Bishop Joseph Strickland celebrating Mass in March 2021. (Image: Beauty of the Traditional Latin Mass/Wikipedia)
National Catholic Register, Dec 8, 2023 / 10:17 am (CNA).
Retired Bishop Joseph Strickland has been advised to leave his former Diocese of Tyler, Texas, but has not been told he can’t say Mass publicly there, he told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s EWTN News partner.
“I have received no such instruction,” Strickland said by text Thursday night, responding to a report that he has been barred from saying Mass in the diocese.
Pope Francis removed Strickland, a critic of the pope, as head of the Diocese of Tyler in East Texas almost four weeks ago, on Nov. 11. The pope named Bishop Joe Vasquez, the bishop of nearby Austin, the temporary administrator of the Diocese of Tyler until a new bishop is appointed.
“Bishop Vasquez said it might be a good idea for me to leave the diocese; it was a suggestion,” Strickland told the Register.
Strickland, who is on retreat, referred further questions to Vasquez, saying: “He’s the one in charge.”
The Register contacted spokesmen for the Diocese of Tyler on Thursday night and for the Diocese of Austin early Friday, but as of this writing had not heard back. This story will be updated if the Register receives further comment.
On Thursday afternoon, LifeSite News reported that Strickland “has been barred from saying Mass in the Diocese of Tyler, Texas,” citing an unnamed source as saying that diocesan employees were told during a recent staff meeting “that while Strickland cannot offer Mass in the diocese, he may do so elsewhere.”
Strickland has frequently criticized Pope Francis, which many observers believe led to his ouster. He also delayed in implementing the pope’s restrictions on the Latin Mass.
In May, Strickland made a public statement saying he believes Pope Francis is the rightful pope, but adding: “… I reject his program of undermining the deposit of faith. Follow Jesus.”
In late June, the Vatican sent two other bishops to the Diocese of Tyler to investigate Strickland’s tenure there.
About four and a half months later, Strickland was removed, without public explanation. His current status is retired bishop without assignment, though at 65 he is 10 years younger than the canonical age for retiring.
Senior Vatican contributor Edward Pentin contributed to this story.
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Armenian orphans being deported from Turkey. Ca. 1920. / Everett Collection/Shutterstock
Washington D.C., Apr 19, 2021 / 11:15 am (CNA).
The U.S. bishops’ conference issued a statement on Monday recognizing the upcoming anniversary of the Armen… […]
Texas state capitol building / f11photo/Shutterstock
Washington D.C., May 19, 2021 / 11:27 am (CNA).
The governor of Texas on Wednesday signed a ban on most abortions conducted after the detection of a fetal heartbeat.Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed… […]
Ryan and Sara Huelsing, parishoners at St. Joseph parish in Cottleville, Missouri, at a preview event put on by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students in St. Louis on Oct. 1, 2022. Ryan leads a men’s group at his parish and both hope to get involved with FOCUS’ Making Missionary Disciples track. / Jonah McKeown/CNA
St. Louis, Mo., Nov 25, 2022 / 09:00 am (CNA).
The upcoming Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) national conference is expected to draw 20,000 people to St. Louis for talks, workshops, entertainment, prayer, and worship, with the goal of encouraging and equipping Catholics to live and share their faith. The Jan. 2–6, 2023, gathering, SEEK23, will be the first in-person national conference for FOCUS since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eileen Piper, FOCUS’ vice president of lifelong mission, told CNA recently that a new conference track called Making Missionary Disciples aims to help adult attendees become equipped to better share their faith.
While most of FOCUS’ programming is geared toward students, the Making Missionary Disciples track is designed for priests, bishops, diocesan and parish staff, FOCUS alumni, parishioners, and benefactors who “long to see their parish, diocese, family, or community experience deep transformation in Jesus Christ and who desire to be a part of the solution,” the organization says.
“This really is a unique opportunity, and you’re going to get hands-on experience,” Piper told CNA.
“This is practical training. It’s made for you to take into your state of life — so if you are a leader in a parish, you are going to be equipped to be able to step into your work in the parish in a brand-new way.”
Eileen Piper, FOCUS’ vice president of lifelong mission. FOCUS
Piper said she, like many Catholics, has friends and family members in her life who are no longer practicing their faith. The Making Missionary Disciples track is designed for those who want to do a better job of sharing their faith, she said, not on “street corners” but primarily with people they already know and love.
“It starts to practically equip you so that you’re feeling more confident and more comfortable entering into faith conversations with those that you are already in relationship with,” she explained.
