Sioux City, Iowa, Nov 6, 2018 / 01:54 pm (CNA).- A New Mexico man says that an Iowa diocese neglected to tell him about the extent of abuse committed by a priest living in his home. Leaders in the diocese told CNA they tried to warn the man about the priest’s past, and that current leaders have attempted to do everything possible to manage the priest’s situation, within the confines of canon law.
Fr. Jerry Coyle is a priest of Sioux City, Iowa, but he has lived in New Mexico for 32 years. He moved to the state in 1986, to take part in a treatment program at a facility for priests run by the Servants of the Paraclete. He was sent there after telling Bishop Lawrence Soens that over 20 years of priesthood he had abused about 50 male adolescents.
Coyle was removed from ministry and his faculties were revoked after that admission; he was not dismissed from the clerical state.
After Coyle’s time with the Paracletes was completed, he remained in New Mexico. There, more than 10 years ago, he befriended Reuben Ortiz.
Ortiz is a pious and practicing Catholic: he and his family do pro-life ministry, go to homeless shelters, feed the poor, pray the rosary frequently, and even performed music at a World Youth Day. Until recently, Ortiz was a daily Mass-goer.
When Coyle got into a car accident last year, Ortiz invited the priest to move into his Albuquerque home, to live with him, his wife, and his three teenaged children. Coyle lived with the family until June 29.
In a recent Associated Press report, Ortiz’ attorney said that the diocese did not disclose important information about the priest until he was already living in the Ortiz family home. The diocese, however, told CNA that it repeatedly discouraged the Ortiz family from taking in the priest.
Ortiz acknowledged that when he invited Coyle, 85, to live in his home, he already knew that the priest had committed an act of sexual abuse.
“He had told us that he had fondled a kid, and that, it wasn’t, you know, that he knew, he went through treatment for it, and he, he was ok,” Ortiz told CNA.
Ortiz said that even though he knew the priest had sexually assaulted a minor, he wasn’t nervous about his own children.
“No, because he was very secure about the fact that he was wrong about it. And he was also very secure that he wasn’t ever going to do it again,” Ortiz said.
“Because we asked him right out, ‘Well Jerry, what does that mean for our kids?’ And he said, ‘No, no, no, that was wrong, that’s the reason why I’m not doing [active ministry] anymore, I’m not going and serving at Mass; they didn’t take away my priesthood, I’m good that way.’”
“He really, he did have a certain way about him that looked like it was okay. But for him to go and deceive us from the very beginning was already wrong,” Ortiz added.
‘Redemption and forgiveness’
In November 2017, shortly after Coyle got in a car accident and had his license revoked, Ortiz phoned Bishop Walker Nickless of Sioux City, to let the bishop know about Coyle’s accident, and to inform him that the priest had come to live with the Ortiz family.
“Reuben Ortiz called me after Jerry had his automobile accident, and wanted me to know he couldn’t drive any more, and he needed a place to live because he couldn’t take care of himself, and he wanted to take him into his own home, because they were good friends and he wanted to help Jerry recover from the accident, and he told me he can stay here as long as he wants,” Bishop Nickless recounted to CNA.
“I said to him, ‘Reuben, do you know his history?’ And he said, ‘Yes. Father and I have talked about it; I know that he has abused minors in the past, and I believe in redemption and forgiveness.’”
Nickless said the diocese told Ortiz that because his minor children lived at home, “we think … that is not a good place for Jerry to be, and we’d like him to move.”
“He clearly said he wanted to keep Jerry living with him. We asked him to at least inform his children of Jerry’s history – he said he hadn’t done that – and he said, ‘I’m not going to do that to my children.’”
The problem of where Coyle was to live was taken to the diocesan review board. The review board met Feb. 5, 2018, to discuss Coyle’s living situation, and suggested that he go to a nursing home in New Mexico.
“They immediately recommended that he leave the house,” Nickless said. “I told Reuben that.”
The Diocese of Sioux City encouraged Ortiz to look for a nursing home for Coyle in the Albuquerque area.
“He refused to do that,” Nickless explained. “He kept saying, ‘No, no, I want him here, I want him here, I want him here.’”
On Feb. 8, Fr. Brad Pelzel, vicar general of the Sioux City diocese, spoke with Reuben and his wife, Tania, on the phone, relating what the review board had decided.
