Catholic Bishops Can't Play Basketball

 ... and only an idiot would be disappointed that they can't.

I am that kind of idiot.

On this blog, I've ranted on and on* about the bishop here in San Diego, Robert W. McElroy. I've accused him of all manners of calumny and I've been pretty much on target with my criticisms. So what?

The guy's job in the Church is to keep the sacraments flowing to the laity and herd the parish cats, maintaining some sort of order in a diocese that goes from the Spanish-speaking, blue-collar barrio to the Rancho Santa Fe and La Jolla plutocrats. If he's lousy at certain things or he's got a severe lean to the political left, well, he can't play in the NBA, either. That's not his job.

Everything outside of his main tasks - sacraments and cat-herding - are our jobs. If the number of people in church keeps dwindling, that's our job. What did I think, was our parish priest going to put on a blue leotard with a red S on his chest and red cape and then fly around San Diego, using his x-ray vision to convert people to the faith?

If the Church prelates are cowards who want to go with the cultural zeitgeist and hoist rainbow flags, talk about Global Warming Climate Change and push for Rassengerechtigkeit**, so what? It's not like we've got a particularly effeminate crop of priests and bishops, they were almost certainly always like that. It's that, here in America, we're facing a cultural zombie apocalypse. No one is ever prepared for such a thing and to have expected McElroy to go full Arnold Schwarzenegger was abandoning my duties in the face of evil.

In short, the laity is the Church, too. If we're getting thrashed, it's on us to fix it, each according to his or her talents. In fact, one could make a good argument that the bishop and the priests have more than held up their end of the bargain. I can go to Mass, the churches are well-lit, I can get all of the sacraments, there are buildings for meetings and talks and so forth. I'm the one who has failed the faith, not them.

If the churches are emptying and the RCIA classes are tiny, it was my job to evangelize. That Jesus dude even said so.

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

That sounds like marching orders to me.

My blogging here, howling about the stupidity, the incompetence and the utter poltroonery of our leaders has just been a smoke screen deployed against myself, keeping me from seeing my own failures.

None of us were prepared for this. It's no wonder we've all been caught napping. As the left, acting according to its totalitarian nature, has completely taken over the culture, we've been, I've been, sitting around, flapping my gums and pointing at everyone else but me. The clip below from the excellent movie, Zulu, shows the proper way to deal with the situation, each of us filling a spot in the line. We didn't ask for this and we weren't prepared for it, but it is upon us.

I left it a bit long and the payoff is all the way at the end.

* - and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

** - Racial justice stuff always sounds so much better in the original German, don't you think?