Joshua McElwee's, “Nothing” bishop gets frank on married priests, Vatican under Francis - Response by Wayne Northey

“Nothing” bishop gets frank on married priests, Vatican under Francis

Feb 19, 2020

by Joshua J. McElwee

Wayne Northey: What a breath of fresh air! Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy (see below) wrote me some years ago about only one American Bishop who had opposed the U.S. going to war against Iraq. This was he! By tragic stark contrast, see: “Bishop Thomas John Paprocki“.

Fr. Zabelka

As to Bishop Botean’s commitment to nonviolence, the recent critically acclaimed film, A Hidden Life, underscores the isolated plight of those who take Christ’s nonviolence seriously. Another Catholic priest, Father George Zabelka, on the American side of the same war above, who had blessed the crews that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that instantly murdered 125,000 victims; and had also blessed mass murder in carpet bombing over 60 cities in Japan including Tokyo, where in one night of conventional bombing, 100,000 civilians were slaughtered, finally reversed what he called his country’s and his Church’s brainwashing, and committed the rest of his life to nonviolence. We read in the Wikipedia article highlighted above:

In 1973, Rev. Zabelka attended a three-day workshop given by his Diocese for the priests of his Diocese on Gospel Nonviolence directed by a layman [later a priest as seen above and below], Emmanuel Charles McCarthy. In the following two years, he attended the same workshop on two other occasions in different locations. Then, in his 1975 Christmas letter to his friends, he wrote this: “I do not want to lose any of you as my friends and I certainly do not want to offend any of you, but I must do an about face. I have attended this workshop on Christian Nonviolence several times and have read the books that were recommended at it. I have come to the conclusion that the truth of the Gospel is that Jesus was nonviolent and taught nonviolence as His way.”

In February 1976, he retired from the life of an active parish priest in the Diocese of Lansing and dedicated the remainder of his life to teaching the centrality of the nonviolent Jesus Christ of the Gospels and His Way of nonviolent love of friends and enemies for peace of soul, for peace among people and for the eternal salvation of all. He began and continued to ceaselessly insist that all the Churches of Christianity, by which he meant all Christians within all Christian churches, regardless of the rank each held in his or her Church, must begin to or return to following the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels and His Way of Nonviolent Love of all under all circumstances: “Until the various churches within Christianity repent and began to proclaim by word and deed what Jesus preached with relation to violence and enemies; there is not hope for anything other than escalating violence and destruction.“

In his homily at a 1991 Mass celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination to the Catholic priesthood, Fr. Zabelka said, “I looked in the Catholic Bible. I looked in the Protestant Bible. I looked in the Orthodox Bible. And, in every one of them, there it was in no uncertain terms. Jesus saying ‘Love your enemies.’ ”

Love your enemies! One must ask emphatically: Just what in that statement is so hard to understand?!  Just where is the exception clause in that?! The problem is of course neither a matter of understanding, nor a matter of discovering “loopholes” (W. C. Fields). It boils down to one “matter” only: faithfulness.

Please see my reflection on this: “WAR AND HELL – and Exception-Clause Footnote Theology“.

Pete Seeger wrote in the anti-war song, “Where Have all the Flowers Gone?“: When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn? . . . Amen!

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