Need for honest talk in Catholic Church

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

On Saturday, November  11 Pope Francis sacked Joseph Strickland, the bishop in Tyler, Texas in the United States. It’s a small diocese with a population of approximately 1.44 million of whom 119,168 are Catholic. 

While it is a small diocese Strickland had and still has a large following on social media. For years he has been an almost daily tweeter. Not sure what you call a person who now writes on X? When I read the news on the BBC feed I can’t say I was sorry, indeed, I see it as a great day in the papacy of Pope Francis. I wonder did Rishi Sunak take a leaf out of the pope’s playbook when he sacked Suella Braverman?

I can imagine most people in Ireland will never have heard of Joseph Strickland. He’d probably be known to a small number of Catholics, who want to bring the church back to a time that is long past. 

The Vatican has not said why he has been removed from his job. But there had been a pontifical investigation of the diocese and as a result Strickland is no longer bishop in Tyler. 

It would take more than a column to describe what the man has been writing and doing. I found much of it bizarre, indeed, alienating. I can imagine many ‘conservative’ Catholics will see him as the saviour of the church.

Will his sacking lead to the beginning of a schism in the church? That is always a possibility, but he will just be another catalyst on what is happening in the church right now.

It’s a breaking organisation. Maybe it always was but the signs are strikingly evident today.

Of course there are wonderful and great people in the Catholic Church just as there are in the majority of organisations. And in the same breath there are great Catholic priests in the church. But it is all collapsing in front of our eyes. Who is going to church today? Who listens to what priests or bishops are saying?

Within priesthood there are great divisions.

Everyone who pays PAYE has a line manager and if they don’t perform they most likely will and should lose their job. That’s not so with priests. 

There is a small number of taboo subjects, which when spoken about are the only time a bishop or provincial will take action. We all know what they are. When last did you hear a priest being reprimanded or sacked for what he said about some theological or social issue?

How many of us really discuss with our priests? How many of us priests actually ever openly and honestly engage with our fellow priests and bishops? That means genuine listening and talking, no shadowboxing, no lies, no hidden agendas, far less careerism and far more openness.

What real say do parish councils have and how are people appointed to them? How genuinely do we try to understand the other person? If we are to listen to the word of God, surely we have to learn how to listen to one another.

I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s words: ‘If we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.’