I watched a powerful segment of a speech by Fr James Mawdsley concerning the covid measures and whether they were proportionate or effective to the perceived risk.
He makes a really important point in his speech concerning the actions of Catholic bishops all around the world. In regards to the directions from Rome concerning the closure of churches around the world, those mandates were put in place by local bishops. In other words, to go against the mandates to close the churches and deprive worshipers of their access to Holy Mass and Holy Communion at a time when it was most needed, the individual bishops did not need to act. Rather, they needed to not act, to simply not enforce the mandates.
But not a single bishop chose such a course of action.
Instead, every bishop in the world, despite their individual misgivings, went along with the illegal orders from Rome. Not one of them chose to act on a heartfelt examination of his conscience. They chose the easy way, the cowardly way. They chose to betray their flocks and their pastors. Perhaps they were worried about being cancelled. Perhaps they were worried about losing their position. Perhaps they were worried about lawsuits and hysterical lies about them being spread in the media and on social media.
Perhaps they were worried about the things of this world.
Perhaps they were too desirous to cling to their worldly position of privilege and authority.
How is it possible that not a single man among them had the courage to stand firm? As Fr Mawdsley notes, what effect would such a stand have had on the millions of Catholic souls that would have heard of it? Because such a stand would undoubtedly have garnered much publicity, especially seeing as our enemies are so consistently stupid. And yet no stand was made.
Instead there was a total silence, a complete vacuum of courageous fortitude. Each of them had their great opportunity to act, their moment in time to make a global religious difference. How is it possible that not a single one of them possessed the sanguinity to clearly understand the true potential that was open to them?
Instead, they are now all of them nobodies.
With such a total failure to contemplate, it is worthwhile considering just how miraculous it was that Jesus managed to find twelve. And that only a single one of them betrayed Him. Perhaps we might think that twelve was puny, but that number is colossal when compared with the total number of zero that took a stand against a global mandate of spiritual and physical death.
Narrow is the gate. Narrow is the path. It is much more narrow than we understand.
Fr Mawdsley is generous in his speech in that he holds out hope that some bishops could yet find the courage to act. Hope is a critical part of Jesus’ teaching, so I cannot begrudge him this desire. But I will be like Thomas and believe it when I see it. Because, out of all that Satan could have wished for in this global tyranny, surely the total failure of all bishops to act is his greatest triumph.
So in the end it is up to each one of us. The Kurgan has written an excellent piece today that lays out what we can do. We need to unify and we need to act within each of our own capacity to do so. Because those who were supposed to lead us have failed in their task. Although I will add that as far as I know not a single Sedevacantist church was closed or imposed any of the mandates during the entire covid shit show. Something to think about.
Originally published at Pushing Rubber Downhill. You can purchase Adam’s books here.