At the request of the review board, Pelzel also wrote to Reuben and Tania Feb. 12, following up on their phone conversation. Pelzel’s letter urged that Coyle move to a nursing home. It was thought that one in New Mexico would be most appropriate, because the priest had lived there for so long.
The letter said that the review board was seriously concerned about “Coyle’s self-revealed history of sexual attraction to and contact with boys.”
“When he self-reported his situation … Fr. Coyle admitted that, for a period of about 20 years, he victimized approximately 50 school boys, varying from 7th to 10th grade,” Pelzel wrote.
“The Review Board is grateful to you and your family for your kindness and the Christ-like attention and care you have provided Fr. Coyle, most notably your willingness to welcome him into your home following his traffic accident,” Pelzel wrote.
“While acknowledging the grace of Fr. Coyle’s repentance and the 30-plus years of apparent success he has experienced in living out celibate chastity since moving to the Albuquerque area, the Review Board cannot condone the risk you take by allowing Fr. Coyle to reside in your home and recommends in the strongest of terms that the best form of assistance you can provide Fr. Coyle would be to help him find an institution with Assisted Living facilities.”
Ortiz said that it was shocking to see the letter that said Coyle admitted to abusing 50 adolescents. While he was comfortable with having Coyle around his family when he believed the priest had abused one or two adolescents, he felt he had been misled.
“You know the shock that was, what we took on? It traumatized us to see these pages of who this guy was. It shocked us to such a degree that I didn’t want to let my wife know how scared I was.”
He related that he slept downstairs near Coyle, while the rest of his family was upstairs, from the time they received the Feb. 12 letter until Coyle left in June.
Ortiz told CNA fears that Coyle could have abused his son, who is 15.
Financial matters
Although Ortiz chose not to help Coyle find a nursing home, he did accept money from his boarder. Ortiz told CNA he asked the priest for financial contributions to the family home.
According to Nickless, Coyle gave Ortiz almost $30,000 during the eight months he lived in the family home.
Nickless said that Ortiz first told Coyle he needed to buy a larger car to take him to Mass; his family and Coyle could not all fit into their existing vehicle.
Coyle gave Ortiz $25,000 to buy a new car, Nickless told CNA.
A few weeks later, Ortiz said he needed some more money to handle some expenses.
Coyle gave Ortiz another $2,000, Nickless said.
Later, Ortiz said he needed an additional $3,000, “at which point Jerry balked,” Pelzel told CNA.
“Then Reuben demanded that Jerry give him power of attorney and access to his saving and checking account,” according to Pelzel.
“So then Jerry called us and said, ‘This is strange, I think I’m coming back’,” Nickless said.
Asked how much money the priest had given him, Ortiz declined to answer.
“Let me ask you something, okay? What do you, how do you think money has anything to do with this? How does money come into play? I curse the day I ever met him and if I could take back every time that we met, and everything that was spent, both ways, I would do it, gladly, just to avoid that one meeting with him,” Ortiz told CNA.
After Coyle decided to leave, the diocese began making arrangements for Coyle to return to Iowa. Within five days, on June 29, Coyle left the Ortiz’ home.
Month after Coyle left his home, lawyers representing Ortiz told diocesan officials and reporters that the Diocese of Sioux City was guilty of a cover-up.
Ortiz agreed.
“You know what it’s like when you go to your Church officials and they do absolutely nothing for you?” He asked. “They are totally bankrupt when it comes to morals.”
While Nickless told CNA that he tried to explain to Ortiz the allegations against Coyle from the beginning, Ortiz disagreed.
“They’re accepting sin, in such a way that it’s ok, and so they are shameless in this sin to such a point that they think we are going to agree with a letter of that magnitude. See, they told me that; they had gone and said that he had abused; I said he told us he abused a couple kids, we don’t know the extent. But they said, well you know, they didn’t really make it quite clear until the letter … do you know how scary it is to have somebody like this in your home?”
Although he acknowledged inviting Coyle into his home, Ortiz maintains he was used.
“I was used, as far as I’m concerned. I was used for the purpose of people who released this into our society as a plague, and it upsets me, it does. I don’t think I’m ever going to recover from it.”
Ortiz also said that his spiritual director, whom he described as “no slouch in the priesthood” also failed him, because he did not sufficiently warn him not to allow an admitted perpetrator of sexual assault into his home.
Homecoming
When Coyle returned to Iowa, he was placed at Marian Home, a diocesan retirement home in Fort Dodge.
