USCCB Communion Statement Was Poisoned in Cincinnati

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At this last USCCB meeting, the Spring 2021 meeting, setting the agenda resulted in a parliamentary question when a retired Bishop wished to add something to the agenda.  The parliamentarian is Archbishop Schnurr, the Archbishop of Cincinnati.

It was the spring meeting of the NCCB/USCCB in 1977 where the agenda discussion resulted in a parliamentary trick that removed a threshhold question from the motion to seek an indult for communion in the hand … it happened at the hands of the then Archbishop of Cincinnati, Bernadin.

Comments from Bishops and Cardinals in 1977 said that the fraud employed to ram the Communion in the hand vote was a disobedience of bishops and opened an era of “selective discipline.”

Today, the USCCB is discussing what to do about politician that are selectively obedient to Catholicism yet go to Holy Communion as if they were in full communion.

The problem began in 1977 and today’s issue is precisely what those Cardinals and Bishops warned of.  The USCCB cannot fix the problem today without acknowledging the poison in the well caused by Bernadin’s fraud!

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Bernadin to Schnurr – Cincinnati – Parliamentary Points of Communion in the Hand and the Selective Discipline it Brung

In our last episode, I mentioned that something happened at the USCCB Spring meeting that seemed to have a providential rub to it.   You know what I’m talking about, right?  When a series of events just seems to have a little too much “coincidence” to be unnoticed.

Fr. Hardon used to say that you cannot believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing God and “chance or coincidence” at the same time. 

The episode before last, I mentioned that I thought that the Bishops should make a statement on Communion in the hand that “they made a mistake, and need to unwind it.”

I promised that I’d explain in this episode, so here I am.

You see, on the first day of the virtual meeting, Bishop Pfeifer, a retired bishop, asked if space on the agenda could be made to discuss the material support President Biden is giving to abortion and infanticide.  That this discussion was important to put into context what giving him Communion means.  God bless Bishop Emeritus Pfeifer.

There was a problem, though, so they consulted the parliamentarian.  I had no idea…  the parliamentarian is Archbishop Schnurr of Cincinnati…

AHA!

I was amazed.  You see, Cardinals Krol and Cardinal Carberry said that the US Bishops passed a “vote” on Communion in the hand because the threshold question had been bypassed through a parliamentary device.  A trick, if you will.

Do I need to remind you that the driver of vote was none other than Bernadin, Archbishop of Cincinnati?

To me, this little moment of coincidence made me want to point it out again…  that the problem we have in denying Holy Communion to a person who publicly supports Abortion and gives material aid to its propagation is precisely rooted in Communion in the hand…

I’ll explain, but I want to point this out:  To this day, the USCCB gives an award every year, titled the “Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award”

In their own words, the USCCB describes it:

The Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award, an activity of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, recognizes the leadership, energy and diverse skills that young people bring to the anti-poverty work of low-income projects and Catholic parishes. The Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award highlights the gifts of young leaders and their Gospel commitment to the poor.

Joseph Cardinal Bernardin (1928-1996) demonstrated strong leadership to fulfill the option for the poor in the US and to build bridges across ethnic, class, and age barriers. Cardinal Bernardin began his ministry at a young age and was ordained a bishop while still in his thirties. In his role as the first bishop named General Secretary of the NCCB/USCC, he nurtured the vision for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and helped to shepherd it through its first years. He remained a strong supporter of CCHD while serving as Archbishop of Cincinnati and Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago. It has been said about Cardinal Bernardin that his gift was a vision to build consensus “that doesn’t just settle for what already exists, but moves us ahead to what is possible.“

https://www.usccb.org/committees/catholic-campaign-human-development/cardinal-bernardin-new-leadership-award

That little quote at the end…  “his gift was a visions to build consensus that doesn’t just settle for what already exists, but moves ahead to what is possible.”

Nothing could be further from the truth if we understand how Communion in the hand was a product of manifold fraud.  First with the “parliamentary device” and second with a vote stuffing conducted by Bernadin after he failed to get enough votes to pass Communion in the hand.

Cardinal Carberry Warned of the Pending Fraud Before the Meeting… He Knew

Cardinal Carberry on March 12, 1977 made an impassioned plea for prayers and help from the Catholic laity:

We are facing again another struggle in our Bishops’ Conference in May. It has been decided, for the third time now, that we have to talk about Communion in the hand. […] So I would be grateful beyond words for any way that you could possibly help by prayer. I’m thinking, I know I can use a great deal of canonical reasons and law and the rest of it, but you don’t get very far with these. People don’t seem to want to listen to this kind of reasoning. But some kind of reasoning that would reach into the hearts of the Bishops, and to place it, I hope, on the basis of danger of irreverence to the Most Blessed Sacrament which is growing and growing and growing throughout our country. And if any of you have any reading matter on this, or any thoughts on how it could be presented; ways that it could be presented; ways that it could be presented before us, I would be so grateful to hear and receive any suggestions. And I pray most earnestly to our Most Blessed Mother that the beautiful prayer, O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine might be an ejaculation of all of us who want to preserve the reverence and devotion by the traditional way of receiving Communion, which has the blessing of our Holy Father, the Pope.

Cardinal Carberry, St. Louis, Missouri, March 12, 1977.

WOW! Cardinal Carberry was basically predicting that Bernadin would not follow the law! When he says “people don’t seem to want to listen to [canonical reasons and law]” He might as well have been saying “Bernadin doesn’t want canonical reasons and law.” Carberry knew what was coming!

A THIRD TIME VOTE on Communion in the Hand!

