Bishop Cupich: Model Newchurch Prelate

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        This column has explored the pervasive double standard at work in the Church today, under which everything (including the sexual misconduct of priests) is tolerated - everything except traditional Roman Catholicism.

        I give you exhibit A: Bishop Blase Cupich of the Diocese of Rapid City, SD. As reported by the Iowa Journal, Bishop Cupich absolutely forbade the parishioners of the Latin Mass congregation of St. Michael's to celebrate Good Friday services in Latin, in accordance with the tradition of the Church. No, he would allow only Sunday Mass in Latin, and that’s it. Enough of this subversive Latin liturgy!

        To enforce this edict, reports parishioner Dan Carda, the bishop "prohibited [us] from celebrating the Easter Triduum liturgies and locked [us] out of our church from noon on Holy Thursday until 8 a.m. on Easter morning." The Iowa Journal noted that "Carda and some of the other 220 members of St. Michael's congregation will gather at 3 p.m. today for Good Friday services on the sidewalk in front of the church." And so they did.

        Meanwhile, the caring and compassionate Cupich makes plenty of room in his diocese for the spiritual needs of the Lakota Indian tribe. According to the Rapid City Journal (November 9, 2001), Cupich personally broke ground for the diocese’s new "Sioux Spiritual Center." The Sioux Spiritual Center’s primary mission, says its head, Father Steve Mitten, "is with and for the Lakota people of the diocese of Rapid City and for the promotion of an inculturated Catholic Lakota church…. Our purpose is to work for the Lakota people as they develop their own church in their own style - a real Catholic Church rooted in their culture and traditions." Indeed, the Sioux Spiritual Center will feature "Recovery retreats for native people recovering from drug or alcohol addiction that allow them to draw on both Christian and Lakota religious traditions for spiritual healing."

        As my good friend Michael Matt (editor of The Remnant) would say, "Folks, you couldn’t make this stuff up." No, you couldn’t. Bishop Cupich builds a spiritual center to advance "Lakota religious traditions," while the members of his flock who wish to follow Catholic religious traditions on Holy Thursday and Good Friday are locked out of their own parish church and forced to conduct services on the sidewalk.

        Bishop Cupich is the very model of the "newChurch" prelate of the postconciliar epoch. He is the very exemplar of the crisis that traditional Roman Catholics must still endure. No wonder the Mother of God came to Fatima some 85 years ago. She saw it all coming, and offered us the means to avoid it. But now the Message of Fatima, like those poor Catholics in Rapid City, has been locked out of the Church. At least for the moment. But sooner or later this deplorable situation is going to be reversed in a most miraculous fashion. God will not be denied the ultimate triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.