While the board of directors at Marian Home wasn’t notified of Coyle’s past, several staff members at the residence were.
Pelzel says he told the activities director “explicitly what Jerry was accused of, and she promised to be vigilant.”
Marian Home is located across the street from both St. Edmond Catholic School and Fort Dodge Senior High. Students at St. Edmond’s sometimes visit Marian Home, but they did not have contact with Coyle as they do not go to the area in which he lived.
The schools were not informed when Coyle moved to the residence; “it did not occur to us that the school was there at that time,” Nickless said, acknowledging that “We made a mistake in not notifying the school … we should have done a better job of that.”
Coyle has since left Marian Home, and has been taken in by an acquaintance. Nickless said the priest is living “a life of prayer and penance.”
Nickless wrote a letter to the Sioux City diocese Oct. 31 discussing Coyle’s situation, noting that “No one presently at the diocese has firsthand knowledge about Jerry Coyle and that includes me. For the past few months, we have been attempting to put the pieces together about what happened during the 1980s with the files and records that we do have on Jerry Coyle.”
“During the ensuing 32 years, there were no complaints of any misbehavior by Jerry Coyle. Psychologists in Albuquerque advised the diocese that Coyle was highly motivated to change. We know that many disagree with this point, and so do I.”
The bishop wrote that police “were not contacted when Coyle self-admitted, but policies have changed since 1986. Now the policy is to contact civil authorities, which we will follow, since we have [now] named victims of Jerry Coyle.”
In a Nov. 6 statement, the diocese elaborated.
“The issue that is most important for the public to understand is that many of the allegations made in the past, prior to the 2002 ‘Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People’ were not followed up with an investigation by civil authorities. The Church often sent priests to treatment, in hopes that any actions of misconduct could be cured. We know now that is not the way to handle any allegation of sexual misconduct, and with the 2002 Charter to guide us, we have protocols in place to follow, which we do,” the statement said.
“As far as Jerry Coyle, he has had no criminal charges made against him. He self-admitted, and there was not one allegation until 1986, and this individual was an adult, so the statute of limitations had run out. We recognize that when Coyle self-admitted, each parish should have been notified, and we should have asked victims to come forward. We apologize that this did not happen under the leadership of the Diocese of Sioux City at that time.”
Nickless wrote to the diocese last month: “If you are a victim of Jerry Coyle or any priest or person associated with the Diocese of Sioux City, please come forward.” In recent weeks, several alleged victims of Coyle have come forward to the diocese.
But in 2002, when the diocese initially reviewed its records with local prosecutors, there were no identifiable victims of Coyle. Pelzel said that at that time, a student at a local university had made allegations against Coyle to another priest; but the allegation was anonymous and the diocese had no way to contact the alleged victim.
Another individual had said Coyle had acted “kind of weird” in the sacristy, but didn’t remember “anything else much.”
While Coyle was removed from ministry in 1986, he was not dismissed from the clerical state, and remains a priest of the Diocese of Sioux City. As such, the diocese is obliged under canon law to provide housing and board for him. The diocesan conduct review board is now discussing the possibility of pursuing a dismissal from the clerical state for Coyle.
However, “once a priest is elderly and frail and sick, as Fr. Coyle is, most of the time it’s recommended [by the Vatican] that he live a life of prayer and penance,” Nickless explained.
In fact, the Sioux City diocese attempted to have another elderly priest dismissed from the clerical state, but the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith refused, citing his advanced age.
The review board has also been discussing the preparation and release of a list of credibly accused clerics of the diocese, especially how to make sure that such a list would be accurate. The diocese has stated that a list of credibly accused priests will be published “as soon as we know we have all of the information we need to move forward.”
The Nov. 6 statement said that Coyle’s case raises important questions about how the Church addresses sexual abuse.
“Bishop Nickless inherited many issues from the past. These are the ones we are dealing with today. One of the most difficult issues is this: where do we put known alleged abuser priests that are still alive, but have no charges against them? What do we do with these men? We know that you do not want them in your community. Many care facilities will not, or cannot, take them. Their families sometimes will take them in, but not always. They cannot go to a prison, as civil authorities say that the statute of limitations has run out to prosecute them. This leaves us with very few choices. We understand that the many members of the public are anxious and fearful about sex offenders, because the crime is so egregious. However, if they are not charged and sent to prison, there are few options for housing them.”
