News of Bishop Strickland’s Removal Highly Exaggerated, Rivals only News of Church welcoming Transsexuals and homosexuals

The unwelcome LGBT rhetoric is close to the one articulated by the 
Head Of Hizbullah’s Shari’a Council in Lebanon. He wants to kill gay people, because he is afraid of being infected by them

Pope Francis critics and the Main Stream Media in attempts to disrupt the recently successfully concluded synod, kept poking at the bear hoping to see anger. Didn’t happen.

Instead, Pope Francis referred to John 13:34 and said, “To reform the Church, love God and love, others.”  

For example, consider ETWN’s Daniel Payne’s Anti Pope Francis Propaganda: “Read Pope Francis’ response to the dubia presented to him by 5 cardinals – The pope has not responded to the August set of dubia.”

Or JD Flynn’s Pope Francis answers a dubia — Does inaction speak clearer than words? ” Famously, the current synod, in a sense, got underway 48 hours before its formal opening with a set of dubia, or doubts, submitted to the pontiff by five conservative cardinals. In responses to those dubia released by the Vatican, Francis, among other things, offered a cautious “yes” to the blessing of same-sex unions on a case-by-case basis, and a basic “no” to women’s ordination while allowing for the possibility of further study.”

Reuters‘ Philip Pullella
writes “In very rare move, Pope dismisses conservative US bishop Strickland”  Yet, the coverage of the firing of Bishop Strickland pales, in comparison to the scandalous story days earlier about the Church welcoming transsexuals and homosexuals. 

Professional journalists generally abstain from using adjectives. Pallella in using the term “conservative US bishop”, he indicts Pope Francis right off the bat. Pullella also reports that “Strickland is 65, 10 years shy of the usual retirement age for bishops. Strickland had said earlier this year that he would refuse to resign if asked.” What he doesn’t report is that Bishop Strickland was directly entrusted to continue Jesus’ mission through Holy Orders. Holy Orders requires faithfulness and obedience: Holy Orders is the sacrament by which bishops, priests and deacons are ordained and receive the power and grace to perform their sacred duties. The sacred rite by which orders are conferred is called ordination. The apostles were ordained by Jesus at the Last Supper so that others could share in his priesthood. According to the Catholic Catechism (1536) Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time: thus it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry.:

The Church also teaches (CCC 891 ) That the pope ” head of the college of bishops, enjoys infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful – who confirms his brethren in the faith he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals. . . . The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter’s successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium,” above all in an Ecumenical Council. When the Church through its supreme Magisterium proposes a doctrine “for belief as being divinely revealed,” and as the teaching of Christ, the definitions “must be adhered to with the obedience of faith.” This infallibility extends as far as the deposit of divine Revelation itself.

In his piece Pullella continues writing that Bishop Strickland “has been particularly critical of the pope’s attempt to make the Church more welcoming to the LGBT community and attempts by Francis to give lay people more responsibility in the Church and opposed a recent synod.”

 The unwelcome LGBT rhetoric is close to the one articulated by the 
Head Of Hizbullah’s Shari’a Council in Lebanon. He wants to kill gay people, because he is afraid of being infected by them. He accuses elderly Jewish people of spreading homosexuality and compares them to the people of Sodom who were “stoned to death” 

Yet Bishop Strickland’s criticism and others is not new, but roughly 2000 years old. In the early years of Christianity, thephilosopher Porphyry, was a major critic. In his book Against the Christians, along with other writers like Celsus and Julian. Porphyry argued that Christianity was based on violence, corruption, superstition, polytheism, homophobia, bigotry, pontification, abuses of women’s rights,sectarianism and that women exercised too much power in the Church.

Scandalous! Can you imagine 2000 years ago Jesus speaking to a lose woman at the well? The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband. John 4:15 

Or what about dinning with sinners?
“The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31Jesus said to them in reply, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. 32I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.” Luke Chapter 5:30

According to David L. Gray “Being that both Pagans and Christians were using the art of rhetoric to persuade hearers to follow their way, it is a testament to the divine beauty of Christianity that truth was able to persuade so many, even in the face of persecution prior to the Edict of Toleration (A.D. 260 – 303) and the Edict of Milan (A.D. 313).”

Pullella’s “reporting” is also like a typical politician’s guilt by association fallacious reasoning: “Strickland is a strong supporter of former U.S. president Donald Trump and is seen as a hero by conservative U.S. Catholic media outlets that are aligned with Trump”

As previously reported the US Catholic Media outlets Pallella refers to, would have crucified Pope Francis 2000 Years Ago.

Although there’s some truth about the “conservative Catholics” LifeSiteNews, a self-described Canadian Catholic conservative anti-abortion advocacy website and news publication, in a post on X announcing the news about Bishop Strickland writes “In removing Bishop Strickland from the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, Pope Francis has canceled one of the most faithful, forthright and vocal bishops in the United States.” 

LifeSite got one put of three right: the “vocal” part. A Wikipedia entry reads: “LifeSiteNews has published misleading information and conspiracy theories.

Earlier this year,  Father Mike Schmitz in his daily podcast The Catholic Catechism In a Year Day 115 made a Passionate Plea for Church Unity echoing the letter to Laodicea’s where the community is reprimanded for being lukewarm (Rev 3:15–16: To Laodicea.* “To the angel of the church in Laodicea,* write this:
“‘The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the source of God’s creation, says this: “I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot.* I wish you were either cold or hot.

So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

Surely the media coverage of Bishop Strickland’s removal is not what Father Mike had in mind.  As Catholics, we may disagree on policy, never on principle, where the principle is: The Church Christ founded welcomes everyone, particularly the sinners, because we all are.

For convenience. Certain arguments against Christians:Porphyry, Against the Christians (2004).  Fragments, 

Criticism of Christianity

ARGUMENTS OF CELSUS, PORPHYRY, and THE EMPEROR JULIAN, AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS