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Continuing
the Bishop Hughes Legacy
from the July-August 1997 issue
One year after Bishop Robert Muench was
installed as the ninth bishop of Covington Kentucky, the
ailing diocese remains unchanged. The excitement of a new
bishop in the small northern Kentucky diocese has fizzled
as Covington Catholics are coming to understand that
Bishop Muench is not yet committed to repairing the
damage done by his predecessor; he is instead carrying on
the Bishop William A. Hughes legacy.
Bishop Hughes arrived in Covington 18
years ago to replace the solidly orthodox Bishop Richard
Ackerman, C.S.Sp. In 1979, Bishop Hughes’ first year
as bishop of Covington, the diocese was home to a vibrant
seminary budding with vocations and a lamp of faith that
had been burning bright throughout the post-Vatican II
turmoil. Bishop Hughes quickly set out to change all
that. His labors produced the rot that still remains to
this day. He quickly shut down the St. Pope Pius X
seminary, which had an excellent reputation, so that his
seminarians could be shipped off to dioceses which had
proven liberal (anti-Magisterium) reputations, such as
the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s Archdiocese of
Cincinnati. By the time Bishop Hughes retired in 1995,
the diocesan resources were depleted to 119 diocesan
priests, 2 religious priests, 13 permanent deacons, 501
religious sisters, 41 Catholic schools, and 51 parishes
(with a total Catholic population of 74,000).
Bishop Hughes’ pontificate was
marred by a succession of scandals as he sought to mold
the priests and people of his diocese into his own
anti-Roman image. Often at public odds with the Pope,
Cardinals O’Connor and Ratzinger, his pro-active
support of abortion, the homosexual lifestyle,
distributing condoms to children; his mishandling of
pedophile priests; his promotion of dissenting clergymen
and dismissal of orthodox priests; all characterize the
Bishop Hughes presence in northern Kentucky.
Bishop Hughes came to Covington from
the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio. There he was auxiliary
bishop to James W. Malone. Curiously enough, Bishop
Malone followed the same course in his diocese: he spent
27 years, from 1968 to 1995 dismantling Youngstown from
the inside out, leaving a dilapidated diocese to his
successor.
But unlike Bishop Muench, Malone’s
successor, Bishop Thomas Tobin, started turning his
diocese around from the day he arrived. Realizing the
spiritual depravity of those under his care and the lack
of Catholic formation in his diocesan schools as a result
of 27 years of catechetical misconduct, Bishop Tobin
released a letter to all religion teachers in his
diocese. When he comes to visit their schools, he wrote
in the letter, their students must be able to recite the
ten commandments and the seven sacraments of the Church,
at the very least. If not, the teacher’s job will be
in jeopardy.
In a nine-page letter to the priests of
his diocese, Bishop Tobin made several decrees in an
early effort to repair the diocese. Among them: he
instituted a vocations initiative, asking each parish to
schedule at least one special Mass for vocations each
month (at the time Bishop Tobin arrived in Youngstown,
the diocese had zero men studying for the priesthood); he
asked priests to stop the illicit practice of allowing or
encouraging the faithful to stand during consecration at
Mass, reminding priests that the liturgy of the Church
directs the faithful to kneel during the Eucharistic
prayer; he also instructed pastors not to remove kneelers
or use "homemade" leavened breads for Mass.
Bishop Tobin has also re-evaluated
where his candidates to the priesthood will attend
seminary. Whereas during the Bishop Malone administration
the seminarians primarily attended the Archdiocese of
Cincinnati’s Mount St. Mary’s of the West at
the Athenaeum of Ohio, Bishop Tobin’s future
seminarians will not be sent there. Mount St.
Mary’s is known for its fondness of employing
dissident theologians, Jungian spiritualists,
psychoanalysts, and career feminists.
Loyal Catholics of Covington were
hoping for similar action from Bishop Muench, yet their
hopes have, thus far, come to nought. Bishop Muench has
decided to continue sending his seminarians to
Cincinnati’s Mount St. Mary’s of the West and
Chicago’s Mundelein Seminary, which is reputed to be
one of the most liberal seminaries in the Catholic world.
It is notable that both seminaries were molded by the
late Cardinal Bernardin. Archbishop Francis E. George,
who has succeeded the cardinal in Chicago, has himself
already made motions to repair his dysfunctional diocese.
To start he has replaced the late cardinal’s
Director of Communications, a most important chancery
post, with a man to his own liking. Bishop Muench has
made no such changes in his chancery staff. Bishop
Hughes’ men and women are busy carrying on with the
Hughes legacy.
Pro-abortion mayor invited to
commencement
Recently Bishop Muench has come under fire for his
support of Cincinnati Mayor Roxanne Qualls who was
invited to deliver the commencement speech for
Covington’s Notre Dame Academy this year. Mayor
Qualls has been posturing for years in the media as an
advocate of abortion and, to a lesser extent, the
homosexual lifestyle. Earlier this year, for instance,
the mayor voted against a resolution by Cincinnati
Councilman Charlie Winburn wherein he proposed to put
Cincinnati City Council on record as supporting the
partial-birth abortion ban. Further, in a 1993 interview
Miss Qualls stated that she supports "a woman’s
right to have an abortion free of government interference
and will oppose all efforts to interfere with that
right." Despite a letter writing campaign to Bishop
Muench informing him of her pro-abortion views, he could
find nothing wrong with honoring the mayor at the Notre
Dame Academy commencement service.
Same old Messenger
A diocesan newspaper is the bishop’s newspaper.
Although he does not serve as its editor, the bishop, as
publisher, is ultimately responsible for the paper’s
content. It is a powerful teaching instrument. Inasmuch
as the bishop is the teaching authority of his diocese,
it is incumbent upon him to use such a resource
responsibly to teach the Catholic faith. Archbishop Pio
Laghi, former apostolic pro-nuncio to the U.S. wrote in
1981 to the bishops of this country: "With
increasing frequency the Holy See receives letters from
the United States complaining about articles appearing in
diocesan publications, which cause harm to the Faith of
the people because of a lack of respect for the teaching
and decisions of the Magisterium. As you know, it is not
unusual for such articles to contain criticisms and
attacks on the teaching authority and the person of the
Holy Father. The impact of such criticism is heightened
when columns are syndicated and widely circulated.
Bishops are encouraged to consider their responsibilities
in governing the policies of those publications over
which they have control. To this I would add a word of
encouragement for the promotion of a sound and vital
Catholic press, so useful an instrument for
evangelization and so vibrant in the life of the Church
in the United States."
One wonders why Bishop Muench continues
to allow, for example, dissident columnist Fr. Richard
McBrien to be published month after month in The
Messenger. Fr. McBrien, a professor at the University
of Notre Dame denies even the basic truths of the
Catholic faith. His college textbook, Catholicism,
has been censured by the Bishops Committee on Doctrine.
Fr. McBrien, who writes purely from personal opinions and
prejudices rather than from the standpoint of a
legitimate Catholic theologian, questions almost every
major article of the Catholic faith in both his book and
his column. Other bishops such as Bishop Daly of
Brooklyn, New York have had no problem canceling the
appearance of Fr. McBrien’s column. It can be done.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this article was first published,
McBrien's column has been pulled from The Messenger.]
Right to Life’s
"Celebration of Life" quashed
Although Bishop Muench was invited to attend the 1996
Northern Kentucky Right to Life "Celebration of
Life" conference six months in advance of the
occasion, the bishop did not reply until shortly before
the September gathering. He said he could not attend.
After the date of the Right to Life conference had been
well publicized, the bishop’s Peace and Justice
Commission decided to schedule on the exact same date a
so-called "Vigil For Life" at the Basilica,
highlighted by featured celebrity speaker, Sister Helen
Prejean who was catapulted to fame last year after
Hollywood brought her story to the silver screen with Dead
Man Walking. Although Sr. Prejean is an ardent and
active opponent of capital punishment, she will take no
stand against abortion. Thus the so-called "vigil
for life" embraced only a few stitches of the
"Seamless Garment": capital punishment only!
One can only surmise that this "Vigil for Life"
was scheduled on the day of NKRTL’s conference
purposely to divert attention from NKRTL and the Catholic
opposition to the abortion industry. Bishop Muench
appeared at Sr. Prejean’s "Vigil for
Life".
Contra-festival gambling: answering
the "Gospel Call"
While many issues cry out to be addressed in the Catholic
Diocese of Covington, such as the lack of proper
catechesis in the Catholic schools, lack of a Catholic
morality, dissent in the diocesan press, lack of
vocations to the priesthood and religious life, the
anti-culture of death supported by the priests, and the
utter poverty of Catholic formation among the young of
the diocese, Bishop Muench’s big yahoo since he
arrived in 1996, was his support of the contra-gambling
issue which was described in the press as an answering of
the "Gospel call". The Bishop Hughes legacy
lives on… for now. The fact remains that a bishop,
vested with authority as a successor to the apostles, can
take positive steps toward a healthy Catholicism. Instead
of walking in goosestep with the politically correct, a
bishop must tend to his flock. He must preach a
consistent Catholic morality and insist on fidelity to
the Church by all who are in his employ.—Michael
S. Rose
[ St. Catherine Review ]
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