Bishop Brusewitz questions the authority of the National Review Board

I had missed this two weeks ago and thought I would provide a link to it. Bishop Bruskewitz, being one of my favorite Bishops because of his courage and fidelity, speaks openly about the NRB and the Bishops' conference.

Here are a couple of his comments:

But wouldn't you acknowledge that the scandal of clerical sexual abuse required some drastic response?

Bruskewitz: My point, of course, would be that you don't cut off your head to cure a headache. Even if you have a tumor, that's not the correct therapy: to behead yourself in order to get rid of the brain tumor. I think that surely these crimes and sins and horrors of sexual misconduct--and perhaps also the guilt and cowardice and folly and the sloth of bishops who didn't properly address these issues--are horrible in themselves. But I don't think they are an excuse burn down the barn, just to get rid of the rats.

What would be the proper therapy?

Bruskewitz: Well, I think the proper therapy is to have adequate apostolic visitations, by competent people who are sent by the Holy See to check into the issues and the questions that are now being raised. In particular, the focus of this apostolic visitation should be to inspect seminaries, and to make certain that the homosexualization of the clergy (if that's what is going on) is arrested and excised.

I would say that would be the correct way to do it. It would be very important to have people involved who are competent and knowledgeable, and above all to have people involved who profess the Catholic faith. I think that it's downright bizarre to have people who are opposed to the doctrines and moral teachings of the Catholic Church acting as advisers to the bishops--or even worse, as they might understand themselves, controlling and punishing bishops--while at the same time they themselves remain outside the purview of the Church's doctrinal and moral teaching. Bishops who grossly fail in their episcopal duties need to be removed.

And later on he had this to say:

Homosexuals shouldn't be priests, any more than alcoholics should be bartenders, or pyromaniacs should be taking care of gasoline-storage facilities, or kleptomaniacs should be bank tellers. There are certain things that are excluded because of these aberrations. Whether or not a kleptomaniac is personally responsible for being a kleptomaniac is really beside the point. His proclivity for stealing things is a socially and a morally disordered inclination; he must be kept away from those situations where this inclination could be indulged. Similarly, the clergy is not a place for people who are homosexuals.

This is a very good analysis by a very good bishop - I highly recommend that everyone read this. Link is here.