Revolt of the Janitors: On the Detroit Massacre

My father grew up in Florida, and most of his friends were Cuban. He often heard from them how wonderful Cuba had been before Fidel Castro’s revolution. My father once asked one of his friends how Castro managed to take over the county. He told him it was simple: first they would take over a factory. Then, they would remove the manager of the factory and replace him with the janitor. The reason for this was that the janitor could never become the manager in normal times but only because of the revolution. Thus, the janitor would defend the revolution to the death, so as to keep his new position of power at all costs.

This is how the Castro regime has survived in Cuba. There is only one problem, however. Revolutionaries are a rare breed. Disciplined, high-functioning, cunning, and, above all, fanatically devoted to the cause for its own sake, they are simply too few in number. True revolutionaries are always few in number. A handful can make a revolution, but they cannot see it to fruition. JFKu2019s War with the... Horne, Douglas Buy New $13.95 (as of 10:12 UTC - Details)

Instead, they have to pass on the job to the former janitors, who will never abandon the cause but are incapable of ruling competently. The revolution inevitably collapses. Or, if they somehow manage to keep power, as in Cuba, they condemn those under their control to a sort of living death of malicious incompetence.

Readers of Crisis Magazine have likely heard that the new archbishop of Detroit has terminated professors Eduardo Echeverria, Ralph Martin, and Edward Peters from Sacred Heart Major Seminary in that diocese. You may recall that earlier this year he also decimated the diocesan Latin Masses in Detroit, which were the most numerous in the country. This comes on the heels of revelations that at least one of the official reasons for banning the Latin Mass was based on a patently false claim. These professors were no traditionalists, but they were well-known “conservative” theologians clearly opposed to the theological tendencies of the last pontiff.

The “Detroit Massacre” is a sign that the Catholic Church has entered the janitorial phase of its own revolution. This began in the 1960s, and the original Progressive faction in the Church that began it has largely passed from the scene. Perhaps the only remaining member of the original cohort is Cardinal Kasper. But the days when a true revolutionary, such as Hans Küng, at least had a brain and some level of competence are long gone.

Instead, we have nonentities such as “Tucho” Fernández and whoever ghostwrote Traditionis Custodes raised to positions for which they are wholly unqualified. But they are willing to do whatever it takes to advance the revolution, which is why they were raised up in the first place. That is why men such as James Martin are promoted and protected while three distinguished professors are fired from their positions with no explanation and no warning. No doubt, more “janitors” will soon replace them.

Such is almost certainly the case with the archbishop of Detroit. It is clear he was chosen with a mandate to put an end to the “rigid” tendencies, theological and otherwise, in that diocese. The new bishop of Detroit once suggested, when he was bishop of Tucson, Arizona, that canonical penalties be used against Catholic federal agents who enforced the current administration’s immigration policies. I do not mean he actually cares about the issue of immigration. Rather, he knew who was in power and what kind of signal he needed to send to be promoted.

And he is delivering. What strikes one about this is how brazen an exercise of power it is. A couple of sites have confirmed the bishop fired these three men without notifying either the rector of the seminary or the board of directors about his decision. My guess is that they would have tried to prevent the dismissal of the professors, so he bypassed them. This tracks with the method of Traditionis Custodes, which resorted to an outright lie to get the desired result. The ends justify the means because the revolution takes precedence over everything—that and remaining in power.

One hopes that this would be a wake-up call to those Catholics who, for whatever reason, still deny that such a revolution is taking place. To those who find this idea too shocking to contemplate, I would urge you not to be taken in by the usual suspects, the midwit Internet Torquemadas who attack anyone who dares question this ongoing demolition of the Catholic Faith. A person on  wrote that the firing of these professors was fine because some seminaries purged professors under John Paul II. My response is that those seminaries did not purge enough of them. Seminary professors should be fired if they teach anything approaching heresy.

Do not get sidetracked concerning arguments about authority. This conflict isn’t about authority. It is about what authority is for: the service to divine, unchanging truth revealed once for all in Jesus Christ and handed on to be guarded by the Church, or protean diktats subject to the whim of whoever holds power. The battle is between those who think that truth is something authority can only safeguard, not create, and those who believe authority can transmute heresy into orthodoxy by fiat (or those who want everyone else to believe this, as to forward their designs). National Geographic Ro... National Geographic Maps Best Price: $18.94 Buy New $22.42 (as of 10:12 UTC - Details)

The bishop fired Echeverria, Peters, and Martin because they objected, however politely, to the toying with heresy that characterized the reign of Pope Francis. Francis was quite explicit that he wanted to alter the Church’s fundamental beliefs. This is the obvious implication of the constant refrain that Vatican II’s reforms are “irreversible,” as everyone knows the Progressive interpretation of that council is a revolutionary one. Lest we forget, the last pontiff issued or approved documents which suggested that

1) sex outside marriage is sometimes not sinful for subjective reasons,

2) homosexual couples can be “blessed,”

3) all religions are willed by God, and

4) the old Mass is somehow intrinsically harmful.

I find it hard to believe a person sincerely convinced of these sentiments is a Catholic Christian in any meaningful sense of the term.

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