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| The legacy |
Dear Cardinal Collins,
On January 16, 2022 you will turn 75. On that date you will tender your resignations to the Pope, whomever he may be at the time. Rumor has been for a while now that it will be immediately accepted, assuming Francis is still Pope. Does he still hold his rageful anger against you and the others for your signature on that letter when you had courage and were part of the thirteen. We were so proud of you then. Of course, it didn't last long considering you went on to praise the heretical document, Amoris Laetitia.
Leaving other details aside for now, the failure to clean house upon your arrival, leaving heretical priests who deny the Holy Eucharist in their parish offering invalid Masses and abusing the faithful (anyone want to guess where?) and banishing faithful priests to early retirement (yes, Eminence, we know) You've left homosexual priests in active parish ministry, and you banished a traditional religious order because they followed a higher law on how to administer Holy Communion (FSSP), and so much more. So much more that this writer knows personally.
This brings us to where we have been since the beginning of Advent and where we are now on the first day of the new secular Year of Our Lord, 2021. There is a Mass for you, Eminence, but no mass for me or my wife or for any of us. No Mass for us.
While Douglas Ford may be an ignoramus a simpleton and an unchurched lout, you, are to be our shepherd. You, are to be our spiritual father. As you have said yourself, you are the pope in the diocese. You know better and yet, what do we see? A double-down on the Premier's insane decision and the cessation of the public offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Without a doubt, you know you have erred. How do I know this? Because you have replaced the Holy Mass with an Anglican-style Service of Holy Communion. You are trying to back-track without anyone noticing. What you don't know is that you are in a hole and you need to lay down the shovel and stop digging. Your idea of assembly theology that could once not comprehend the idea of separating the Holy Mass from Holy Communion has done exactly that.
I know Catholics, myself and my wife included, who have not had Holy Communion in nine months because we will not take It in the hand. I have seen Latin Mass communities since June increase in size even though Holy Communion is not distributed. Now, the Mass been ripped away from us again. Not by Ford, but by you and many of your brother bishops. (Pembroke and St. Catharines being the exception) Yet, now, you allow Holy Communion without the Mass. Ironically, you have actually partly taken some of my advice. What was that? Separate Holy Communion for the people from Mass - suspend it except by appointment during the week thus allowing more Masses on Sunday to cope with the Premier's ridiculous diktat, a diktat that you are now unable to stop because you accepted it for too long.
As the post below this one eludes, what is the real reason? I will tell you what I have discerned through your actions and my own research.
You now know, no doubt because of the pressure of this writer and others, that you were wrong. You are trying to reverse it with a substitute. You have built into it the option to ignore you because you know that most of your presbyterate do not want even this. Andy MacBeth in his own bulletin online proves it. Therefore, how could you ever reverse yourself on Mass for up to ten persons? Heck, most won't even open the church for private prayer. They instead cower in their rectories just like MacBeth. No Mass. No Holy Communion. No private prayer. How many more Andy MacBeth's are there?
I will tell you what you need to do, Your Eminence. I will do the job for you that those around you will not do. Not your Auxiliary Bishops, not your circle of priests whom you rely on, not your lawyers or accountants or communications experts. I, a simple and sinful layman will tell you what you need to do.
Immediately issue a Memorandum, just like the one below.
1. All priests MUST open the churches for set hours. Adoration daily and reparation for an end to this virus and the demonic uses of it be evil men.
2. All priests will develop a reasonable lottery to select the people to attend Mass and develop a rotation.
3. Homily is limited to three minutes and Holy Communion is suspended at Mass using this as a teaching moment that we go to Mass to worship God, give Him thanksgiving, seek forgiveness for our sins and ask for our needs. Not one of these four reasons for Holy Mass is to receive Holy Communion. You've already proven that Mass and communion can be divorced from one another. Holy Communion is by appointment during the week to individuals or family units, on the tongue if requested because the priest can thoroughly wash his hands with soap and water, and wear a mask, as he should even when giving into the hand.
4. A priest will offer three Masses during the week and five Masses on Sunday. Parishes with two priests or more, follow accordingly.
5. Any priest who refuses is called in to your office personally and asked to explain. Any refusal to follow your direction will be met with immediate suspension and an order to vacate the rectory. Any fear that you would need to close churches for the reduction of priests is moot. You've closed them anyway. (After all, you've sacked or forced into early retirement good priests for lesser reasons or none at all, no?)
6. Immediately contact Pastor Peter Youngren and join his legal suit against the government (only the injunction, hard to get, was refused.) Provide your lawyers and money and round up the rest of the Ontario bishops to get on side. Notwithstanding the lateness of this legal move, (you should have done it in March 2020) it must be done, notwithstanding.
You know full well, as you reportedly told the Premier. that the virus is not being transmitted at Mass. You know full well that your "worship safe" guidelines have been followed and the people have, no matter how reluctantly, cooperated. You know full well that the Toronto Board of Health and the "virtuous" doctors have made unreasonable and unconstitutional demands. Your lack of leadership in this regard has caused deep sorrow amongst the faithful, the very faithful who would be your greatest supporters. The very ones that would defend our churches and our priests.
What will be left, Eminence, of your post China Virus Church? What will be left? Your own words and those of your staff on webinars reveal the interest in money. The need for point of sale devices and pre-authorised giving. You want our money, but you give us no Mass. You have closed our churches but you expect us to open our wallets. You have, rather than rely on your faithful, taken stained money from the government to pay your employees and your priests. You have taken Cesare's gold and Cesare now controls you.
On this day of the new year, this Feast of the Circumcision, this Octave Day of Christmas, I can give you no peace, you are undeserving of it. You have stripped peace from me, my wife, my friends, the readers of this blog and faithful Catholics in the Archdiocese of Toronto and across Ontario. You have denied us the Holy Mass, for that, you can have no peace.
As with Ebenezer Scrooge, you can expunge what will be a legacy of failure and banality of lost opportunity and of collapsing parishes that your successor will need to address. A legacy of no Triduum, no Masses for last Easter, no time after Pentecost, no Advent not Christmas and I have no doubt, no Easter 2021. This, Eminence is your legacy. A Shakespearian tragedy and a mockery of the priestly heroes of the Tudor persecution whom you so often quote. A legacy of failure when it could have been a legacy of courage and of leadership. A lot of alleged "charity" but too little "clarity." Too little to none of speaking truth to power.
Will you change it? Will you repent of this? Will you act like a Shepherd and not a hireling? Speaking truth to power is not easy. It is not always liked. It is, however, always necessary and today, I have done that.
Vox Cantoris
