Parramatta VG Robert McGuckin appointed Bishop of Toowoomba (Main Forum)

Would this possibly be, a case of +Anthony Fisher successfully getting rid of a priest he really does not want in his diocese of Parramatta??????????

He has had him promoted out of the way?????

He has the approval of +Kevin Manning, who is not greatly admired by +Fisher.

BarryS

I live for those that love me
For those that know I am true
For the heaven that smiles above me
& awaits my coming too
For the cause that needs assistance
For the wrong that needs resistance
For the future in the distance
& the good that I can do.

I am Pope Francis as the dictator of my home here. I adopt the title Pope because that is the title of the only dictator I really know. So it is that i am Pope Francis. I am the superior power in the spot here and I make the rules. I intend to make sure these rules are not infringed and anyone who even thinks they might be infringed or changed is in error and will be dealt with summarily by me personally or by my henchmen. I want my realm to be run my way as I believe I have divine right over it and its inhabitants.

There is a force that appears to usurp my authority and power as the only and suppreme one capable of bringing glory and acclaim. These ones coming from outside are tainted with relativism and post modern evil thinking. If they think they have intellect I will show them how strongly I defend my realm against the intellectuals and sneaky ones who try to get past my beloved informers and holy ones, the Home Police.

My major rule is that these vermin must not enter my realm and I lay traps for them lest they enter without my approval which I will not give anyway. When my special police, who are renouned for keeping the posterior parts of my heavenly body clean let me know of a movement to make entry and thereby break my rules I exert every effort to spray the Home with vast quantities of reevangelisation and scouring meant to root out infestration.

Whack! Whack! There goes two, one looked like one of my own crew; I have to be tough; Morris, sorry, more has to be done. I have to keep a good eye out for those liberals who might make it easier for my subjects to be contaminated Kill them all. Whack! Whack! Will they ever stop. I will not weaken. My way is set. It's war ... a crusade ...wipe them out.

Oh! Mary. Is it morning already? I've been dreaming about those dreadful cockroaches.

Francis

My purpose is to remember the love that created me in God one with my brothers and sisters and with all life. My function is to extend that love and unity each moment to all.

Bishop McGuckin is a good priest and a respected canon lawyer. What is notable about the appointment is his age. I estimate that he would be over 65 years old. It won't be long before he is writing his resignation letter on his 75th birthday, if he makes it.

Pardon this overseas Yank looking in on the religious chess game that Rome is up to. The behind the scenes secrecy will further alienate the People of God as Rome moves to keep the people from having a say in their church.
What a time for the peoples' voice to be heard and perhaps this will come when Rome's new man is "elevated" . I picked up on this word from Brian's comment . After Bishop Morris I have a sense elevation above the people will not sit well. An uneducated Rome has no idea of the position of an educated people. Tom in San Jose, just watching.

Tom in San Jose

Could this be another "Cardinal Law" case where someone is moved to Rome to avoid facing the law in their own country over handling of abuse cases?

J A Holznagel

Maybe now is as good a time to get out as any, do you think?

The old catechism used claim that the Catholic Church is the true Church because it is ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC and APOSTOLIC.

As Mandy Rice Davies didn’t really say but has been credited all these years with, “They would say that wouldn’t they?”

CATHOLIC it was explained meant ‘All over the world.’ It wasn’t even then all over the world but if a cheeky child noted this it was pointed out that it really meant universal and that Catholicism was not tied to one country or one culture or anything like that. It fitted in everywhere. I didn’t know then but in 1912 in the midst of this kind of claim Hilaire Belloc had said, “The Church is Europe and Europe is the Church.”

He was more right than he intended, the Church was as it mainly still is almost entirely European in its culture, its leadership and its presumptions. And he was almost entirely wrong because as Nietzsche had already pointed out “God is dead” and Nietzsche meant in Europe. Not only that, Christendom, which Belloc was talking about had not existed for a few hundred years by 1912.

APOSTOLIC meant ‘it goes right back to the Apostles.’ Priestly ordination it was claimed went like this, “I was ordained by Archbishop Mannix and he was ordained by Archbishop O’ Someone and he was ordained by etc ... and eventually he was ordained by one of the twelve apostles. In the 19th century Rome declared Anglican ordinations invalid because they were not apostolic. The line had been broken, and/or some ordinations did not intend to do what Catholic ordinations intended to do.

My teacher in Year Three, in 1952 the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation told us that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher was not an archbishop at all, nor was he a priest and he had no more power to ordain or bless or anoint than we did. I was seven at the time and was amazed that all those silly Anglicans could not see this if I could.

