The eye of Sauron has turned to Tyler, Texas.
The Pillar is reporting today that the Vatican might come after Bishop Strickland:
“The situation of Bishop Strickland is the agenda,” one senior official close to the dicastery told The Pillar, “and the expectation is that the Holy Father will be requesting his [Strickland’s] resignation — that will certainly be the recommendation put to him.”
The reasons given are the following:
“There are two aspects,” the official said, “there is the matter of the public scandal from all these comments about the pope and the synod, but there are also real problems in the diocese. Those were the focus of the visitation; there are concerns in the diocese about governance, about financial matters, about basic prudence.”
The interesting thing is to observe the great difference between the targeting of Bishop Strickland contrasted with the Vatican’s ignoring of +Vigano, ++Burke, +Shneider, who have all said things about Pope Francis which are equally or more critical than what Strickland has said.
Has Strickland failed to play a Vatican political game that the other prelates have played skillfully enough?
Is Strickland just an easier target for the regime in the Vatican, as he is bishop of a small American diocese in Texas?
Whatever the case, here we will see the regime of hyperüberultramontanism put to the test. Strickland has been rising in the hearts of the faithful just as he has been rising in prominence as a defender of the depositum fidei. Let us all pray that he does the will of God in all things, with the strength that God gives.
And let us also be ready to support him before, during, and after the Vatican regime is finished with him.
