A Dirty Brown Shirt

by Thomas A. Droleskey

 

Now the feast of unleavened bread, which is called the pasch, was at hand. And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might put Jesus to death: but they feared the people. And Satan entered into Judas, who was surnamed Iscariot, one of the twelve. And he went, and discoursed with the chief priests and the magistrates, how he might betray him to them. And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money. And he promised. And he sought opportunity to betray him in the absence of the multitude. . (Lk. 22:1-6)

Tomorrow is Spy Wednesday, Wednesday in Holy Week. Spy Wednesday is the day on which Judas Iscariot resolved to betray His Divine Master, receiving thirty pieces of silver in return for his act of betrayal.

Each of us plays the role of Judas Iscariot in our lives. Each of us takes the thirty pieces of silver to commit some sin or to remain silent when we should have spoken up in defense of the Faith. Each of us takes the thirty pieces of silver in order to curry favor with the crowd now and again. We deceive ourselves greatly if we think that we have not played the role of Judas Iscariot a lot in our lives.

Unlike Judas Iscariot, however, we do not despair of being forgiven by Our Lord in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. We seek out His ineffable Mercy in the Sacrament of Penance and resolve to sin no more as a condition of the absolution imparted upon us by the actions of the alter Christus, acting in persona Christi in the confessional. Our Lord wants us to strive for spiritual perfection, recognizing that we may have to have recourse to Him again and again in the confessional before certain sins and vices are rooted out in cooperation with the sanctifying grace we receive each time we avail ourselves of His Divine Mercy. We never give up. We never surrender to two of the principal sins against the Holy Ghost, Presumption and Despair. It is one thing to sin and to seek out the Mercy of God in the Sacrament of Penance. It is quite another to persist in sin unrepentantly, worse yet to approve it in our own lives or in the lives of others.

It is sadly the case today that many of our bishops are active admirers of Judas Iscariot, that is, their words and actions betray Our Lord and the Deposit of Faith that He entrusted solely to the Catholic Church. They countenance all manner of profane liturgical novelties and abuses while holding the Immemorial Mass of Tradition--and anyone and everyone who is attached thereto--in unspeakable contempt. It is not the case infrequently where certain bishops manifest a real and intense hatred for anything to do with the Church's Tradition, especially as it relates to the reverence due Our Lord in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Although it is evidently the case that The Wanderer has finally taken aim at me in its pages, it, the oldest weekly national Catholic newspaper, has done a very good job of exposing the Judas Iscariot's in the hierarchy. I did more than twenty extensive investigative pieces about doctrinally bad or morally corrupt bishops during the eight years of my association with The Wanderer. The Wanderer simply will not admit, at least in its pages, that the doctrinally bad and/or morally corrupt bishops that have deformed souls and scandalized believers and non-believers alike are the fault of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, who has appointed a number of pervert-friendly vacant episcopal sees.

Archbishop George Niederauer, who was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to succeed William Cardinal Levada as the Archbishop of San Francisco late last year, is a particularly egregious defender of perversity. One website noted the following about Niederauer, the former Bishop of Salt Lake City:

In the late 1980's, the Rev. George Niederauer, now the bishop of Salt Lake City and a former spiritual director of St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, Calif., asked for leniency from a judge for the Rev. Andrew Christian Andersen, an Orange County priest who had been convicted of 26 counts of child abuse. Bishop Niederauer wrote in a letter that the boys might have interpreted "horse play" as molesting.

Archbishop Niederauer's pervert-friendly record meant nothing to the bishops and priests who work in the Congregation for Bishops. It meant nothing to the Holy Father. The good of souls and the holiness of the clergy means nothing, it appears, to the careerists who screen bishops and make recommendations to the Holy Father. It is a mystery beyond all telling why any priest could continue in a curial congregation responsible for the appointment of bishops as they witness one wolf in shepherd's clothing  after another being appointed to put souls in jeopardy. The word "integrity" comes to mind here. Anyone who cared about the good of the Catholic Faith would resign a position in a congregation where such thoroughly reprehensible episcopal appointments are made over and over and over again. Father Stephen Sommerville, for example, had the manly integrity to resign from the International Commission for English in the Liturgy (ICEL) and then apologize for his role in destroying the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Those who work in curial congregations responsible for the screening of episcopal appointments and who see the harm of these appointments without protesting publicly do great harm to the Church in her human elements.

