NOTE: This is one of a continuing series of blogs on the current situation in our West Chester, Ohio parish.
IN MY thirty-two years as a priest in the traditionalist movement, I weathered many crises and public disputes. Such conflicts, alas, are ultimately the result of the defection from the faith and loss of authority “from the top down” in the Church after Vatican II.
Though Catholics fought among themselves even when the hierarchy functioned normally, history teaches that internecine conflicts really heated up in countries where papal authority could not function at all. Two prime examples are England during the persecutions and France during the seventeenth century. For Catholics in those countries, practically speaking, the Holy See was vacant; in England, moreover, the episcopal sees were vacant as well.
Similarly, in our own situation, there is no “upstairs” to which we can kick disputes for a resolution (at least in this life!).
So, when faced with a conflict that somehow involved the laity, I have always had two choices about how to handle it in public: (1) say nothing, or (2) say something. My initial inclination has always been to take the first course, because public conflict of any variety among the clergy is distasteful on the face of it.
But if word of a conflict spreads among the laity and they begin to takes sides, some who are sympathetic to you will want you to say absolutely nothing in public, while other sympathizers will want you to say something, and very forcefully. So whatever course I have taken during past disputes, I have always ended up upsetting some good people — either the “say nothing” or the “say something” folks.
And in the difficulties we faced in our parish this year during November and December, reactions have been similarly divided. But, given the origins of the problem, it was inevitable that one of us would have to weigh in publicly sooner or later.
Here is why: Fr. Ramolla elicited and encouraged complaints from parishioners about the operation of this parish and this school. He then presented himself as the solution to these perceived difficulties — which he himself had actually helped to create. Naturally, this left a lot of buzz to deal with.
Once Fr. Ramolla left us, moreover, his efforts finally came together with the broader campaign to destroy this parish, undertaken over the past year by various Internet forum busybodies, slackers and cranks.
I certainly sympathize with those Catholics here and elsewhere who would prefer to hear nothing at all from me about this. Indeed, I would rather be writing about something else today.
But since institutions that I have helped build up over the past thirty years of priestly life are being viciously attacked in public, it is not unreasonable for me to defend them in public as well. Indeed, I have the earned the right to do it, especially against those who have built nothing but discord, and know only how to tear down.
So, from those sympathizers who would rather not hear of this, I merely ask your understanding.
And from all, I ask prayers for peace — which indeed, thank God, is already starting to return here.