On July 9, Michael Rose reported in his Cruxnews.com column that "Parishioners at St. Joseph Church in Owatonna, Minnesota are up in arms about the controversial appointment of Fr. Edward F. McGrath as their new parish administrator." Bishop Bernard Harrington of the Diocese of Winona, Minnesota made the appointment.

        It seems that Fr. McGrath was arrested in May of last year in a public park, after he was caught in a police "sting" operation designed to rid the park of deviants who were using the place for what St. Paul described as "men with men, working that which is filthy." (Romans, 1:27).

        Rose reports that McGrath "was later acquitted of the crime on a technicality, despite the fact that he not only admitted to the offense but also admitted to a longtime habit of frequenting public parks" for such immoral purposes.

        And now, thanks to Bishop Harrington, McGrath is the new parish administrator of St. Joseph Church. But not to worry, because Bishop Harrington assures the public that "Father McGrath has been an excellent and much loved priest, serving the people of [the Winona] diocese well in both administrative and pastoral capacities."

        Tell that to the furious parishioners at St. Joseph’s, who want to know why a deviant has been made administrator of their parish. But it gets worse, dear reader. As Rose reveals, "In addition to serving as a pastor, McGrath was also judicial vicar for the Winona diocese, serving on the diocesan tribunal."

        Judicial vicar? A judicial vicar applies Church law in diocesan canonical cases, acting in the name of the bishop. Thus, Bishop Harrington assigned a pervert to defend the law of the Church in his diocese. Why was this man not stripped of his faculties, if not defrocked? As Rose reports, "According to a spokesman for the diocese, McGrath’s sexual offense did not fall under the diocesan misconduct policy because the priest’s conduct did not occur while he was ‘engaged in the mission of the Church.’"

        So, in Bishop Harrington’s diocese, priests can engage in crimes of public perversion with impunity, as long as they do so on their free time. This is a successor of the apostles?

        As Rose notes (quoting a member of St. Joseph’s), "the parish is deeply divided. ‘Many are planning to leave for other parishes and dioceses. The bishop has turned a deaf ear to their repeated pleas for him to reverse this decision.’" Another parishioner says "My sense of trust in the Church’s leadership has been shaken… I feel paralyzed by fear and deep mistrust for the Church as a result of the bishop’s decision. In my bewilderment, I feel like ‘a sheep without a shepherd’."

        After forty years of post-conciliar demolition of the Church by liberalized bishops, and now the unbelievable scandal of the homosexual infiltration of the Church, what are Catholics to do? There is only one thing they can and must do: resist. Catholics must refuse to accept decisions like the one Harrington has made. They must begin — now — to recover their Church from the blind guides who are leading the faithful into a ditch.

        In this case, they should stage round-the-clock demonstrations in front of Harrington’s episcopal residence, never let him appear in public without hearing protests from the faithful, and never give his diocese one thin dime again until Fr. McGrath is removed from all positions of authority and made to publicly repent of his perversion.

        Those who continuously abuse their authority can no longer demand that it be respected. If the bishops will not be shepherds, then the faithful must not follow them. They must oppose them for the sake of the Faith, and for the salvation of souls, first and foremost their own. The time is now.