Response to Amy

In Philadelphia in May to give the St. Thomas More Society's Gest Forum Lecture, Fr. Neuhaus was asked about what the U.S. Bishops had recently said about U.S. immigration policy.  After some nice but uncharacteristic hemming and hawing, Neuhaus answered:  "If it is not necessary for the Bishops to make a statement, it is necessary that they not."  It's possible that Neuhaus qualified his principle in the colloquy that ensued (I was laughing too hard to hear everything), but, at least in substance, he meant it, and I think I agree with him, or pretty close to it. 

Therefore, I begin with a presumption in favor of the silence you commend.  However, sometimes it is necessary or exigent that the Bishops speak collectively.  I also begin with the presumption that the primary role of a Catholic Bishop is the one of teaching, governing, and sanctifying the people of God.  Their primary function is to save souls, not to win or lose elections.  If the people of God are being scandalized by politicians' abuse of the sacraments, it falls to the Bishop concerned to take appropriate action.  Many U.S. Bishops have not only not taken appropriate action, they have publicly announced non-action policies in clear derogation from Canon 915, about which so much has been written here before.  In my own conversations with certain well-known Bishops and a Cardinal who were hoping that McCarrick's effort would end in silence, and perhaps helping to assure that result, what I heard most often is that the Bishops would risk appearing partisan if they issued norms to guide local decision about when and how to avoid politicians' scandalizing the faithful.  (The Bishops have themselves to blame, of course for certain perceptions of partisanship).   The issue of protecting the integrity of the sacramental life of the people of God simply got submerged in a desire to look, on this issue, neutral.  If the Bishops cannot convince people that they're taking the sacraments seriously, who is to blame for that? 

Here, it seems to me, is a place where subsidiarity comes into play in the life of the Church.  Where the local ordinaries are allowing their own faithful to be scandalized, and thereby all those who read about what is going on or watch on television, a higher power must step in to correct the error for the good of both the particular Church and the larger Church.  In terms of the actual approach the U.S. Bishops should have taken, I'm inclined to agree with Fr. Araujo's suggestions here of a few days ago.

I join Amy in looking for the Bishops to develop alternatives to statements.  But, as I said, I find it signal that this the issue on which they chose not to speak as a group.  It took Cardinal Arinze's intervention to get them over the hump on the Order of Mass.  Perhaps eventually Rome will try again on this issue, but I'm not hopeful.