Sometime you have to perform an autopsy to find the cause of death. It’s messy but interesting.
And so we come to the strange case of Richard McBrien.
Luckily for us, he cuts is own cranium open for us and shows us what happened.
Let’s snap on our gloves and probe for just a moment with my emphases and comments.
The papal envoy sent to move the U.S. church
by Richard McBrien on Mar. 02, 2009Archbishop Jean Jadot died in his native Belgium on January 21. He was 99.
For many readers, the name of Jean Jadot does not ring the proverbial bell. Others, however, are reminded of a different, better time in the recent history of the Catholic Church. For still others, the Jadot name generates negative rather than positive thoughts. [Which do you think McBrien feels?]
Jean Jadot served as apostolic delegate to the United States (the position has since been upgraded to that of nuncio) from 1973 to 1980. During that time, he recommended the appointment of just over 100 new bishops and the assignments of 15 archbishops. Pope Paul VI almost always accepted those recommendations.
Most of Jadot’s appointments were unusually good, some less so. A limited sample (and I stress the adjective "limited") of those on the first list include: [Get this list…] Howard Hubbard (Albany), Francis Hurley (Anchorage), William Borders (Baltimore), Patrick Flores (El Paso and then San Antonio), Joseph Imesh (Joliet), Michael Kenny (Juneau, Alaska), John J. Sullivan (Kansas City, Missouri), Rembert Weakland (Milwaukee), Peter Gerety (Newark), Raymond Lucker (New Ulm, Minnesota), John Cummins (Oakland), Walter Sullivan (Richmond), Matthew Clark (Rochester), Francis Quinn (Sacramento), Kenneth Untener (Saginaw, Michigan), John May (St. Louis), John Roach (St. Paul and Minneapolis), John Quinn (San Francisco), Raymond Hunthausen (Seattle), Frank Harrison (Syracuse), and William Skylstad (Yakima, Washington, later bishop of Spokane). [Scary, when you see it as a list.]
…
[skipping down… blah blah skipping…]
…When one carefully reviews the list of bishops whom Archbishop Jadot recommended for the episcopacy or for promotion within it, it becomes clear that his choices were, for the most part, of good priests who were ruled more by their pastoral hearts and their pastorally-grounded judgments than by rigid ideologies or hopes for career advancement.
One might ask if that is still the case today.
Indeed.
Again, we see the usual liberal/progressivist false dichotomy of "pastoral" and "rigid".
Frankly, with a notable exception or two – false men in places I hold dear – the most agressively ambitious priests I have ever met have been the liberals. They will do anything to anyone to get ahead.
