Bishop Strickland: Catholics have a duty to ‘expose treachery’ of prelates ‘leading souls to hell’
The bishop emeritus echoed the words of Deacon Nick Donnelly, saying 'it is more scandalous to not call out the corruption in the Church than to be quiet about it.'
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Tue Jul 23, 2024 - 5:39 pm EDT
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(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Emeritus Joseph Strickland amplified remarks made by Deacon Nick Donnelly on X this week about the duty to expose heretical clergy who are “killing souls and sending them to Hell.”
Strickland is the well-known former bishop of Tyler, Texas. After his abrupt dismissal by Pope Francis earlier this year, His Excellency has doubled down on defending orthodox Catholic teaching both online and in person.
On Monday and Tuesday, Strickland shared two of Donnelly’s messages. Donnelly, who lives in the United Kingdom, often rebukes Pope Francis as well as liberal prelates who promote his left-wing agenda on the platform. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano frequently shares Donnelly’s content on his own X account.
Strickland told his followers that Donnelly “speaks truth” when he said it is more scandalous to not call out the corruption in the Church than to be quiet about it.
“The silence of shepherds in the face of evil and efforts to cover up the truth rather than clean up the mess is what scandalizes the faithful,” Strickland said.
Donnelly’s post had accused the “institution presenting itself as the Catholic
Church” of not being a “safe place” for the past 60 years because it is “full
of heretics who are as bad as sex abusers.” He also compared heretics with
“soul killers” because they are “killing souls and sending them to Hell to
suffer for eternity.
Donnelly further argued that “it is the primary duty of bishops to make the Church a safe place for souls by protecting their flocks from heretics.”
After the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith announced that Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., incurred the penalty of excommunication earlier this month, Strickland noted the hypocrisy of the decision.
“We find ourselves at a strange moment in Church history when Archbishop Viganò is excommunicated swiftly while Theodore McCarrick remains unexcommunicated after years of his crimes against the Church have come to light,” Strickland said at the time.
“We should look closely at a Vatican that operates in this manner. Rather than
addressing the serious questions and allegations Archbishop Viganò raises, he
is summarily removed from the Church with an apparent motive to silence him.
Meanwhile McCarrick and a lengthy list of others have promoted a culture that
ignores or wants to change Church teachings and their voices are allowed and
even overtly supported.”
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Strickland shared another post that was published by Donnelly on Tuesday morning that accused “the vast majority of bishops” of being “deaf, dumb and mute.”
He also said that “men claiming to be successors of His apostles… protect sex
abusers, they protect heretics, they accept sodomy, they accept adultery,
fornication, contraception, even abortion and euthanasia. They celebrate abortionists, eugenicists, communists, blasphemers.”
Donnelly also accused them of encouraging “sacrilegious acts by adulterers and homosexuals against the sacrament of the Eucharist, the sacrament of penance, and the sacrament of marriage, and they are tirelessly seeking to desecrate the sacrament of Holy Orders.” As such, he concluded, “certain bishops (are) advancing the agenda of the devil and seeking the victory of the gates of Hell over the Church.”
“Deacon Donnelly speaks important truth here,” Strickland remarked. “Many will
attack him saying, ‘How dare you say such things.’ Others wring their hands and
accuse anyone who speaks of these evils of being divisive.” But “the mission of
the Church is the salvation of souls” and “if high ranking prelates are instead
leading souls to Hell, then we must expose their treachery and save as many
souls as possible.”
On his Substack blog, Bishop Strickland published an essay that echoed many of the remarks he made on X this week. In a post titled “Betrayers,” His Excellency argued that “there is a widespread betrayal going on in the Church right now as Catholic teachings and Catholic doctrine are pushed aside to make room for the teachings of the world” and that the normalization of homosexuality is one such betrayal.
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- Apostolic Nuncio
- Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
- Bishop Joseph Strickland
- Bishops
- Catholic Teaching
- Deacon Nick Donnelly
- Declaration of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith
- Heresies
- Orthodoxy
- Sex Abuse
- Theodore Mccarrick
- Vatican
