I was reading about Bishop Robert Vasa’s “addendum” he is presenting to teacher contracts in his diocese. This is the same diocese where the previous bishop allowed a known predator to go unreported long enough to flee the country. I wonder if Bishop Vasa and other bishops would be willing to sign the following:
As a bishop, I am called to a life of holiness. This call is the more compelling for me since I have been entrusted, in my vocation as a bishop, with the care of souls. As a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church, I am, by that fact, also a ministerial agent of Jesus Christ, the new Lawgiver. I agree that it is my duty, to the best of my ability, to believe, teach, serve others, and live in accord with what the Catholic Church holds and professes. My lived witness as a bishop must be exemplary.
I am especially cognizant of the fact that modern errors — including but not limited to administrative matters that gravely offend human dignity and the common good such as the failure to report abusers in my employ, the failure to protect the innocent from known predators, the spread of falsehoods against victims and survivors of sexual abuse and their allies, and the emphasis on economic security over spiritual well-being, – while broadly accepted in the episcopacy, are not consistent with the clear teachings of the Catholic Church.
Even with all the crap, I identify as Catholic. I’m not sure I could apply for a faculty position at a Catholic college, though, even though my field is far removed from theology. Not in this climate. (I like a thing called academic freedom.)
Let’s not forget the Prime Directive of Catholic Heirarchs: rigorously root out doctrinal non-conformity and anything that looks like it, forgive the sins of the clergy as much as you can get away with. Sin is only sin, heresy is death. … That’s how they see it.
And this is why some people who reside in the Diocese of Santa Rosa (geographically very large .. all the way to the Oregon border) feel that they have been given a Vasa-ectomy.