“Local Bishops do not have the authority to ‘defrock’ a priest, properly known as laicization. Laicization is a complicated process that is handled by the Vatican; however, a Bishop can remove a priest’s ability to function as a priest, and this has been done. Additionally, once laicized, Diocesan officials lose all ability to supervise formerly accused clergy,” the statement added.
“The Diocese of Sioux City does follow the Charter’s guidelines for all claims of abuse in the present day. As we follow up on past cases, we want to do that in a way that helps victims to feel that have some peace and justice. We set up a meeting on December 6, 2018 with the Attorney General of Iowa to discuss matters further. A list of credibly accused priests will be published, as soon as we know we have all of the information we need to move forward.”
[…]
Anybody who’s unhappy with his boss, should quit.
Nathalie, Pope Francis and Archbishop Naumann hcve one “boss” and He is Jesus, the Son of God. They are both by thier calling must teach, defend, and spread the commands and teachings of the Lord Jesus. If one is failing to do so or is causing confusion and disunity, then in brotherly love it should be pointed out.
I couldn’t agree with you more…. One boss-GOD
Richard: We’re talking here of the Church’s polity. Bishops as a College serve and function “with” and “under” the Pope, “cum Petro, sub Petro.” The Archbishop like a few other American prelates (only in America!) who are openly and disloyally critical of the Pope should quit their post or be investigated/visited. They can look at the case of Archbishop Vigano who was mothballed and called back to head office for botching the 2015 U.S. papal visit. To CWR’s good judgment it has not propagated his weird conspiracy theories and unfounded accusations against the Pope in retaliation for having been sidelined in his clericalist careerism.
The Pope is very, very wrong because supporting, promoting, legislating and financing abortion is not a matter of choice of conscience according to Evangelium Vitae.
The Pope is very wrong to say Bidens position is only “incoherent”. Biden’s position is directly opposed to and an attack on Catholic infallible dogma condemning abortion. Biden is a heretic against and infallible dogma condemning abortion in Evangelium Vitae.
Nonsense. It has nothing at all to do with being “happy.” It has EVERYTHING to do with the teaching of the Catholic Church and the pastoral care of the flock. To callously consign someone’s immortal soul to damnation by doing and saying nothing in the face of their support for the murder of innocent children is to compound the evil.
If you endorse the crimes against humanity by Pope Francis who directly promotes undermining the Church’s moral authority to condemn crimes against humanity, then you too support crimes against humanity. And the Pope is no one’s “boss.”
Argument is given by those, and they’re not a paltry number, who despite their opposition to abortion either firmly believe [or harbor doubts of Biden’s, Pelosi’s guilt] Biden and Pelosi may be wrong, but are abiding to a conscience, formulated in such a way that absolves them from sin.
Morality is determined by acts, what we do. If there is some mysterious conscientious proposition by which a man may commit cold blooded murder, kill the innocent man without just cause and be free of grave sin it defies reason. Example. Aristotle taught that the virtues are determined virtuous acts by a reasonable mean. That the mean of fortitude is somewhere between audacity and cowardice. However, Aristotle [Aquinas agrees with Aristotle on the virtues] held that justice, what is right, of all the virtues has no mean [or median]. There are no degrees by which murder is more or less murder. Which indicates there is in us an inherent capacity to apprehend with certitude that certain acts, murder, sexual acts with a child, false witness. Certitude of these acts is realized when major and minor premises are apprehended in one act of knowing. As simple as immediately knowing this act is murder, false witness, rape of a child.
As regards abortion they’re are mitigating dynamics, fear, lack of knowledge ignorance is common among subcultures, extreme duress. The Church recognizes these although despite proponents of mitigation theory [John Paul II warned not to make mitigation a category] that cast doubt of grave sin on all abortions. Biden will say abortion is wrong, and similarly say it’s not. His rationale is we’re unsure when a human being is present in the womb, that Aquinas determined there’s a hiatus between conception and the presence of a soul. Nevertheless, he poses these opinions contrary to what the Church teaches, that human life begins at conception. The argument of ensoulment is frivolous at best and nonsensical at worst, because the notion of soul as understood stems from the Gk definition of anything that is self motivation. A plant was said to have a soul, as well as a grasshopper. We know with certitude that human life begins with conception. It really is not up to us to determine when that human life has rights in recognition that it is a human life, since that determination belongs to the Creator. It’s right to life starts with its life at the moment of conception.
