A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

So the web of persecution surrounding the Franciscans of the Immaculate spreads ever wider. You can read the actual report at Rorate.  I’d like to approach this matter from a slightly skewed angle, if you will.

I’m sure my readers are aware that there is an American priest of the FIs who has been deeply involved in this tragic and very unsettling persevention.  I used to read him regularly, before he began his jihad against his strawman caricature of traditional Catholics in late 2010.  He is certainly very busy writing and blogging hither and yon “(and also “visiting” many FI monasteries, to make sure they understand the new order of things and the powers that now be).  He has been striving to get his interpretation, which is that of the new leadership, of the “intervention” across in many venues.

But he seems frustrated.  He seems to feel that somehow his “side is losing the PR battle.”  And he seems quite exasperated with this.  He feels the “facts” are inseparably on his side, and that his small group saved this formerly growing, stable, and vibrant order from themselves.  Even at the cost of inflicting misery on many hundreds of his confrere’s and shattering that vibrancy, he seems quite invincibly convinced of his being in the right. What he cannot seem to understand is why he is having such a hard time selling his side of the story.

Well, the above, this kind of heavy handed repression is why!  I mean, who sues family man bloggers, other than trolls and thugs?  This is hardly the first time the nouveau leadership of the FIs has stooped to such tactics.  It has in fact been part and parcel of the new regime since its installation.    What have we seen in less than a year?  We have seen the founder locked up under house arrest, surely the most dangerous octogenarian on the planet.  We have seen the former leadership forced under pain of obedience to endure scattering to distant missionary apostolates very far from the center of events.  That certainly appears to be an attempt to get them out of the way.  We have seen ludicrous stories of malfeasance on the part of the former administration, and even some of their lay associates and family members, made up well after the fact.  Stories that have never been even remotely supported by any substantive evidence and, after having served their purpose of disparaging the reputations of certain individuals, have been quietly dropped.

What else have we seen?  We’ve seen the reputations of devout novices trashed because they asked uncomfortable questions of the nouveau leadership and the Pope, through completely fabricated and meaningless (but very revealing) claims that the individual in question “rejected Vatican II.” What would that even mean?  We have seen the same intervention inflicted on the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate, even though there was never even a hint of “division,” nor of any moral or doctrinal problem.  Oh, but there was, maybe, a “drift.”  Heavens to Betsy, let’s call out the legions of modernist female religious to set them straight.  We have seen many dozens of priests denied the right to offer the TLM under Summorum Pontificum, a grave injustice that remains to this day. We have seen a formerly vibrant order shattered.  We have seen a mass exodus of devoted souls from this order, which used to be one of the few growing religious orders in the entire Church.

These are not the typical behaviors of those who have the might of right on their side.  These are not the normal behaviors of virtuous souls.  Perhaps the arguments haven’t convinced people, because they are fundamentally unconvincing!  Or maybe actions speak many times louder than words, and the actions speak of repression and a determination to inflict a certain vision on many unwitting and unwilling souls, no matter the cost-  the same vision which has resulted in so much chaos, destruction, and dissolution in so many other religious orders. Already we have seen evidence that the seriousness with which the FIs used to take their vow of poverty has already slipped a great deal.

Now, there are potentially charitable explanations for some of the items above.  But taken in totality, along with many other actions not mentioned, they stretch charitable interpretations beyond the breaking point.  And behind them all, is the strange fact that this most obedient (as their meek submission over the past year has so eloquently demonstrated) and doctrinally orthodox of orders has been singled out for this (what for all the world appears to be) savage treatment, while so many other far more problematic, heretical, and destructive orders have been able to continue on their merry way making chaos and slowly (or very quickly) killing themselves and religious life –  the heart of the Church – generally.

That is why you are having such a hard time convincing people.  The actions are just too repressive, the double standard too massive to ignore.

And the more you use tactics like suing bloggers, the more unconvincing will you be.