In 1974, Cardinal Krol handed the office of President of the NCBB/USCCB over to Archbishop Bernadin.  As President, Bernadin tried to introduce Communion in the hand twice: in 1975 and again in 1976.  Faced with the end of his term as president, Bernadin had to make it happen in the Spring meeting of 1977.

While the general agenda was being discussed, the item of Communion in the hand was placed on the agenda.  

Bishop Blanchette made a motion that the Bishops ought to be surveyed first to determine if the practice was prevalent in the United states.  It was seconded and supported by five bishops.  Later, a motion was made that Blanchette’s motion was “out of order” — an attempt to bypass the motion.  

The next day, the agenda item came up.   The NCCB minutes report this in the discussion of the action item:

Cardinal Krol said that he was distressed that on the previous day a parliamentary device had been employed to deprive the bishops of a survey, suggested by Bishop Blanchette, of the Ordinaries on the current extent of the practice of giving Communion in the hand. He feared that the bishops were beginning a policy of legalizing any abuse of law, and said that far from being an abuse of freedom, law is in reality a protection of freedom.

Minutes of the NCCB/USCCB Spring Meeting 1977.

The minutes note Cardinal Carberry’s opposition:

Cardinal Carberry cited the view of the Holy See expressed in 1969 that the long-received manner of giving Communion to the faithful not be changed. He noted that a picture in L’Osservatore Romano which appeared to show the Holy Father giving Communion in the hand was explained upon inquiry, as showing the presentation of the Rosary. He said that there was great danger of irreverence in administering Communion in the hand, and in this connection mentioned the concerns of both the Holy Father and of Cardinal Knox. To adopt the Committee’s proposal he felt would only contribute to the desacralization of the Eucharist. Finally, he deplored the lack of a survey to determine the wishes of the faithful in this matter. He noted the extraordinary volume of mail sent to the bishops opposing the introduction of the optional practice and said that there was no mandate from Catholic people for the Committee’s proposal.

Minutes of the NCCB/USCCB Spring Meeting 1977.

Once the point in the meeting came for the announcement of vote results, Archbishop Bernardin reported that the vote had fallen short of the required two-thirds of all de jure members and that the matter could not be concluded until the absent bishops were polled.

Here is the Bernadin quote all over again — to make what is possible… he cheated! To get the votes, they surveyed retired bishops, went to hospitals and shaked down dying bishops, and more… until they got 2/3rds they needed to say they got a vote.

It was fraud.

Despite the Pope conditioning the vote on a survey, Bernadin submitted this vote as valid…  we know the rest.

USCCB Brought on “Selective Obedience” by the Way in Which it Forced Communion in the Hand

Bishop Blanchette told the National Catholic Register:

What bothers me is that in the minds of many it will seem that disobedience is being rewarded. And that troubles me because if people persist in being disobedient—and that is used as a reason for changing the discipline—then we’re very close to chaos or what I would call selective obedience, which is no obedience at all.

“Bishop Blanchette: A Clear Call for Obedience” National Catholic Register, June 12, 1977.

Fr. Alfred Kunz, a canon lawyer, interviewed in 1996, made clear that “using a proxy vote of absent bishops would invalidate the petition for the indult and it would thus have no status. The maneuver employed by Cardinal Bernardin to get the necessary votes was therefore invalid, as only the members present at the meeting could vote.”

It was double fraud.

All done by the Archbishop of Cincinnati.  And here, a parliamentary question arises during the Spring Meeting of the USCCB some 34 years later and it is the Archbishop of Cincinnati, Archbishop Schnurr discussing whether retired bishops can even put things on the agenda.

There is a jeopardy here…   They tried to defraud St. Peter…  you know what happened right?   

I don’t think people pay attention to this anymore — after all, the modernists say none of the things in the bible actually happened.   I ask you, who is delusional here that can say that the witness testimony given in written and sworn form by people who would be put to death for lying is a fantasy?  

Acts Chapter 5 tells the tale of Ananias and Sapphira…   Dropped dead upon attempting to defraud the Church.

I get it.  We’ve seen so much go unpunished these days.  Especially fraud.  

Two hundred years from now, there will be Japanese archeologists examining the records of our times, and that’s what they’ll name our days:  the age of fraud.  

We can think nothing will happen, but that is what Our Lady of Akita warned in 1973… satan enter the church.  cardinal against cardinal, bishop against bishop.

All this talk about statements on Holy Communion is void if the very fraud of Communion in the hand is not declared void.

The fruits of fraud are void.  Do you think God is pleased with that vote?  Even if you think Communion inheritance hand is OK, do you think that fraud is acceptable to God?

And “Selective Obendience” — isn’t that precisely the problem they are trying to fix with the Communion statement???

How can they correct the malfeasant acts of Bernadin though when they give awards in his name and praises his “doesn’t just settle for what already exists, but moves us ahead to what is possible” consensus building…

And there it was — as I hoped that the statement to come from the USCCB would be something along the lines of cleaning the record, the parliamentarian is the current Archbishop of Cincinnati…  I wonder if Archbishop Schnurr has even reviewed the minutes of that May 1977 meeting.

At this point, the awards and praises sung of Bernadin have likely put them all to sleep.  

Our Lady of Akita, pray for us!   

Pray your rosary for our bishops.  Just as Cardinal Carberry asked before the meeting — we need to pray now that they can declare it void and unwind this fraud.  Clearly the poison of that crime is spoiling the lot.

This article, USCCB Communion Statement Was Poisoned in Cincinnati is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/usccb-communion-statement-was-poisoned-in-cincinnati/
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