Are Bp. Strickland & Westen promoting a "pro-choice" perspective that essentially agrees with Cdl. Daneels that the most "Catholic" thing any kind of victim can do is to shut up & "obey" for the sake of the "Unity"?

Belgian Church Leader Urged Victim to Be Silent

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › World › Europe

Aug 29, 2010 — The former leader of Belgium's Roman Catholic Church urged a victim of abuse by a bishop to keep silent until the bishop could retire, ...

John-Henry Westen mischaracterizes Bishop Strickland's attitude towards the election of Robert Prevost as Leo XIV  in a video clip at Lifesite called "Faith Over Fear," continuing the disturbing editorial trend of substituting elective ignorance for belief in Jesus Christ.  When His Excellency says that, upon hearing who had been elected pope (the man most likely to have been responsible for Bishop Strickland's unjustified removal), he thought of the Scriptural passage about disciples being rejected because Jesus Christ Himself has been rejected (Lk. 10:16), John-Henry restates this inaccurately as though Bishop Strickland has held that his removal constituted no rejection at all.  When His Excellency notes that he himself cannot be certain of what exactly Cardinal Prevost had to do with the removal--whether it was informed and targeted, or whether it was unthinkingly rubber-stamped--John-Henry bafflingly recasts this as a Catholic's supposed obligation in charity to treat the new pontiff as a "tabula rasa."  And when these egregious violations of both common sense and the sense of the faithful are trotted out, the Roman-collared man in the middle says nothing at all.

The premise of John-Henry's questions, however--that if Bishop Strickland himself is OK with Prevost, then who are the rest of us to judge?--is the most in need of correction.  What if an interviewer were to ask a post-abortive woman for her views on the subject, having consent to at the outset that, since she has been personally impacted, whatever she responds must be held as definitive?  What if she said (still in a state of traumatized self-deception) that the "choice" had been best for all concerned, and even that "God had called her" to do away with her child?  Would John-Henry adjust Lifesite's editorial perspective accordingly, or is there a separate, eternal, and inviolable standard of truth to which personal sincerity must conform before it can arrogate the title of "discipleship" to itself?

The fact remains that even Bishop Strickland, for all his individual heroism, must answer to this standard as well.  Is it really the case that, in the Church, authority can be exercised arbitrarily (as it appears to have been exercised in the instance of his removal)?  His Excellency has said so in the past and repeats it in this short clip, but nobody presses him to take this assumption to its logical conclusions.  If that is the sort of "god" we serve, why is there a Code of Canon Law in the first place?  If a bishop can be displaced from his diocese "for no reason at all," why can't an unborn child be comparably displaced from the womb?  The reality is that the living and true God, in granting a measure if His own authority to those in places of authority on earth, does not concede to the falsification of His identity in its exercise.  Mothers, bishops, popes, and even deacons and editors will be held accountable to Him, and I doubt that, "But John-Henry and the smiling Roman-collared guy were OK with it!" is going to get any of us off the hook.  If Bishop Strickland really means to champion the Deposit of Faith, he needs to distinguish between not knowing why he was removed and contending that neither he nor anybody else has any standing to find out.  His Excellency, in other words, must stop setting the bad example of essentially agreeing with Cardinal Daneels that the most "Catholic" thing any kind of victim can do is to shut up and "obey" for the sake of the common good.  And this goes for Lifesite News, too.

Note: This piece is by a Catholic Monitor contributor.

Pray an Our Father now for reparation for the sins committed because of Francis’s Amoris Laetitia.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church.

Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.

Conclave Notes:

Has the Trad Media fallen into a COVID-like mass formation with Leo XVI? While it's humorous to see the former anti-Francis Trad pundits suddenly acting like teen age girls infatuated with Leo, it could lead to a Trojan Horse effect

It appears that a group of Bishops or Cardinals needs to give Leo XIV Dubia questions on if he still supports "Invalid and Sacrilegious" Confession

"Prevost’s reported support...allowing divorced & civilly 'remarried'...to receive Holy Communion": “Whoever…helps...promulgation of heresy…is suspected of heresy.” - The Catholic Monitor

 

--  Dr. Seifert, regarded as one of the greatest living Catholic philosophers, founding Rector of the International Academy of Philosopher & friend of John Paul II, to Cardinals: INVESTIGATE FRANCIS' HERESIES, VALIDITY BEFORE THE CONCLAVE.."If Francis is found guilty of heresy or apostasy, then: - His cardinal appointments would be invalid" [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/04/dr-seifert-philosopher-personal-friend.html]

Nick Donnelly

@ProtecttheFaith

Urgent intervention concerning the invalidity of the Conclave by Prof. Josef Seifert "St. Pius V and Pope Paul IV have decreed that all cardinal appointments made by a heretical pope are null and void." Last edited

6:50 AM · Apr 27, 2025

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42.7K

Views

Olin

@Olinobnizov

According to Wernz-Vidal: "Those who are barred as incapable of being validly elected are all women, children who have not reached the age of reason; also, those afflicted with habitual insanity, the unbaptized, HERETICS, schismatics…" (Jus Canonicum 1:415;).

10:28 AM · May 9, 2025

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-- Are the Cardinals who will participate in the upcoming conclave authentically appointed & morally justified in voting, or will the shadow of Francis's possible illegitimacy cast itself over the next papacy?  [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/04/are-cardinals-who-will-participate-in.html]

-- Pray for the soul of Francis, but now it is time for all the Catholic Cardinals, Bishops & pundits who have been saying that nothing can be addressed until he dies to be held accountable to act [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/04/pray-for-soul-of-francis-but-now-it-is.html]

-- 5 Dubia Questions for 1P5's Steve Skojec & All faithful Catholics especially Francis is definitely Pope Cardinals, Bishops & pundits [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/06/5-dubia-questions-for-steve-skojec.html]

Francis Notes:

– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:

“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)

Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]

– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html

– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html

– If Francis betrays Benedict XVI & the”Roman Rite Communities” like he betrayed the Chinese Catholics we must respond like St. Athanasius, the Saintly English Bishop Robert Grosseteste & “Eminent Canonists and Theologians” by “Resist[ing]” him: https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/12/if-francis-betrays-benedict-xvi.html 

 –  LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:

The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”

–  On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:

“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”

– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:

“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.

Election Notes: 

– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]

– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html

– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1

– A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1

What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”:
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1] 

Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.

Pray an Our Father now for America.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.