The track will feature speeches and workshops put on by nationally recognized Catholic speakers such as Father Josh Johnson, Sister Bethany Madonna, and sEdward Sri. Conference attendees will also be given time for prayer and fellowship, daily Mass, and networking opportunities, FOCUS says.
Through the workshops, “you’ll be working on your personal testimony, so you can just in a very comfortable way share your own story of how you like what Jesus means to you, and why it matters.”
Piper said as part of the conference they also hope to create opportunities for parish priests to connect “brother to brother” and discuss with one another what is working well in their parishes. She also said FOCUS will be offering a Lenten Bible study in 2023 for anyone who wants to participate, and they will be especially suggesting that SEEK23 attendees join in on it and invite others to join as well.
Since its founding in the 1990s, FOCUS has sent missionaries to college campuses across the United States and abroad to share the Catholic faith primarily through Bible studies and small groups, practicing what it calls “The Little Way of Evangelization” — winning small numbers of people to the Catholic faith at a time through authentic friendships and forming others to go out and do the same.
FOCUS has since 2015 been in the process of expanding beyond college campuses by creating a track designed to bring their relationship-based evangelization model to parishes. Almost two dozen parishes across the country, including one in the St. Louis Archdiocese, have FOCUS missionaries living and working there.
SEEK23 will be FOCUS’ first in-person conference since Indianapolis in 2019 and a smaller student leadership summit in Phoenix in the earliest days of 2020. Conferences for 2021 and 2022 were held online due to the pandemic.
Brian Miller, director of evangelization and discipleship for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, told CNA that St. Louis was chosen for SEEK in part because it is centrally located and convention-friendly, but also because the city is ripe for the kind of renewal that FOCUS aims to provide.
Beyond the young people and students who will attend SEEK, Miller said they hope to use FOCUS’ Making Missionary Disciples track as a launch pad for getting more mature Catholics excited about sharing their faith as well. He also said his office plans to host follow-up events for St. Louis Catholics to build upon what people will learn at SEEK about evangelization as well as provide them with resources to help them start Bible studies and small discipleship groups.
He said he hopes that as parishes in St. Louis “come together in their new parish realities” after an ongoing major merging and closing process, that “they have some common footing, some common training, and they have a common mission.”
SEEK23 registration is now open and costs $399 total for the full five days, regardless of whether you are a college or high school student or an adult. General passes for St. Louis residents cost $350. All registration options can be found here.
No Texas Bishop will welcome Bishop Strickland in public now that he has been offered up to this pontificate by them in private – especially, the carpet bagger “in charge.” Half are shills for the Democrats, especially their socialist lobbying arm in Austin. The rest have cozied up to big business RINOs who killed pro-life bills for decades when none could see save God and a few faithful friends of life. The pro-life example of Bishop Strickland was a constant irritation to them. Mt. 8:20
History has seen weak Bishops gang up to do worse than banishing Bishops Torres in Puerto Rico and Strickland in Texas. This purge shall pass. Stay Catholic.
I can’t put this any other way than to say I am ashamed of how the so-called leadership of our Catholic Church operates. Truth is that these characters ought to be ashamed of themselves. But, I’ve concluded that they’re incapable of feeling shame.
The retirement of a bishop is a formal process in which the bishop submits a letter to the Pope short of his seventy-fifth birthday. The Pope either accepts or rejects said bishop’s retirement. To date, no such information has been forthcoming about any such letter from Bishop Strickland. This state of Limbo is an unreasonable punishment. Obviously the Holy Father does not wish to engage in a dialogue with those who disagree with him.
Then one wonders why there is a shortage of priests. Can’t be conservative and be Catholic to the higher ups. God will prevail in the long run. Stay Catholic and don’t vote democrat,please.
The “reporter” Matt McDonald is a back-bencher, and statements in this article show his bias against Bishop Strickland. It’s poorly written too.
Let’s demand clear and professional reporting from these supposedly Catholic news sources. The diocese of Tyler, now under the direction of an “administrator” bishop, has not been helpful at all in setting the record straight. But we know that’s not what they want to do. How do we know that? Because they did not inform Bishop Strickland of more than one action taken against him. And this goes back to the Vatican and whoever is actually making these decisions. It could be Bergoglio, but we don’t know for sure. It could be one or more of his henchmen “advisors”.
And this, not any liturgical or doctrinal dispute, is by far the number one reason why our Eastern Orthodox brethren will never consider reunion with the Catholic Church under its current policies. For all the empty talk of synodality and subsidiarity, the bishop of Rome arbitrarily and summarily simply removes his brother bishops from their posts, whi have plainly committed no canonical crimes, not only without any due process at all, but without even any reason given for the removal.