Biden rejects what the Church teaches which places him in the heretic category. Pelosi argues on the basis of hardship, undue burden [some canonists consider all pregnancy and birth an undue burden].
Archbishop Naumann [it’s obvious why Naumann, Aquila, Cordileone are not cardinals] is taking the stand of reason that not all abortions are hardship cases to the degree that the woman who aborts might be absolved from grave sin. That the vast majority of abortions are frivolously decided, often for cosmetic reason or maintaining a lifestyle. The monumental number of abortions hang over the head of Biden [and] Pelosi like the Sword of Damocles.
En effet. Francis in defense of Biden argues the case he makes in Amoris on conscience that inherently grave sin like murder of the innocent is not murder when we determine that it’s not.
Dear pastor and brother in Christ:
Blessings and thanks. You strive to help Biden and Pelosi come to the knowledge of truth and peace with God. If they are unwilling to accept the teaching of the Catholic Church, what kinship do they have then? You are well acquainted with the following verses and yet, if someone struggles with their conscience, God always guides us to paths of righteousness. God will forgive us of all sins if we ask Him in Jesus name!
Genesis 9:5-6 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
Psalm 139:13-16 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Leviticus 24:17 “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death.
Proverbs 24:11-12 Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?
Your fellow servant in Christ,
Brian
May our Lord Jesus who knows all hearts deliver His children from the spirit of Error in this evil days.
Plaudits to a bishop who has the courage to speak the truth to power. Would that we had a Church today where it wouldn’t be necessary to even single a bishop out for such courage.
How these bishops cover for their abusive “pope”!
Their excuses for Bergoglio are tragic.
They are fools.
“I wasn’t aware of that statement by the Holy Father and I do think that’s helpful,” Naumann told CNA. “It’s very helpful because I think that’s exactly true, that his position is incoherent with Catholic teaching. So I’m grateful for that clarification by the Holy Father.”
It is so sad that you, Archbishop, was not aware of that statement made by Pope Francis. That was an important statement that was published in many good Catholic sites. And, by the way, it was not offered as a clarification. That is Church teaching. Yes, people who are not in communion with the Church should not receive communion. Hey Archbishop, Pope Francis would have received Pelosi and others because she is an American official. Even us laypeople know that.
COREECTION: What you write should read, “Even WE laypeople know that.” You see, “we” is in the subjective case and should be used for the subject of a sentence. However “us” is in the objective case, and you’ve used it wrongly.
Parenthetically, you do realize that you castigate some here for admonishing Pontiff Francis while you have no problem admonishing Bishop Naumann. Both men are bishops, you know. Aren’t you a bit inconsistent? Or perhaps, to quote Pontiff Francis, aren’t you being “incoherent.”
Mal, the nature of evil is to combine itself with the good.
It’s one thing to receive an American official, your point, but it’s another to combine such a courtesy with distribution and reception of the Eucharist. But, you are correct that Pope Francis’ statement “was not offered as a clarification.” It clarified nothing. Like stupidity, mere incoherence (as for Biden) is likely more of a hall pass than it is a sin. A new category, while moral theology remains about good and evil.
How can it clarify something, Peter, when it was not meant to clarify anything. It was a straightforward statement that reflects Church teaching. Secondly, where did you get the idea that Pope Francis combined his reception of Pelosi, mthe American official, with an invitation to receive Holy communion. That is a fabrication.
Who said “invitation?”
My comment is “combine,” a combination that coherent popes or pastors would have acted to prevent. The issue is inaction. As for “Church teaching,” it might be that such teaching is above the level of whether something is incoherent or not. There’s even something in there about inaction or “sins of omission.” Pay attention.
It is so sad that you, Mal, are not aware that the statement made by Pope Francis is NOT Church teaching. If it were, Francis would have said that Biden’s position is a REPUDIATION of Catholic teaching and a spitting in the face of God, and not use a wimpy word like incoherent, a CONTRADICTION so grievance, so obvious a crime against humanity, as to warrant his excommunication, and he would have said it last fall when Francis called him “a good Catholic,” and it would have been a reoccurring theme for nine years that any Catholic in high office is obligated to oppose the principalities of mass murder and not serve as an instrumentality. Even laypeople who are not involved in personality cults know this.
