Another Good Priest Removed

It’s becoming a pattern. Catholic pastors telling uncomfortable truths being removed by their bishops faster than you can say, “virtue signal.” This time it’s Father Ted Rothrock, of Carmel, IN, who published a strongly worded parish bulletin on Sunday June 28, 2020.

Judge for yourself if his words warranted punishment by removal. It is titled, “The lady (doth) protest too much, methinks”

Here is the exact text:

“This dialogue from Hamlet is taken from Act 3, scene 2, and is a response to Hamlet’s query: ‘how like you this play?’

The line suggests a hidden agenda that is revealed in the objections, where the accuser is actually the perpetrator.

History is replete with examples of misdirection. In 2001 the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamyan, the 6th-century monumental statues of Gautama Buddha in central Afghanistan, claiming them to be pagan idols.

The world was horrified but did nothing about it. Despots and tyrants have always employed accusation and distortion to achieve all manner of mischief in an effort to shape and mold public opinion. Anyone currently doing business with Amazon could not help but notice the prominent banner headline from the internet giant touting their proud support for “Black Lives Matter.”

But do those black lives really matter to the community organizers promoting their agenda? Is “Antifa” concerned with the defeat of fascist right-wing nationalism or more interested in the establishment of left-wing global socialism?

The brutal murder of a black man in police custody has sparked a landslide of reaction to the alleged systemic racism in America. We are being told that the scars of race relations in this country are really unhealed wounds that continue to fester and putrefy; amputation is required!

Reforms must be sweeping and immediate to crush the rising wave of racism that pervades the nation and perverts the body politic. On the heels of the COVID sequestration, the bottled-up tension of an isolated population has exploded into riots and demonstrations that we have not seen the like in 50 years.

What would the great visionary leaders of the past be contributing to the discussion at this point in time? Would men like Fredrick Douglas and the Reverend King, both men of deep faith, be throwing bombs or even marching in the streets?

Would they be pleased with the murder rates in our cities or the destruction of our families by the welfare system? Would they see a value in the obliteration of our history to rewrite a future without the experience and struggles of the past? Would we tear down their monuments? Who are the real racists and the purveyors of hate?

You shall know them by their works. The only lives that matter are their own and the only power they seek is their own.

They are wolves in wolves clothing, masked thieves and bandits, seeking only to devour the life of the poor and profit from the fear of others. They are maggots and parasites at best, feeding off the isolation of addiction and broken families, and offering to replace any current frustration and anxiety with more misery and greater resentment.

The message of peace that comes to us in Christ is the gospel we carry in common with the Orthodox Churches and other Christians. We must stand in solidarity with our brethren across the world to oppose this malevolent force.

Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and the other nefarious acolytes of their persuasion are not the friends or allies we have been led to believe. They are serpents in the garden, seeking only to uproot and replant a new species of human made in the likeness of men and not in the image of God.  

Their poison is more toxic than any pandemic we have endured.

The father of lies has not just been seen in our streets, we have invited him into our home. Now he is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, strong in your faith.”

Strong words. That got him forced to apologize. Naturally, it didn’t satisfy the pitchforks and lantern mob. A day later he was suspended as pastor.

Well…..this was written in the parish bulletin by the pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Carmel, last week.

Interested Catholics can charitably contact Bishop Timothy Doherty at (765) 742-0275 to register their feelings on the matter.

Isn’t it all about feelings?