Some people wonder what I think about the business with Fr. Guarnizo

Last updated on: December 30, 2014 at 7:02 pm by Mark Shea

Some people wonder what I think about the business with Fr. Guarnizo 2014-12-30T19:02:00-07:00 Mark Shea

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What I think is that Phil Lawler is right and there’s so much we don’t know that it’s a complete waste of time making any judgements while our minds buzzing in a fact-free vacuum.

What I secondarily think is that the behavior of partisans of Fr. Guarnizo in cyberspace reminds me ever so much of the behavior of partisans of Fr. Maciel, Fr. Euteneuer, Fr. Corapi and Fr. Pavone and Michael Voris. He’s a folk hero who stood up to somebody in opposition to something that matters a lot to conservative Catholics, therefore it is not possible his suspension was, in fact, due to other factors and it is dogmatically certain that, yet again, the Vast Liberal Conspiracy is the only thing that can possibly account for what is happening.

Anything is possible. Maybe there is a Vast Liberal Conspiracy at work here. However, it may also be that conservative Catholics with their astonishing anti-charism of discernment–an anti-charism which has managed to be on the wrong side of multiple conflicts about issues of fact while never learning from previous mistakes (Maciel *was* a disgusting perv, Euteneuer *did* abuse somebody in his charge, Corapi was a grifter and liar as well as a rebel against his superiors and bishop, Fr. Pavone *did* owe his superior obedience, and the Archdiocese of Detroit has every right to tell Voris to stop using the name “Catholic”)–is once again exercising that anti-charism to leap to the conclusion that Fr. Guarnizo is a holy martyr when, in fact, he may be in the wrong and his superiors may actually be telling the truth that his administrative leave has nothing to do with the communion incident.

I at any rate, have no idea since–just like you–I have no idea what is actually happening, merely what ignorant people in comboxes are concluding based on their half-baked spitballing of a few incomplete “facts”.

And so, just as it was exactly one year ago with the partisans of Corapi who were so utterly certain that their folk hero was the victim of a Vast Conspiracy, I suggest that everybody listen to Professor Digory Kirke and shut up with offering verdicts till we have some idea of what’s going on (assuming we ever will). Learn, at long last, from disasters like Corapi’s self-destruction that just because somebody is a beloved folk hero, it does not mean they can’t be in the wrong too. Learn, most especially, not to make sweeping judgements about people alleging wrongdoing on the part of your folk hero when you have no idea what is going on.

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