Quotes Suitable For Framing: Father George Rutler
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Sadly all too apt.
Lapidary prose like this is probably what got Father Rutler transferred
from his old parish of Our Savior’s to St. Michael’s in Hell’s kitchen.
The pastor assigned to Our Savior’s immediately set about undoing
Fr. Rutler’s work and in the process drove away many parishioners.
It is no surprise that the healthy Latin Mass community at Our
Savior’s was summarily suppressed. Adding insult to injury, artwork
commissioned to decorate the church was stripped, literally in the
dead of night:
https://onepeterfive.com/naked-in-new-york-the-unceremonious-stripping-of-our-saviour/
The faithful might call bishops out on their shortcomings, but we
should be mindful that more than a few will do all they can to make
their flock pay for their lese majeste.
Athanasius, in exile: “They have the buildings, we have the faith.”
I meditate on how liberal bishops will stand up to the Last Judgment.
My revised Matthew 25 narrative has Jesus telling me to explain to each of 50 or 60 death penalty/executed murderers and rapists (on a ten minute pass out of Hell) why I did nothing for them. But, bishops are ordered to go to each of the 62 million and counting aborted souls and explain why they did nothing for them. Then, Christ asks the murdered unborn to advise Him as to who is to be thrown into Hell.
In the last two paragraphs on his third homily on the Acts of the Apostles, St. John Chrysostom talks about the episcopate at length. One sentence stuck out:
“I mean, that even if you have sinned, but in your own person merely, you will have no such great punishment, nothing like it: but if you have sinned as bishop, you are lost.”
It’s important however to have that statement in context, so kindly go here:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/210103.htm
St. Chrysostom talks more about the weight and responsibility of the office than he does of bishops whose skulls have become lamp posts. In fact, I can’t find the phrase cited in the meme above among St. Chrysostom’s writings (which doesn’t mean that it isn’t there, but only that I cannot locate it).
My guess is you can’t find it because he never said it.
Kind of like how Lincoln never said many of the things attributed to him (but we wish he had!).
Perhaps, although he said something that indicated that Hell will be full of Bishops:
I do not think there are many among Bishops that will be saved, but many more that perish: and the reason is, that it is an affair that requires a great mind. Many are the exigencies which throw a man out of his natural temper; and he had need have a thousand eyes on all sides. Do you not see what a number of qualifications the Bishop must have?
http://www.symeon-anthony.info/onBishops/ChrysostomOnBishops.html