ONE meant that we were all one under the pope. Protestants and Anglicans (no one mentioned the Orthodox where I went to school even though Greeks ran most of the cafes in town) on the other hand were not one. They split and split and split into lots of large or little groups. Brother said they were not churches. And they were not denominations either because denomination meant just different names for parts of THE CHURCH and they were not part of the Church, they were schismatics and/or heretics. Just in passing a dear friend who is Catholic and a foremost philosophical theologian has several god children. One is Anglican (her mother is an Anglican priest and a seriously good theologian) and another is Russian Orthodox. He jokes that he has a schismatic and a heretic as god children but he loves them just the same.

I forget what HOLY meant. I have a catechism here but can't put my hand on it. Someone out there will remind me. Whatever it means, lately it doesn't seem to hold at all. Corruption seems more common than holiness at least among the leadership.

The other day I heard a talk on what makes a good religion. Justice, truth, charity and other words came into the criteria enunciated. The speaker also stressed oneness. He pointed out that the Anglican Church is on the point of breaking apart. He is probably right. After all it goes from a Puritan form of Christianity (Sydney is the classic example) through various forms of evangelical almost Baptist forms right through to being more Catholic than the Catholics especially when it comes to dressing up and swinging thuribles. All bells and smells as one evangelical friend calls his co-religionists. There is an almighty fight going on right across Anglicanism centred on attitudes to gays, women priests, the literal or otherwise interpretation of the Bible etc. The speaker I heard suggested they needed a pope to restore some kind of order and to stop them splitting entirely.

I realised listening to him that I do not care about this. I do not feel any fear even if the Catholic Church breaks up into lots of pieces because I think it already has and I cannot do anything about it. I do not think anyone can do anything about it. Maybe we had a chance around Vatican II. I am not sure. But the time since then has made sure we cannot now get it all back together. The split is as deep among us as it is among Anglicans. We just do not name it as they do. Mostly in Australia anyway we just walk away, sad, happy, or not interested. It was okay mostly when we had it but now it is over.

There are good things going on but now among Christians what you believe, what sacraments mean to you, how you read the Bible if you read the Bible, which leaders you listen to or respect, what kind of Jesus you believe in if you believe in Jesus, what priesthood means to you,what ministry means to you (and they are not the same) are not contained by church boundaries. Denominations exist (sorry Brother, they do) but they are not the ones that are named in the phone book. They are the ones people gather in if they gather at all.They are where each of us finds his or her community.

Now One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic gives me no consolation at all nor does it explain anything that helps me understand.

I think we need to start again, or leave.

Last year in Spain I was talking to a German Benedictine priest who had studied at Oxford. I said I was from Sydney. "You have a rather forceful cardinal there," he commented smiling. I had the impression that not all the Church in Europe think our cardinal is 'a good thing' as 1066 And All That would style it, even if B16 does. I think he will have enemies in any conclave as well as men who think he is just not up to it. I do not think our faith will be tested by cardinals who think he is the best thing since lace up shoes. If there are any they are in the minority. Besides he got off the suspicion of abuse here, and I presume he was totally innocent but they are not going to risk headlines in the western press, "New pope once accused of sexaul abuse".

Thanks, Enda, for another wonderful post, and to you two ladies.

I have been wondering, lately, about how much damage our Catholic education and the Sunday sermons did to our emotional maturing, how they delayed it in a few luckier ones, slowed it greatly in many, stopped in some.

With the top leadership we have had for the last 40+ years, with the cruelties, arrogance and greed for Power they have shown us with their crminal covering-up of the sex assaults of children, and so much else, not to mention the relatively minor matter of sadistic canings and strappings of boys and young men by some, how may we hold up our heads and stay?

The formation of clergy and Religious is faulty. It turns out far too many damaged minds.

Why waste good tomatoes

St Malachy's list of popes seems to be coming to an end, but I take heart from the American prophetess Jeanne Dixon who prophesied that within the 20th century a Pope would be physically harmed (happened) and that the Pope would leave Rome. The power of the papacy would remain but the expression of it would change. We can only hope.

J A Holznagel

Nick, not referring to your comment at all, in fact I agree. I remember Mindszenty. It was was a different era. On these sort of discussion boards things get oversimplified for quick comment and a kind of group hysteria can take off.

In my remark I was referring to the frenzy of comments re Pell above yours, which I thought were becoming a bit breathless -- and frivolous. We can do better than that.

Sorry, I should have made that clear.