HAVE YOU SEEN ROD SERLING?

I have taken several days to step back and take a breather regarding the incident involving a Chicago Pastor whom Cardinal Cupich has removed from his parish.

This is what I’ve been able to establish as the facts in this case from a host of reports.  

A Pastor finds a symbolic flag among the refuse in a storage room of the church building.  

By his own personal research and by anecdotal information provided him by long-standing members of the parish, the Pastor determines that the flag is parish property, made and erected in front of the Crucifix over the Sanctuary by a former Pastor who was an active homosexual. 

The Pastor and of the parish leadership (the Parish Council) decide to destroy the homosexual symbol by burning it at a parish-wide ceremony.

Cardinal Cupich is told about these plans.  He orders the Pastor not to destroy the flag, because the public ceremony will be controversial and divisive within the community.

The Pastor proceeds to burn the flag in a private ceremony just among the members of the parish leadership team.

The private ceremony becomes known through social media.  

Cardinal Cupich is informed and receives many complaints from homosexual advocacy individuals and groups.

His Eminence dispatches two Archdiocesan Priests to remove the Pastor physically from the parish.  A heated encounter ensues as the Priests threaten the Pastor in the presence of parishioners who were onlookers as the encounter took place as the Pastor was preparing to celebrate Mass.  

The Pastor is informed that Cardinal Cupich has ordered him to undergo psychiatric evaluation for his behavior.

The Pastor goes into hiding and the Cardinal appoints an interim administrator of the parish in the Pastor’s absence.

Almost contemporaneously as this is taking place, two Chicago Priests (one assigned to the Archdiocesan Marriage Tribunal) are arrested while vacationing in Miami, Florida.  A charge of criminal lewdness in public is made against the two men who were engaging in fellatio in the front seat of a rental car in full public view.  Both Priests eventually make bail and are released pending trial at a later date.  

The arrest of the two Chicago Priests gains national attention on social media, radio and television and newsprint.

Cardinal Cupich utters not a word, nor does he take any public action.

A website is created urging Catholics to petition the Pope for Cardinal Cupich’s removal as Archbishop of Chicago.  Over 15,000 people sign the petition in a two day time span.

Almost in response, Pope Francis appoints Cardinal Cupich to the Synod on Youth which began today in the midst of the greatest scandal to confront the Church in the form of the universal, global homosexual abuse of young men by Catholic Clergy.

And I and other members of the Church are told by Pope Francis to be “hopeful” and to “trust his judgment”.

I am convinced that I have entered the “Twilight Zone” but have still been unable to find Rod Serling lurking around somewhere!

Have you seen him?