Texas Bishop Says He Is Saddened That Defending the Gospel Is Considered ‘Bold’

Texas bishop says he is saddened that defending the Gospel is considered ‘bold’ Bishop Joseph E. Strickland of Tyler, Texas, wouldn’t label himself as “bold.” “Talk to one of my siblings; I’m No. 5 of six kids,” Bishop Strickland recently told Our Sunday Visitor in an interview. “If you talk to my older brother, Paul, and ask, ‘Would you describe your little brother Joe as a bold man?’ he’d probably say, ‘Joe’s a nice guy, but I don’t think bold would be the word.'” But Bishop Strickland’s staunch defense of Church teaching and strong advocacy for transparency in the wake of the recent clergy abuse scandals — more widely pronounced in recent years thanks to social media — really can’t be described as anything but. While he speaks simply and almost understatedly, Bishop Strickland also manages to be both blunt and direct. “Honestly, I guess I’m bold enough to just say what I think,” he said. Even “if it gets me in trouble — sometimes it does — I’m going to be true to what I believe. It really saddens me to be considered bold for simply reading the Catechism out loud.” “When I was ordained a bishop almost seven years ago, I said I’d guard the deposit of Faith entire and incorrupt,” Bishop Strickland said. “That’s what I’m trying to do. It shouldn’t be considered bold to simply uphold my promises. It’s a basic job description.” In a wide-ranging conversation, Bishop Strickland shared many of his thoughts about the Church today, including internal divisions, the challenges and joys of living the Faith, the ongoing clergy sex abuse crisis and the path toward healing. Defending Church teaching In 2012, Bishop Strickland became shepherd of his home diocese where he had become beloved as “Father Joe.” Catholicism is a small minority in east Texas, and many know next to nothing about it — a fact that became evident when Bishop Strickland walked into a local restaurant in his bishop’s cassock and was hailed, “Hey, ol’ pope.” Now, seven years into the job, he has gained something of an international reputation, particularly through his use of Twitter to preach the truths of the Faith. One of the motivating factors for Bishop Strickland is his distress from what he sees as a rising number of “so-called Catholics” who do not accept Church teaching and who seek to change it. “Compassionately, you can’t slam the door in someone’s face who says, ‘I don’t understand,’ or ‘I can’t embrace,'” a challenging teaching, he said. “Pastorally you have to help people work through it.” “But to change the teachings because they can’t embrace it is not Catholic,” he said. For Bishop Strickland, modern-day divisions are rooted in the desire of some to weaken or distort the Church’s teachings to fit their wants. “There’s some thought out there that the Catholic Church has been too idealistic and too caught up in some call to holiness that is just beyond those people,” he said. “Honestly, I disagree.” Bishop Strickland gets particularly animated when it comes to challenges to Church teaching regarding sexual morality. Some in the Church today have a tendency to say “there is a ‘harsh and unloving doctrine of the Church we’re trying to change so we can really present the loving face of Christ,'” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, it does exactly the opposite, because the truth is that any sexual activity that is not between a married man and woman, [and is] open to life, is disordered. There are people who talk about [how] that harsh word (referring to “disordered”) in the Catechism regarding homosexuality should be removed. But I think it should be there in any description of sins against the Sixth Commandment.” “Certainly there has been bigotry, there has been mistreatment against people with same-sex attraction,” he said. “Bigotry and hatred and denigrating people is never unity in Christ. That is not what the Gospel calls for. But the Gospel also does not call for people to live a disordered way of life and just say, ‘We’ll make it perfectly fine. We’ll just change what the Catechism says.'” A need for bold saints Bishop Strickland points out that the way to overcome these divisions is to follow Christ completely. “I believe that Christ calls us to be our highest selves, to be as much configured to him as we possibly can,” he said. “I think that’s who the saints are. They are people who overcame great challenges. If you look at some of the greatest saints, they came out of some of the most fractured times in the history of the Church. The way to overcome these divisions is to look to (Jesus’) teachings and to be authentic to them. Being all about Christ and being all about what he has taught us is the greatest path to unity that I can find.” Bishop Strickland acknowledged that his approach to proclaiming Church teaching has moved many to send notes and leave phone messages in support. “You probably wouldn’t imagine how many people have contacted me saying, ‘Thank you for speaking up — thank you for teaching about what we believe,’ because they’re not hearing it,” he said. “And that’s tragic, really.” Many of the challenges that Bishop Strickland sees facing the Church today, both in terms of the need to boldly proclaim the Gospel and also to be transparent and honest regarding the clergy sex abuse crisis, stem from his belief that many bishops often are hesitant to speak up because of a “concern about position.” “If being removed from my position as bishop, or giving up my position as bishop would help the Church heal and gain greater clarity and gain greater unity, I would volunteer in an east Texas minute,” he said. “That’s really what it comes down to. I would do anything that I feel I can to promote unity, to promote the truth, to guard the deposit of faith, to respect the chair of Peter. To respect everything about the Church, I will do my best. If God should reveal to me that, ‘Well, Bishop Joe, the best way to serve is to get out of the way or to do whatever,’ I’ll do my best to do it.” Bishop Strickland said he also understands that some bishops “get pushback on issues that I don’t get,” he said. “Some bishops are dealing with much more fractured areas where most of the people are atheists and living an atheistic way of life.” But, he said, “I think it’s sad that every bishop isn’t saying, ‘This is the Catechism. Embrace it. It’s a loving truth that Christ has revealed.'” Boldness isn’t something that Bishop Strickland sees as only the responsibility of bishops. Rather, it’s a quality that all Christians need to embrace today, especially noting the witness needed from married couples in the wake of so many threats to marriage and family life. “We need married couples to live boldly what the Church teaches,” he said. “It’s tough. It’s not an easy path. I’ve had many married couples say, ‘Bishop, we’re facing a bold challenge in our lives, and it’s very disheartening for bishops not to be bold.'” Bishop Strickland notes that some bishops are willing to speak out on one issue but remain silent on others. “We do need to speak up for the rights of people, protecting children, caring for families, all of those values,” he said. But it’s problematic “to exclusively talk about the border and not worry about abortion or same-sex marriage or euthanasia,” he added. “We have to worry about all the teachings.” ‘We need clarity’ Bishop Strickland was one of the first to speak out after Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, former apostolic nuncio to the United States, released his “testimony” last August, in which he referred to a “gay lobby” in the Church and even claimed Pope Francis rehabilitated former cardinal and sexual predator Theodore E. McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington. “When I responded to the original Vigano statement, I said, ‘This looks serious enough and credible enough, so it needs to be investigated,'” Bishop Strickland said. “I would have loved to see it investigated and proven to be inaccurate and off- base and distorted. But certainly much of it has been proven to be accurate.” Bishop Strickland added that he is not satisfied with the Church’s response to the McCarrick affair. “I believe the bureaucracy has used McCarrick as a scapegoat,” he said. “McCarrick is now [being] used to say, ‘OK, we know this can be proven, we can’t hide it anymore, this man is dirty. So let’s get rid of him and that will shut them up.’ I don’t think it’s worked. I have encouraged people to keep saying we need clarity.” “It wasn’t the response of shepherds of souls,” Bishop Strickland said. “I don’t think it was a faith-based response.” When it comes to a full investigation on McCarrick, which has been publicly demanded by clergy and laity alike, Bishop Strickland said he doesn’t “have a lot of hope.” “I just don’t think the bureaucracy is going to move it in that direction, honestly,” he said. “Hopefully I’m wrong. Maybe a very detailed report is coming. But, honestly, I think that if that report ever came, the position of a lot of hierarchy in the Church would be put into question if not totally undermined.

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