"Off the Record" - Five Years On...

...OTR had its beginnings in an ongoing exchange of e-mails between half a dozen correspondents wryly exasperated by the failures of senior ecclesiastics to conduct themselves as Catholics, and by their even more distressing failures to permit others access to the Church's spiritual bounty. Many of our exchanges took the form of routine grousing about the flakiness of this or that homily or pastoral letter or interview, but underneath there was a deeper sense of unease. Bad churchmen are a vexation, but an understandable and probably unavoidable vexation. Harder to explain -- and progressively harder to deny -- was The Void at the center of the Church's activity: the absence of concern for souls in jeopardy.

For a good many years, a number of us had this "deeper sense of unease," leading us to take refuge in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, seeking faithful parishes and priests - no easy task in some parts of the country...

"Work out your salvation with fear and trembling," said St. Paul, "for it is God who is at work in you." OTR was created to grapple with the problem (never articulated as such by the contributors): how does a Catholic work out his salvation when his pastors don't believe there is any damnation to be saved from?

Precisely! Some, it seems, view parish life as a sort of Sunday Social Club, not much different than any number of other "clubs."

Perhaps no Catholic bishop or religious superior has publicly stated his disbelief in the possibility that a soul might be lost. Yet it is so rare for a churchman to affirm this doctrine that it's stunning when it does occur -- think of the amazed indignation in response to the disciplinary actions of Bishops Bruskewitz and Burke.

Bishops, such as these, are demonized and criticized as heartless by those who call themselves "thinking Catholics" and "mature adults" when, in fact, it is the bishops' authentic charity for the souls of others which requires that they do what must be done! Who among us would want a father who did not care about his children?

Diogenes continues with an easy-to-understand analogy of mother and child which is well worth the read! May OTR continue for another five years or as long as it is needed!