"What was at stake was the Church’s unity in faith and the ecclesial communion..."

From Catholic News Agency:

The Australian Catholic bishops’ delegation to Rome has issued a statement about the Vatican’s response to the dissenting bishop of the Diocese of Toowoomba. They described their multiple “candid” meetings with Vatican officials about the matter and urged the healing of divisions.

The delegation has issued a one-page letter (Word doc format), which includes the following:

These meetings have given us a more adequate understanding of what was done by the Holy See in an attempt to resolve the difficulties with Bishop Morris, which concerned not only matters of Church discipline but also of Church doctrine definitively taught, such as on the ministerial priesthood.  What the Holy See did was fraternal and pastoral rather than juridical in character.  Although efforts continued over many years, a critical point came when Bishop Morris failed to clarify his position to the satisfaction of the Holy See and then found himself unable to resign as Bishop of the Diocese when the Holy Father made the request.

What was at stake was the Church’s unity in faith and the ecclesial communion between the Pope and the other Bishops in the College of Bishops. Eventually Bishop Morris was unable to agree to what this communion requires and at that point the Pope acted as the Successor of Peter, who has the task of deciding what constitutes unity and communion in the Church.

In other words, Bishop Morris, despite years of dissenting and thumbing his nose at Church authority, was given chance after chance to do the right thing and act like a real Catholic and a real bishop. But he refused. Be assured, however, that this story will be reported by most media outlets as a case of the impatient, narrow-minded, and reactionary Catholic Church, lorded over by an authoritarian and dictatorial Pope, failing to give Bishop Morris adequate time to respond, a proper forum for his serious and deep concerns, etc. and etc. Count on it.

Comments

[Jeffrey L Miller]

Bishop Morris has responded in his own letter refusing to resign. His letter is quite a piece of work.

http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/2011/10/bishop-william-morris-doubles-down-and-refuses-to-resign/