The State of California is an episcopal cesspool. This is what I wrote four months ago, in Catholic Cloning at Its Worst, about the Judas Iscariots in the hierarchy in California:

The newly-designated Archbishop of San Francisco, the Most Revered George Hugh Niederauer, who has been the Bishop of Salt Lake City since January 25, 1995, is a classmate of one of the worst bishops in the world, Roger Cardinal Mahony, the Archbishop of Los Angeles. With the exception of the Most Reverend Patrick McGrath, the Bishop of San Jose who is a protege of the long-time Archbishop of San Francisco, the Most Reverend John R. Quinn, Californians from Orange County San Francisco are governed by bishops whose appointments were engineered by Mahony. Bishop Tod David Brown of Orange graduated from the nest of perverts known as Saint John's Seminary in Camarillo, California, in 1963, a year after Mahony. Bishop Sylvester Ryan, the Bishop of Monterey who had an actual abortionist serve on his "priests' abuse advisory panel" a few years ago, was created an Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles under Mahony in February of 1990. The Bishop of Stockton, the Most Reverend Stephen Blaire, was consecrated an Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles under Mahony on the same day as Sylvester Ryan, February 17, 1990, now serving in the same diocese where Mahony served for five years prior to his elevation to the See of Los Angeles in 1985. The disgraced former bishop of Santa Rosa, the Most Reverend George Patrick Ziemann, was created an Auxiliary Bishop by Mahony on December 23, 1986. The Bishop of Fresno, the Most Reverend John Thomas Steinbock, was classmate of Bishop Tod Brown's, that is, graduating a year after Mahony, in 1963. No wonder that the State of California is a Catholic nightmare, forcing scores of Catholics into the “catacombs” in order to save their souls and to render unto God the fitting worship that is His due.

The Most Reverend Tod Brown, the Bishop of Orange, California, is one who despises Catholic Tradition and the reverence due Our Lord in His Real Presence. He recently accosted a woman who knelt before Him to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion at a Novus Ordo Missae, forcing her up from the floor with his left arm and shouting at her as he did so.He did this as he was holding the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in his hands. He spoke loudly with the Real Presence of the Divine Redeemer on his person. What kind of shepherd does such a thing? What kind of shepherd demonstrates such contempt for the reverence a Catholic wants to show Our Lord as he is holding him in his own hands? Does Bishop Brown even believe in the Real Presence? Is this how Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ would have dealt with one of his sheep who wanted, properly, to kneel to receive Him in Holy Communion? Would Our Lord have berated the sheep for kneeling? Would He, Bishop Brown? Would he?

Bishop Brown hates kneeling for the reception of Holy Communion. He barely tolerated it at Saint Mary's by the Sea Church in Huntington Beach, California, when Father Daniel Johnson maintained this longstanding Catholic tradition even in the Novus Ordo Masses offered there. A group of "conservative," non-traditional parishioners who remained at Saint Mary's by the Sea were expelled from the parish simply because they wanted to kneel from the Agnus Dei to the Novus Ordo version of Domine, non sum dignus. They weren't even asking for the return of the "indult" Mass that had been at Saint Mary's by the Sea during the last ten years of Father Johnson's quarter-century pastorate. No, even a request for for kneeling before the distribution of Holy Communion is enough to turn Bishop Brown into a dirty brown-shirt fascist, a role he acted with great aplomb as he accosted the woman attempting to receive Holy Communion from him while kneeling. Indeed, my future spouse was denied Holy Communion while kneeling at Holy Family Cathedral in Orange, California, in April of 2001. Such is the hatred for Catholic Tradition in the Diocese of Orange and elsewhere that those who demonstrate any adherence to it must be disciplined at once while those who promote sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance are welcomed without any problems whatsoever.

Bishop Brown, however, has had no problem with pro-abortion United States Representative Loretta Sanchez receiving Holy Communion in the parishes of the Diocese of Orange.

Bishop Brown has had no problem enabling know perverts among his priests, rejecting all entreaties to remove a priest who sent out "Christmas cards" showing himself and another priest dressed immodestly and in a very compromising situation.

Bishop Brown has had no problem bestowing Papal honors upon pro-abortion Jewish rabbis, as he did on June 10, 2005, when he bestowed the Benemerenti Medal, which was instituted by Pope Gregory XVI in 1832, to Rabbi Shelton Donnel of Temple Beth Sholom on June 10, 2005.

Bishop Brown has had no problem hosting the annual exercise in organized dissent and indecency that is the annual religious education conference organized by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and held in at the Anaheim Convention Center, located in the Diocese of Orange.

Bishop Brown has had no problem supporting the views of a priest who believes that those steeped in perversion are entitled to "domestic partnership" benefits. He referred his priests in the year 2000 to an article written by one Father Gerald Coleman. SS., who supported such "benefits" and who is a proponent of all perverted behavior. One website describe this story as follows:

During the campaign over Proposition 22, which defined marriage in California, Bishop Tod Brown (Diocese of Orange, CA) sent a memo on February 15, 2000 to the priests of the diocese of Orange: "Attached are two articles, 'Moral Theology' and 'Is Proposition 22 Discriminatory?', by Father Gerald D. Coleman, SS, regarding the marriage initiative, you will find them helpful to you."