Surely there’s a providential and tutorial connection between the 8th-century St. Boniface and the 21st-century Bishop Strickland.
Boniface was sent forth as the missionary bishop to Germania—as a bishop without a diocese (!). Post haste, he chopped down the pagan’s sacred Donar’s Oak, and in this way converted the mystified tribes toward steadfast Christianity. But, too bad, though, about all those acorns remaining on the ground. Later coming to fruition, as the 15th-century Reformation and now as a boring 21st-century apostasy. Cardinal Marx and Bishop Batzing—the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Waiting, here, to see what cometh forth from Bishop Strickland, likewise without a diocese, and hopefully without painting another Twitter-target on his own back.
Underlining the historical parallel, Boniface’s famous oak tree is said to have been near Hesse, which recalls Luther’s endorsement of the elector Rudolph of Hesse’s bigamy (also the bigamy of Henry VIII). Not to be outdone, and in addition to more bigamy, pagan Germania now also presumes to bless the “marriage” of homosexuals, something that even the voracious Henry VIII could not even imagine.
No Texas Bishop will welcome Bishop Strickland in public now that he has been offered up to this pontificate by them in private – especially, the carpet bagger “in charge.” Half are shills for the Democrats, especially their socialist lobbying arm in Austin. The rest have cozied up to big business RINOs who killed pro-life bills for decades when none could see save God and a few faithful friends of life. The pro-life example of Bishop Strickland was a constant irritation to them. Mt. 8:20
History has seen weak Bishops gang up to do worse than banishing Bishops Torres in Puerto Rico and Strickland in Texas. This purge shall pass. Stay Catholic.
I can’t put this any other way than to say I am ashamed of how the so-called leadership of our Catholic Church operates. Truth is that these characters ought to be ashamed of themselves. But, I’ve concluded that they’re incapable of feeling shame.
retired? a nice euphemism for forced removal
Agreed.
The retirement of a bishop is a formal process in which the bishop submits a letter to the Pope short of his seventy-fifth birthday. The Pope either accepts or rejects said bishop’s retirement. To date, no such information has been forthcoming about any such letter from Bishop Strickland. This state of Limbo is an unreasonable punishment. Obviously the Holy Father does not wish to engage in a dialogue with those who disagree with him.
Then one wonders why there is a shortage of priests. Can’t be conservative and be Catholic to the higher ups. God will prevail in the long run. Stay Catholic and don’t vote democrat,please.
The “reporter” Matt McDonald is a back-bencher, and statements in this article show his bias against Bishop Strickland. It’s poorly written too.
Let’s demand clear and professional reporting from these supposedly Catholic news sources. The diocese of Tyler, now under the direction of an “administrator” bishop, has not been helpful at all in setting the record straight. But we know that’s not what they want to do. How do we know that? Because they did not inform Bishop Strickland of more than one action taken against him. And this goes back to the Vatican and whoever is actually making these decisions. It could be Bergoglio, but we don’t know for sure. It could be one or more of his henchmen “advisors”.
Kinda a “get off of my ranch” moment…they are playing butch, ironically. Even dark tragedies have their lighter nanosecond.
You can’t make it up.
And this, not any liturgical or doctrinal dispute, is by far the number one reason why our Eastern Orthodox brethren will never consider reunion with the Catholic Church under its current policies. For all the empty talk of synodality and subsidiarity, the bishop of Rome arbitrarily and summarily simply removes his brother bishops from their posts, whi have plainly committed no canonical crimes, not only without any due process at all, but without even any reason given for the removal.
Does Bishop Strickland have an address where we can send money to support him?
Surely there’s a providential and tutorial connection between the 8th-century St. Boniface and the 21st-century Bishop Strickland.
Boniface was sent forth as the missionary bishop to Germania—as a bishop without a diocese (!). Post haste, he chopped down the pagan’s sacred Donar’s Oak, and in this way converted the mystified tribes toward steadfast Christianity. But, too bad, though, about all those acorns remaining on the ground. Later coming to fruition, as the 15th-century Reformation and now as a boring 21st-century apostasy. Cardinal Marx and Bishop Batzing—the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Waiting, here, to see what cometh forth from Bishop Strickland, likewise without a diocese, and hopefully without painting another Twitter-target on his own back.
Underlining the historical parallel, Boniface’s famous oak tree is said to have been near Hesse, which recalls Luther’s endorsement of the elector Rudolph of Hesse’s bigamy (also the bigamy of Henry VIII). Not to be outdone, and in addition to more bigamy, pagan Germania now also presumes to bless the “marriage” of homosexuals, something that even the voracious Henry VIII could not even imagine.