Pure Politics: Cardinal-Elect Farrell Continues Singing Whatever Tune Francis Calls

An interview with CNS of former Dallas Bishop and now Cardinal-elect Farrell raised quite a bit of well-earned ire with quotes like  “perhaps we have emphasized rules and regulations to excess” and “focus on Jesus, not rules.”  First of all, the Church isn’t obsessed with “rules and regulations,” but with teaching the Truth that is required of souls in order to be saved. If you want rules and regulations for their own sake, go work for a Roman dicastery, they have tons of them. When prelates like Farrell reduce the Sacred Truth Jesus Christ has revealed through His Church to “rules and regulations,” they are revealing that they are fundamentally disconnected with the Church and Her role as the vehicle of salvation for all men, and are subordinated the Sacred Deposit of Faith for the preferences of fallen men and a sick, dying culture.

There’s a lot in here to unpack, I’ll only pick a few gems:

Right from the get-go, Farrell announces that “My training for this job was pastoral work.  Forget all the administrative part, that’s the least important.”  Really, Bishop Farrell? When was that?  You only ever served in a parish for about 18 months. You’ve held administrative positions for the last 30 years solid.  Yes, a bishop should certainly have a major pastoral role, but you were known throughout this diocese as an unreachable man who was rarely in town and who viewed duties like visiting parishes a hassle to be endured.  You were generally escorted in and out of parish events as quickly as possible.  But apparently you said all the right things in your interview, you’re now “a man of the people.”

In using the parable of the prodigal son to make his point about the Church embracing sinners without question or call to conversion – one must assume, because that’s what we’ve heard from Francis since Day 1 – Farrell completely misconstrues the parable, which conversion and embrace by the Father was based on the son’s contrition and conversion. But that is not what Francis wants to do in handing out the Sacred Species of Our Blessed Lord in the Flesh without any visible sign of avoiding mortal sin, repentance, and conversion.

Doctrinal indifference has never attracted souls to the Church.  The last 50 years is hideous testimony to that fact.  The Church has grown and been most vibrant when Doctrine has been preached with clearly and with fervor, and when the corruption and laxity in the priesthood and other areas of the Church has been at a minimum. That’s exactly what the Counter-Reformation was about.  And, no, Francis is not drawing crowds larger or more fervent than his predecessors.  In fact, in many cases, they are far smaller than they have been in the past.

“We need a more loving, a more caring Church.”  Consigning souls to hell because of doctrinal laxity and even the promotion of heresy is the complete, total inversion of love.  It is a diabolical inversion of that, to be frank.

“We keep pushing rules and regulations all the time.  Well, none of us are good at following rules.  And perhaps we have emphasized rules and regulations to excess.”  I think the Cardinal-elect may have revealed a great deal more than he intended.

I’m out of time, but I covered most of what Farrell said.  He certainly knows exactly what to say to achieve his career objectives.  I grow less and less convinced, however, that those objectives have much at all to do with the good of souls.  Being charitable, perhaps he thinks he is willing the good of the Church as a material, worldly construct, but it’s not an approach to ecclesiology I think any of the Apostles would have recognized, or shared.  What comes through to me throughout – and this is a view shared by most prelates, that large majority heavily influenced by neo-modernism – is that the eternal destiny of souls is hardly considered, or, to the extent it is, Farrell believes virtually all souls are saved, and thus Doctrine really shouldn’t matter much.  Unfortunately, 2000 years of belief and practice, not to mention the clear guidance of Sacred Scripture, say he, and those many, many like him, are not just wrong, but damnably so.

I’m out of time, or I’d say more.  I don’t know who will replace Farrell in Dallas, I think we’ll be waiting for quite some time to come, but he’d have to be quite liberal indeed to surpass where Farrell is at right now.

h/t reader Richard Malcolm.  Thanks.