Do not weep for me, weep for yourselves

I read, with some amusement I must freely admit, Joan Chittister's latest lament over the Church and the "abuse" of Fr. Thomas Reese.

She says things like this, referring to the title of this post:

There's a line in scripture that has plagued me for years. Now I have experienced it....

I realize that it's not a strange kind of statement at all for a time like that, a time when the innocent are called guilty and the committed are called heretical and the society itself is, as a result, on the brink of losing credibility with the faithful as a result.

The innocent are called guilty? The committed are called heretical? What a joke! Those "committed" to the destruction of the the Church and the souls of the faithful should be "committed" - they are not "innocent".

When the announcement of Tom Reese's withdrawal as editor of America magazine became public, that line from scripture was, in fact, the only thing that went through my mind.

She warns us, not of the rampant heresy and heterdoxy which permeate the Church in the Western world but of this:

This manipulation of the Catholic press, this assault on the quality and standards of Catholic journalism, will mark the church for years to come. In fact, it runs the risk of making the whole idea of Catholic "thought" an oxymoron.

The problems here are:
there is no manipulation of the Catholic press,
the assault has been directed toward the intellect and wills of reading heterdoxy, and
what is truly an "oxymoron" is one who professes to be Catholic while overtly or covertly seeking to undermine the teachings of the Church.

"Sister" Joan is quite upset, it seems, and I feel no sympathy for her or those who are aligned with her "theology" or "philosophy"...Perhaps, they see defeat in their long-fought "battle" of changing the Church? Some are eager to wish them farewell, since they bring nothing but discord and strife to the faithful by perverting or destroying the Church's teachings. She concludes:

From where I stand, it looks like it's a sad day for Catholicism when America magazine becomes the kind of publication we choose to repress.

The fact is, it hasn't been "repressed" despite her inability to be truthful about the matter. She wants others to believe her "reality" which only exists in her mind.

And speaking of repression, it's been a sad 40+ years for those of us in America who have witnessed little disciplinary action of those who openly dissent and encourage others to to do likewise...

Yes, Sister, we weep - we weep for all of those who have been led away from the Church by people like you. We even weep for you and those like you, hoping that some day you might return to the Church and accept what she teaches. And we weep for ourselves and for our children because we must witness the attacks of our Church by those who claim to be members of the Mystical Body of Christ. Yet we also rejoice because of this, for the servant is no greater than the Master, and if we wish to follow Him, we must be ready and willing to endure persecution, even by those who claim to be disciples.

For those who would like to read her latest requiemn, replete with self-pity, it is here.