Sycophants on Parade

Vincent Nichols in clerical garb

Could someone please put a gun in his hand?

Beady-eyed Kevin Farrell

Donald Wuerl sporting his brand new dentures

Playground bully or prelate.  You pick.

Pinto puts a whammy on four bad guys.....and the Church

Is that you, Holy Spirit?

This is almost comical.  The Catholic Church has become a parody of a classic giant corporation where the head of the company surrounds himself with fawning yes-men and sends to janitor duty those who question some of his decisions.

I have heard scoffing from some who refuse to believe such a thing. But isn't this exactly where the Church is now?

Some would say the Church has always been that way, that those surrounding the Pope would be no more than toadies doing the bidding of the Big Man.  Some Orthodox believe that, I know. But was it true?

There have always been sycophants, courtiers, cliques, flatterers buzzing around men in high places. Even in the Church.  Great Popes dreaded these types, for they knew that blind slavishness was a very bad idea and they would fight it whenever it reared its ugly head.  The effect of these hangers-on was muted when a great Pope was in charge.  These saintly pontiffs would keep such men in check and make efforts to see that their influence was minimal.  For them it was an ordeal but a job that had to be done.  Great monarchs also had these problems, the greatest of them doing yeoman work to keep the lap dogs under control.

But in 2016 AD we have a somewhat new problem.  Old but new.  Now we have a Pope who is - how shall I say it? - a bit bizarre.  A living, breathing teenager in an 80 year old body.  A martinet who decries discipline in the Church but who is in fact the very worst kind of disciplinarian, the kind that refuses to listen to counsel or reconsider his views.  An egotist who, like John Paul II, craves the limelight, the cheering crowds and the approval of the mass media.  A child who has just been given the biggest toy train in the world and is having  a grand time playing with it.

And as of this moment a man who has not yet realized his awesome responsibility: to transmit the Faith whole and entire to those under his care.  Those under his care include every human being upon earth.  One can see in his face a disinterest in what he has inherited.  My first clue that there was something askew in his mind was that incident early in his papacy when he was walking down a hallway with his entourage and spotted a young altar boy with his hands together as if in prayer.   In a show of ignorant heartlessness he visibly yanked the boy's hands apart.

That incident spoke volumes about what would be coming.

And coming it has.  I will not bore my well-read readers by recounting the scandals this man has caused.  We are all getting sick and tired of them.  What I will do is express my astonishment at the sorry collection of mediocrities, sycophants, dullards, idiots and poofs who have all circled their wagons around this awful Pope.

What a Rogue's Gallery of shameless episcopal reptiles, whose collective intelligence hardly reaches the level of The Three Stooges.  If they had any intelligence, let alone self-respect, they might come to the realization that the Pope is uttering dangerous nonsense on many subjects (not all, of course, but many) and would take him aside and try to show him the realities.  But most of his lackeys are, frankly, worse than him when it comes to the salvation of souls which is the chief effort of the one, true Church.

Yes, these men need to be insulted even though some of them are too obtuse even to understand they are being insulted.  We don't insult the cloth they wear; we insult the men who disgrace that cloth.  It is because I respect the cloth that I call out those who bring bring shame upon it. This approach is, I know, not encouraged by many good people in the Church.  For these good people respect, understandably, should be the order of the day no matter how cretinous some of them are. But as good as that approach is, which I do not for a moment condemn, how respectful can one be to some of these wreckers of the Church?  Is not a bit of tar and feathers, at least the keyboard kind (for now), appropriate in dealing with some Churchmen who are deliberately and with malice aforethought trying to deform the Church into something worse than Protestantism or Judaism, a Protestantism that tinkers with dogma or a Judaism that rejects our Lord outright?  Is that not in fact what some of these characters are engaging in?  And worse. Some of these prelates are openly supporting sodomy.  Sodomy.  Has the import of that really sunk in to our skulls? Moreover, some of them are condoning adultery.  Where are we?  Are we in The Twilight Zone?

I am very willing to entertain arguments about the rightness or wrongness this approach if anyone cares to comment.  I like to keep my head by encouraging commenters who disagree with some of the ravings on this internet stop.  One learns by an exchange of ideas.

This blog is called The Eye Witness not only in honor of Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton but as an actual eye witness of crucial events.  An eye witness watches oily traitors like Kasper or truckling incompetents like Cupich or buffoons like Dolan paying court to a dictator and reports on them.  It is truly a rotten job to have to do.  We take no pleasure in writing about these monstrous people. And while other internet sites and blogs do it better than here this writer would feel somehow unclean by not openly stating that the Church is crumbling before our very eyes.

If there is any good at all in the snivelling idiocies coming from the mouths of these men it is a reminder that - especially to this writer whose allotted time on earth is coming to an end soon - it is time for reflection on why it is that our sins have brought this upon our heads.  War is a punishment for sin so it has been said.  And so is the infliction of bad clerics.

And Advent, among other things, is a good time to reflect.