The National Weather Service has just issued a Posturing, Hypocritical Fraud Warning for all of southeastern Michigan.

A brief memo to Bp. Thomas Gumbleton (Ret.).

Your Excellency:

I noticed this paragraph in your most recent homily, published in the National Catholic Reporter:

I think of World War II as an example where our church failed in the face of a tyranny and an evil that was unbelievably evil -- the Nazi tyranny. The church in Germany failed to speak a prophetic word to that tyranny. Why? Because they had entered into an agreement with the Nazi dictatorship in 1933. Hitler would allow the church to have its schools if the bishops of the church would agree they would not allow their priests to preach any so-called political message. And so the Church became virtually silent during those years. There were a few exceptions -- a peasant in Austria, Franz Jägerstätter, and a few others like him said, “No! I won’t serve in Hitler’s army,” and he was executed. A whole group of young people connected with the universities called the White Rose group -- the same thing -- they spoke the truth; most of them were executed. The church refused to listen. It was more concerned about its institutional structures than about God’s Word. So we failed.

While the behavior of Church leadership regarding the Shoah is a worthy topic of discussion (count me as one who thinks more could have been done), I find your criticism to be ironic, given your own track record.

Just what explains your consistent refusal "to speak a prophetic word" to the tyrannies you have visited in "solidarity" during your lifetime (e.g., Castro's Cuba, Hussein's Iraq, Aristide's Haiti, Arafat's Palestine)? I'm also coming up empty looking for examples of "prophetic words" spoken by yourself to the Soviet Union, so any insight you could provide on that would be welcome.

Beams, specks and all that.

Sincerely,

Dale Price

[H/T to Gerald.]