VLADIMIR PUTIN TAKES OVER AMERICAN DIOCESES MAKING THEM SOVEREIGN STATES OF RUSSIA – NO CHANGES ARE EXPECTED

VLADIMIR PUTIN TAKES OVER AMERICAN DIOCESES MAKING THEM SOVEREIGN STATES OF RUSSIA – NO CHANGES ARE EXPECTED

With Vladimir Putin’s senseless war in Ukraine going so poorly for the Russian armies, Putin has turned his attention to the United States where the imposition of an autocratic rule will be less problematic.  Although Putin’s largely toothless declaration that all United Sates dioceses and archdioceses will become sovereign states of his country, his actions point to the ease with which such a thing could happen.  While a handful of Catholic Dioceses have registered complaints to the Apostolic Nuncio, Rome’s official representative in this country, most dioceses are welcoming the help in strengthening their control over the laity and priests of their diocese.  The Nunciature in Washington, DC, issued a statement that “they have no authority to exercise control over individual diocesan bishops.”  As they have been in the past, the American bishops were delighted with the Nuncio’s statement, for it gives them permission to continue doing as they please with little to no oversight.

Putin’s unexpected move appears to be the result, not just of the challenges he has found in the Ukraine, but also because of his deep affection for the kind of governance found in most American dioceses.  Like in Russia, what few legitimate rights laity and priests are said to possess can be easily ignored or said not to exist.  While most, if not all, American dioceses have no way to incarcerate their notorious priests or lay people, they can place them in virtual prisons which have the same effect of silencing trouble makers, just as the famous dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the current dissidents, Alexei Navalny, and Trevor Reed, have been unfairly silenced.

Let us take an example closer to home.  Since October 28, 2016, Rev. Christopher Senk has been silenced.  On that day he was relived of his duties as pastor, and ordered to leave his home (rectory) where he had resided for thirteen years – all of this without a hearing of any kind.  Fr. Christopher’s faculties for celebrating public Masses were taken away, and he was ordered not to speak about the case publicly.  Bishop Frank Dewane had known, and cooperated with, a criminal investigation, which had falsely accused Fr. Christopher of wrongdoing.  That case was leveled by total strangers, who had no integrity and no sense of decency, but what they did have was plenty of money, and hence could secure the silence that only money could buy.  On October 29, 2016, the Diocese did what any dictator or autocrat would do – destroy the reputation of the trouble maker.  In a carefully planned and perfectly timed manner the case against Fr. Christopher was released to the press, who would spend weeks with little to no accurate information besmirching the reputation of Fr. Christopher.  My guess is that Putin, like Bishop Dewane, has never talked with any of the dissidents he has jailed, just as Bishop Dewane has never talked with Fr. Christopher about the details of his case.  What would be the point, for a person can be kept in a real or virtual prison for as long as the dictator desires; its not hard to do.

And so on this first day of April, Vladimir Putin would like to bestow his highest award on his favorite American bishop, Frank J. Dewane, Bishop of the Diocese of Venice in Florida.  The Putin Award for Excellence in perpetuating autocracies anywhere in the world goes to Bishop Frank Dewane.  His behavior of consistently acting as a king who cares nothing for his subjects is admirable, and so Putinesque.  Keep up the good work Bishop Dewane.  Should you ever have a conversion and find yourself choosing mercy, justice, and compassion, know that there is a room in a Gulag in northern Russia with your name on it.