The USCCB Elections Viewed From the ’c’atholic Side

Fr Zed looks at the totally predictable anger at the Fishwrap over the fact that the USCCB didn't elect a full slate of Francis fanboys and toadies.

From Fr Z's Blog

It is occasionally instructive to view events through the lens of the… “other side”.  Hence, we might look at the panicky reaction over the USCCB elections over at the Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter).    One has the image of that photo of the woman wailing after the loss of her dearest Hillary.

As you may have heard, the US Bishops elected new officers.  From the USCCB site:

Archbishop [Timothy] Broglio [Military Services] was elected president with 138-99 votes over Archbishop Lori [Baltimore] in a runoff on the third ballot. Archbishop Lori was elected vice president on the third ballot by 143-96 votes in a runoff vote against Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend. The president and vice president are elected by a simple majority from the same slate of 10 nominees. If no president or vice president is chosen after the second round of voting, a third ballot is a run-off between the two bishops who received the most votes on the second ballot. Both bishops will assume their new offices for a three-year term after the adjournment of this year’s USCCB Plenary Assembly.

Fishwrap‘s Brian Fraga shows that grubby site’s cards.  My emphases and comments:

 “Archbishop Timothy Broglio, a former Vatican diplomat who has supported religious exemptions for coronavirus vaccines and has blamed gay priests for the clergy abuse crisis…. [DOUBLE UNGOOD!]

[…]

In the 1990s, Broglio served as private secretary for the late Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state under Pope John Paul II who was a staunch promoter and defender of then-Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado …. [Therefore, BROGLIO must be bad… even through he was out of that position before the revelations came.]

[…]

In 2018, Broglio supported a U.S. Air Force chaplain who in a homily blamed “effeminate” gay priests for clergy sex abuse. In an emailed response to a woman who complained about the priest’s homily, Broglio said there was “no question that the crisis of sexual abuse by priests in the USA is directly related to homosexuality.”  [Fishwrap is committed to the pro-sodomy movement.]

[…]

During the coronavirus pandemic, Broglio supported vaccine exemptions for military members on religious objection grounds, writing in October 2021 that “no one should be forced to receive a COVID-19 vaccine if it would violate the sanctity of his or her conscience.”  [Fishwrap of course was on the side that no right had the right to refuse the non-vax “jab”, that all were to be compelled to receive it.]

[]

As chairman of the conference’s ad hoc religious liberty committee, Lori played a leading role in the conference’s fight against a rule in the Obama administration’s signature health care law that required employers to provide contraception coverage in health insurance plans.  [Very bad indeed!  We must be forced to pay for as much contraception and as many abortions as possible because… you know… seamless garment!]

In 2020, the conference elected Lori to serve as chairman of its Committee on Pro-Life Activities. In that capacity, Lori has praised the Supreme Court’s June decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion.
[See above.  Abortion remains the sacrament of the Left.]

Meanwhile, Madame DeFarge (aka the Wile E. Coyote of the catholic Left had a bad day.

The U.S. bishops have sent a clear message of rejection to Pope Francis by selecting Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who heads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, as president of the bishops’ conference.

The bishops’ choice of new leadership revealed the deeper ecclesiological orientation of the body. They had to decide if they wanted to be a part of the ongoing reception of the Second Vatican Council in the context of the magisterium of Pope Francis, or not, a choice made all the more obvious by the success of the synodal process so far. As papal nuncio Archbishop Christophe Pierre reminded them in his opening address, the bishops govern the church “cum Petro and sub Petro,” with Peter and under Peter. They forgot that law, or ignored it, 30 minutes later.

[…]

His oily encomia of the election losers follows.

From his feinting couch, DeFarge moaned…

It is difficult to overstate what a repudiation of Pope Francis the selection of Broglio to lead the conference is. He is the one bishop in the United States with long-standing tensions with the pope, tensions that goes back to Broglio’s work with Sodano, [Yup… gotta blame Broglio for that.] who famously tried to shut down the Latin American bishops’ conference CELAM and who protected the monstrous pedophile Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ.  [Ditto.]

It was on Broglio’s watch as nuncio to the Dominican Republic and apostolic delegate to Puerto Rico that Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres was made a bishop. Torres was forced to step down as bishop [LOL!  That’s a good one.  He was summarily and unjustly sacked and hasn’t received an explanation as I understand the situation.] of Arecibo, Puerto Rico earlier this year.  The bishop had long been a thorn in the side of his brother bishops in Puerto Rico [the type liked by Fishwrap], but his decision to publicly oppose the bishops’ collective support for efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 was a bridge too far. The pope took the unusual step of sacking him. [Everybody MUST BE JABBED!  Churches MUST BE CLOSED!  Masks ARE TO BE WORN!]

Broglio also supported those who harbored “conscientious objections” to getting the vaccine: “This circumstance raises the question of whether the vaccine’s moral permissibility precludes an individual from forming a sincerely held religious belief that receiving the vaccine would violate his conscience,” he wrote. “It does not.” [Everyone MUST comply!]

[…]

[And, true to the principle in cauda venenum, here is the basic problem…] Broglio also seems obsessed with the issue of homosexuality,… [the irony is rich…]

[…]

I am not all that concerned about who sits in the chairs in the US conference.  I am a little concerned for Archbp. Broglio, a good fellow whom I’ve had a chance to spend a little time with, who must travel to the farthest reaches of the planet to serve those who serve.   On the other hand, his HQ for the Archdiocese is just up the way from the HQ of the USCCB.

I pity bishops, all bishops.  I fear for the souls of most of them.

They need prayers.