 

The article by seminary rector Fr. Coleman included these horrendous statements:

 

"Some homosexual persons have shown that it is possible to enter into long-term, committed and loving relationships, named by certain segments of our society as domestic partnership. I see no reason why civil law could not in some fashion recognize these faithful and loving unions with clear and specified benefits. These unions would then be recognized by society as sustaining an important status deserving our respect and protection. I believe that this possibility could be pursued without equating such unions with marriage, and without in any way demeaning our needed respect and protection for the institution of marriage."

So much for understanding how the sin of Sodom is one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. Does Bishop Tod Brown believe that the sin of Sodom is one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance? Does he? Does it matter to Rome that he can refer his priests to an article such as the one written by Father Gerald D. Coleman. How is it possible for anyone to "love" another when he persists in sin with that person, to the eternal detriment of both?

Bishop Brown has had no problem giving his "approval" for a requiem Mass to be held last year for the wife of a prominent baptist minister in San Clemente, California, at Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Garden Grove, California, even though he spends a good deal of time berating Our Lady Help of Christians as "non-Catholic" and lacking his approval to offer the Mass of the ages. How can a chapel receive his "approval" at one moment and his thorough-going contempt the rest of the time?

Bishop Tod Brown demonstrates repeatedly that is a Catholic clone of his seminary friend and episcopal mentor, Roger Cardinal Mahony, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Any semblance of Tradition and Truth must be ended with an iron fist while all manner of profanities and novelties and outright promotion of dissenting theologians become a normal part of diocesan life.

Yes, each of us plays the role of Judas Iscariot in our lives. Bishops who do so while refusing to repent of the harm they are doing to souls as they accost, quite literally, members of the laity who want to show reverence to Our Lord and to hold fast to His Deposit of Faith are heading for a bad end.

In the final analysis, though, Catholics who continue to aid and abet these Judas Iscariots have nothing to complain about. After all, why put oneself into the clutches of men who hate Our Lord and the Deposit of Tradition He has entrusted to Holy Mother Church? It is pointless to stage events in front of men like Bishop Brown in order to make this point or that. It is quite necessary to flee from the Novus Ordo Missae entirely and to embrace the fullness of Tradition that is being offered by Fathers Patrick Perez and Paul Sretenovic at Our Lady Help of Christians. If there exists a state of emergency in the Church Militant at large, my friends, that state of emergency exists in a particularly chronic manner throughout the State of California, especially in the Archdioceses of San Francisco and Los Angeles and the Dioceses of Orange, San Diego, Monterey, Fresno, Stockton, Santa Rosa, Riverside and San Bernardino. The time has long since passed for Catholics to place themselves and their families in jeopardy by continuing to fight endless and absolutely futile battles against the Judases who populate so many of our chancery offices in this country and elsewhere.

Indeed, it will be quite interesting to see what happens how those who hate Tradition will respond to a recognition by the Holy Father of the right of Roman Rite Catholic priests to offer the Mass of Tradition without episcopal permission. Will they who exercise their own powers so fascistically respond in humility and with docility to such an edict issued by the Vicar of Christ? Or will they continue to demonstrate that there is nothing that will prevent them from acting as brown-shirts with those who dissent from their agenda of novelty and perversity?

While making reparation for the many times we have played the part of Judas Iscariot in our lives, we need to pray for our bishops so that they will repent of the harm they have done and continue to do to the souls whose eternal welfare has been entrusted to their pastoral care. And we continue to pray that Pope Benedict XVI will bring an end to this madness by consecrating Russia to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart with all of the world's bishops.

The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed: it were better for him, if that man had not been born. (Mt. 26:24)

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

Saint James the Greater, pray for us.

Saint James the Lesser, pray for us.

Saint Matthew, pray for us.

Saint Mark, pray for us.

Saint Luke, pray for us.

Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.

Saint Thomas the Apostle, pray for us.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Saint James, pray for us.

Saint Philip, pray for us.

Saint Matthias, pray for us.

Saint Simon, pray for us.

Pope Saint Leo the Great, pray for us.

Saint Justin Martyr, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint John Neumann, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Blessed Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Blessed Jacinta, pray for us.

Blessed Francisco, pray for us.

Sister Lucia, pray for us.

An Afterword

I want to thank those of you who have been so kind as to write notes in the past day since I posted my article about Christ the King College. Please rest assured that we accept God's will with equanimity. Yes, we are flesh and blood human beings. However, we must love God's will more than our own plans. He knows best. He has tailored each one of our crosses to fit us perfectly for His greater honor and glory and for our sanctification. We really do give Him everything, both the good and the bad, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The work, therefore, continues!

All to you, Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls!