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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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The visitation included questions about the governance of a diocesan high school, considerable staff turnover in the diocesan curia, the bishop’s welcome of a controversial former religious sister as a high school employee, and the bishop’s support for “Veritatis Splendor”

While above I defended the Pope in disciplining Strickland for insubordination, it seems a bit cowardly to pretend that the real issue they care about is the investigation of his governance of his diocese. (Unless his governance really is substandard compared to other dioceses, but that claim seems suspect).

Strickland is one of the most popular bishops among the faithful in the USA(and his conservatism is probably an asset here- Tyler is one of if not the most conservative locale in the country big enough to host a diocese of its own, Greg Abbott holds the signing ceremonies for bills he expects to attract protestors there because of the atmosphere of social conservatism), but every bishop has pissed off someone enough to complain about it. These complaints might be ridiculous or wrong, but I have no doubt that someone went to the Vatican upset about something Strickland did.

In general Strickland seems to have done very well on the sorts of metrics a bishop would have been judged by under JPII. It’s a major tone shift under pope Francis that overseeing a growing diocese with a vocations boom and a collection plate that’s actually rising doesn’t buy a bishop goodwill to burn- certainly this had been the previous rule, and you can expect both unpopular but effective bishops like Olson(Ft Worth) and highly competent bishops of smaller dioceses like Lafayette or Wichita to take notice.