Our former Archbishop told our assembled priests that faith in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is basically sound.
But, if one were to ask about Faith in the Church, I would have to say there is indeed a crisis. I wonder how many of our faithful, when they recite on Sunday the Nicene Creed, really mean that they believe in the Church.
That assumes that we were reciting the Creed on Sundays. To give to couple contrary examples, Fr. Aiken long omitted it while pastor at St. Alphonsus and Fr. Augustine long made a point of omitting it while pastor at St. James. This apparently is a widespread problem. It's one of Fr. John Dietzen's "Question Box" questions in the May 25, 2006 Catholic Herald.
Archbishop Weakland seems to have been and continues to be unaware of these omissions. It's one of the reasons I figure his mind must have usually been on something else during the time he was supposed to be Archbishop of Milwaukee.
There is a crisis of Faith in the Church and thus there is a crisis of authority.
Well, sure, it's been more or less sede vacante around our Archdiocese. From what I've seen, our former Archbishop, a lot of our priests, and much of their staffs are pretty much in worlds of their own.
John Courtney Murray wrote an article in America around the time of the Council, or shortly before, in which he stated that if there is a crisis of authority in any community there is also a crisis of obedience.
For example, when an Archbishop fancies himself a maverick when he should have been working as a shepherd.
P.S. Archbishop Weakland's site doesn't archive his former posts, but they are available through the "Wayback Machine" at the Internet Archive
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