Some background on the dismaying appointment of Bishop Blase Cupich to the Archdiocese of Chicago

So by now many readers will have heard that Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, WA, has been named by Pope Francis to replace the somewhat orthodox Cardinal Francis George as Archbishop of Chicago.  Since this is such an important see, it is virtually assured Cupich will get a red hat before too long.

Who is Blase Cupich?  He is one of the most reliably, and extremely, progressive members of the American episcopate.  He is also extremely close to the current papal nuncio, Archbishop Vigano, a confirmed anti-Ratzingerian.  I was looking through old posts wherein I might have spoken of Cupich, and found two, both of which had some very revealing insights.  In the first, dating from 2011, we see Bishop Cupich banning Adoration throughout the Diocese of Spokane and implementing a complete and total ban on priests in the Diocese from taking part in public pro-life activities:

Bishop Cupich has informed all of his priests and seminarians that they cannot:
– pray outside of Planned Parenthood
– promote or organize peaceful protest outside Planned Parenthood in their parishes (naming 40 Days for Life specifically)
– or allow pro-life material to be distributed in their parishes unless it is published by the Washington State Conference of Catholic Bishops or the USCCB–who, ironically, support 40 DFL.

Eponymous Flower reports that this Bishop Cupich also discontinued Eucharistic Adoration on a Diocese-wide basis at some point in the past

Then I found this editorial I posted by Patrick Buchanan from last year, which turned out to be amazingly prescient and insightful.  Get all this:

“Pope Francis doesn’t want cultural warriors; he doesn’t want ideologues,” said Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Wash.

“The nuncio said the Holy Father wants bishops with pastoral sensitivity, shepherds who know the smell of the sheep.” [Is it a smell, or a stench?]

Bishop Cupich was conveying instructions the papal nuncio had delivered from Rome to guide U.S. bishops in choosing a new leader……[of the USelessCCB]

…Yet here is further confirmation His Holiness seeks to move the Catholic Church to a stance of non-belligerence, if not neutrality, in the culture war for the soul of the West.

There is a small problem with neutrality. As Trotsky observed, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

If you couple the above with the below, from an unnamed priest-insider to Vatican politics, you can see the whole picture start to come together:

Cupich’s promotion to this particularly important position, that usually entails the elevation to the cardinalatial red, was a personal decision of Pope Francis himself. More precisely, the Pope imposed his candidate on Cardinal Ouellet and the Congregation for Bishops, under the desperate suggestion of the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Abp. Carlo Maria Viganò. We know well that those men who are particularly authoritarian, such as Francis, also are, in many cases, easily manipulated by those who learn how to read them. Moreover, it is enough to waggle before the eyes of the Pope the scarecrow called Cardinal Burke to lead him in one direction or another, because he has kept against the Prefect of the Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura an extremely strong rancor after the 2013 conclave, in which the American Cardinal was one of those who tried to thwart his path to the pontificate.

There is more somewhat cryptic and difficult to follow inside baseball at Rorate.  But I did find it fascinating that Cupich was stressing his relationship with the nuncio last year, when trying to influence the selection of the next head of the USCCB, and now, according to this inside source, he has been rewarded with an immensely visible see (and almost certainly a cardinal’s hat) for his efforts (I am certain there is much more to it than that, but it’s interesting to see the relationship).

Some other data points from his time in Spokane:

• Opposes Mass Ad Orientem
• Is a huge liturgical liberal – he is in favor of all the Novus Ordo “reforms” and desires more that has not been implemented.
• Holds the laughably literal view of “active participation” to mean lay people running around the sanctuary during Mass
• gave a highly conflicted exhortation when the state of Washington voted to destroy marriage
• Had his local Catholic Charities sign people up for Obamacare, which of course means helping at least some obtain contraception and abortion
• On the plus side, he has made occasional pro-life statements.  So, yay.

This guy is clearly in the mode of the Bernadin boys and, as I said, almost eye-wateringly left wing. As for his “smelling of the sheep,” like the vast majority of bishops, he spent less than three years actually serving in a parish.  They are all groomed from an early age.

Someone said to me on Saturday – the beatings are commencing, and they will not let up for a long time.  They are going to get more and more severe. I agree.  I will say, more and more do I lament that unthinking, erroneous, un-traditional ultramontanism that causes the Church to swing wildly from one pontificate to the next.  This is no way to run an eternal Church, founded by Christ – heck, it wouldn’t be a way to run a Jack in the Box, or anything else.

But enjoy your beating, all the same. Seriously, we must not let this get to us, make us angry (which is why I try to keep some wry humor at all times), or take our peace away. If it does any of the above, it is vital to pull back and just focus on our own sanctity.  Don’t let the pope or anyone else ruin your day, or, God forbid, sin!  I know it’s hard and we feel heart-broken and angry, but at this point I think we know what we’re dealing with and it may be best just to go into a shell and ignore all this stuff – if it is really bothering you.  However, to offer up these sufferings for the good of the Church and our souls would be a glorious response, which I strongly encourage.