Edward, you are the last person I would ask about the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Again, maybe the controversy isn’t even about “the teachings of the Catholic Church,” but rather about affirming the teachings, while then ALSO (are you listening?) creating a surrounding climate of ambiguity within which these teachings can be pastorally or synodally set aside. The issue is the “smoke(stacks) of Satan” and this new kind of “climate change”!
Explaining this simple observation incisively to some readers is like trying to kill a deep-sea sponge with a needle, but let this internet discourse continue, because it does serve to clarify.
The archbishop just had knee surgery this week. So cut him some slack.
The Church teaches now and always has that life begins at the instant of conception and lasts until natural death. This is not difficult to understand.
The Church teaches now and always has that abortion is FORBIDDEN and always will be, in other words it is a mortal sin. THIS is not difficult to understand.
So called ‘catholic’ politicians going all the way back to Kerry and Kennedy – remember Kennedy’s anti-Bork rant about “backyard abortions’ during the Senate hearings as far back as the 80s – have been openly defying for decades the very tenets of the faith they say they follow regarding this issue. This has been going on so long that it has, sadly, become the norm.
Given this, Archbishop Naumann’s statement, while welcome, is a bit silly.
“Sad” continues to well describe my response. However, Mrs. Pelosi is also a cause of sorrow, and I intentionally use her matrimonial title as that should be her primary vocation. I cannot envision a more pastoral figure—with her—than Archbishop Cordileone who provided her soul with thousands of Rosaries and white roses after years of petitioning her conscience to realize the error of her thinking and disconnect in her actions. It was appallingly condescending to suggest that Archbishop Cordileone’s ultimate declaration was not consequentially pastoral, as well.
Then, how did Mrs. Pelosi respond to the Pope’s smiling encounter—she rebelliously rebuked him even recently, thrusting the same bitter uline about giving birth to five children (something the Pope could not understand). Incredibly, she remains blind to the enormous blessings God gave or permitted her,throwing the greatest possible one, co-creation, back in His Holy Face. (Now, granted even devout Catholic Moms, pregnant again, might look heaven bound and cry, really?, but they do not publicly resent this gift and use its perceived “burden” to justify tens of millions of abortions—up to birth, no less.)
Yet, returning to Pope Francis, I also pray he emphasizes the need to protect the great pastoral work of crisis pregnancy centers—which neither Pelosi nor Biden have done—and most importantly speak of the right of persons in the womb to be pastorally delivered into Baptism and even their First Communion.
Over 70 years of Catholic upbringing and teaching for both Biden and Pelosi and look what you get! That church needs to stop relying on human traditions and false teaching/interpreting scriptures to fit their narrative. It’s no wonder God has turned his back on this church.
Most of the time the fault lies with the individual, and NOT the church. I seem to recall Martin Luther disposing of 7 Books of the bible because they didnt fit his preferred theological narrative. The same books which had been accepted by Christians for 1500 years to that point. I would suggest that moves into “false teaching”. Or at the very least, the twisting of scripture. I see no evidence God has abandoned the Catholic Church. Although many are unhappy with Frances as its head.
We need another St. Ambrose in the Church today to set the record straight on what the Church teaches, and whips everyone into shape.
Even though the grammar is atrocious (i.e., “someone”, “that person”, “they”), the Archbishop does a good job of identifying hypocrisy when he sees it:
“‘However, it is not pastoral to tell someone they are a good Catholic and can receive Communion as a matter of course, when that person has committed a grave evil,’ he continued. ‘The fact that the pope received Pelosi was politically exploited. In doing so, Francis is doing exactly what he warns others not to do.'”
I think Abp. Naumann is right that Pope Francis doesn’t understand America, as he doesn’t understand the American Church. Yet he presumes to wade in. Whose job is it to enlighten him? Or is he as closed to insight as Pelosi and Biden seem/pretend to be?
The collective Bishops authority to teach about the Eucharist at this point is the same as a known adulterer teaching about fidelity in a marriage.
After approximately two years of starving their children telling us Walmart was more essential than Jesus Christ, trying to teach the faithful about the importance of the Eucharist just shows how collectively out of touch they are.
We shouldn’t expect anything out of them at this point as they will collectively cave again for the next “emergency” with a 99% survival rate.
Hate the sin not the sinner
“I think the Pope doesn’t understand the U.S., just as he doesn’t understand the Church in the U.S..”
Kansas’ vote to protect abortion rights ironically shows that Archbishop Naumann is the one who doesn’t really understand the U.S..