to his victims, the just compensation for what he had taken from them. If he came to his senses before death, he could consider himself perhaps able to stand before God, having sincerely repented for his sin, and also having repaid as much as he could, with his own life, what he had taken from his innocent victims. This could enable him to die somewhat in peace, with hope that God could forgive him.

To not allow him to repay as fully in justice as is possible (with his own life), could in a sense deprive him of that measure of peace before God, and the hope that God could now forgive him - having fully paid for his crime - and receive him perhaps into purgatory for some time, and then, perhaps, into beatitude.

 

[misstherese]

Like I said, I never said I agreed with their current website. I’m not a fan of Lifesite. I do like the idea of a website containing statements a bishop has said that is readily accessible. But I agree that maybe the “authoritative” part isn’t so good.

Everything should be done in charity and moderation.