When the Church becomes an obstacle in the way of our pursuit of God, the solution is not to abandon our pursuit of God. The solution is to abandon the Church.
When all of the guests invited to the victory party are barred from attending, do we hold the victory party without them? Or do we wait for them to arrive? What would the doctrine of courtesy tell us to do?
Either we are all in this thing together or we are not. Either we pursue God together or we do not. Either we worship our God together or we don't. Either it is all for one and one for all or it is every man for himself.
The greatest mistake that the leadership of the Church is making during this time of pandemic is that they have dispensed with their congregations. The shepherds have decreed that the sheep are superfluous - adscititious. They have locked the congregations out of our Churches. They have barred the sheep from the sheepfold. The leadership of the Church has decided that the clergy will pursue God on their own instead of pursuing God together with us.
The shepherds have left the sheep to fend for themselves. They have showed themselves to be hirelings not shepherds . What good is a shepherd without his sheep? What good are the sheep without their sheperd? Yet, the shepherds continue to say Mass without the sheep. The shepherds continue to eat and drink the bread and wine of the most Holy Eucharist while the sheep are locked out of their Churches hungry and thirsty. It is unseemly.
The shepherds have exposed the fault lines in the Church between the clergy and the laity. They have shattered the illusion of solidarity. They have divided the house. And a house divided cannot stand .
The sheep and the shepherds are not in the same boat. The shepherds are travelling in a yacht. The sheep have been tossed overboard into the hostile sea. In this time of crisis, the leadership of the Church have, by their actions, propagated the myth of the "unequal society" of Pope Pius X . They did not need to do what they did. But clericalism is built into their very being. It is ontological.
The leadership of the Church ought to learn from the wisdom of our Jewish brothers and sisters. They should have assembled a Minyan from among the coongregations to represent the congregations at their Masses and other religious services . Perhaps a Minyan should be assembled before the most Holy Eucharist praying day and night for the end of the pandemic?
Yet, the leadership of the Church did not issue the call for a Minyan.
With a Minyan, the leadership of the Church could have, at least, preserved the illusion of solidarity with the congregations. Either we are all in this thing together or we are not. Either we pursue God together or we do not. Either we worship our God together or we don't. Either it is all for one and one for all or it is every man for himself. Dispensing with the full congregation and not assembling a Minyan in its place bluntly declares that we are not in this thing together. It is every man for himself.
By letting the sheep fend for themselves in this time of pandemic, the leadership of the Church have forfeited the confidence of the children of Adam and Eve. They have disappointed us once again.
Let the earth resound with the calls for a minyan! No taxation without representation, right? How can we support a Church whose leadership pursues God on their own without us?
Now a minyan; next a reworking of the theology of the congregation - this time from the perspective of the sheep not the sheperds.
P.S. Sorry, I forgot. 'A lion doesn't concern itself with the opinion of sheep.' George R.R. Martin [Martin did not intend to give us a definition of clericalism but he did]
Note: When I would visit the Church before our Shepherd padlocked the doors, the Church was empty - no-one else was there. There was no risk of viral contamination from another sheep. Padlocking the doors was akin to swatting a fly with an atom bomb. It was overkill - paternalism at its worst.
Further Developments
"The pope said it was thanks to an unnamed bishop who "scolded him" and made him think more deeply about the danger of celebrating Mass without the presence and participation of the general public.
He said the bishop wrote to him before Easter when it was announced Mass would be celebrated in an "empty" St. Peter's Basilica. He said the bishop questioned the decision and asked, when "St. Peter's is so big, why not put 30 people at least so people can be seen" in the congregation?"
"Earlier this month, an interesting piece in that regard was published by Italian Catholic journalist Riccardo Cristiano, a key Francis supporter, titled “Priests and That Temptation in the Time of the Coronavirus.” Cristiano was critical of a document issued by the bishops’ conference of the Italian region of Umbria, presented as a pastoral message on the suspension of public Masses.
In it, the bishops wrote: “The assembly participates in the celebration but is not the constitutive protagonist of the sacramental act, which is instead the ordained minister, whether priest or bishop.”
Probably the message was intended simply to reassure people that the livestreamed Masses they’re watching remain valid, but Cristiano detected something alarming.
“This painful predicament can reawaken the desire [among clergy] to be the Church all by themselves, which is a deep drive and a challenge that the coronavirus poses to many priests,” he wrote. “It’s a risk much more important than a document which, perhaps, not even all of its signatories actually read: Clericalism.”
"When asked what churches should do during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, “The Church without the holy Eucharist is no longer the Church.” He added that in Orthodoxy there is no such thing as a “private” liturgy; a community must gather in person."
In Catholic New York on April, 23, 2020, in his article, 'Is 'the Church' Closed for the Virus?' , Cardinal Dolan states:, "... Mass is offered daily by our priests ..." Is that a good thing? Is that a good thing that you eat and we starve? Rub our poverty in our noses, why don't you. In this time of pandemic and in the "Unequal Society" , the Mass is a luxury good. The rich keep it for themselves. They do not share it with the poor . The rich do not even share the crumbs from the table .
Imagine a charity whose business is the delivery of crates, barrels and boxes of grace. They have a fleet of trucks and teamsters to drive them. Suddenly, its customers are banned from taking delivery of the crates, barrels and boxes of grace. The teamsters can no longer unload their cargo - they can no longer distribute the merchandise. Does the charity pretend that it is not defunct by dispatching its fleet to drive around in circles? Does the charity make believe and declare that all is well? Does the charity commit fraud by persuading its customers that the cargo can be delivered remotely by some sort of supernatural voodoo?
The sheep have lost trust in their shepherds because their shepherds promote the myth of the “unequal society” (Vehementer Nos). There is a double standard. The shepherds think that the rules don’t apply to them.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. [A proclamation by the pigs who control the government in the novel Animal Farm,]”
I have been taught that the Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life." (CCC 1324). Yet, the leadership of the Church has dispensed with the Eucharist for congregations. When homosexuals in Catholic schools are discovered to have married, they are summarily fired, the justification given is that their conduct sends a message contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church. (See, for example, “Gay teacher contract not renewed after teaching at Catholic school for 23 years” Crux 5 May 2020 [Click here]) Dispensing with the Eucharist also sends a message contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church. When will the leadership of the Church be sacked for sending a contradictory message?
It is unseemly that shepherds are eating and drinking the most Holy Eucharist while the sheep are starving. It is not right that the the most Holy Eucharist has become a luxury good reserved for the shepherds and not shared with the sheep In this time of crisis, why has the leadership of the Church divided the house? “… Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate: and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand” (Matthew 12:25). Why has the leadership turned the shepherds into the Rich man and the sheep into Lazarus who lay at the gates of the sheepfold desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and no one did give him (Luke 16:19-31). That the shepherds are praying for us between bites of food and sips of drink offers the hungry and thirsty sheep little consolation.
