Now We Know Who Fired Flores. And, Hey, It Depends Who’s Your Auxiliary Bishop.

         In this archdiocese the tiller swings to-and-fro.  Whether it’s by design or not,  we don’t know.   But this  we do.  It’s not Intelligent Design.   For example…

        Take the case of two Larry’s.   When you come across a priest who disdains using his baptismal name and says just call me Chuck, just call me Bob, Bill, Dave or Larry, you can be pretty sure you’ve got a liberal on your hands

         And when he says “just call me Larry” and  wears an open-throated shirt as he wanders around you know for sure you have one. 

       Both wear relaxed sportswear.  Just call me Larry Dowling is the pastor of  St. Agatha’s in West Lawndale, yes, the same church that had as pastor “just call me Dan” as in Dan McCormack. Just call me Dan is away on doing five years hard time in stir for aggravated child pedophilia.

        He’s been succeeded by Just Call Me Larry who has announced he will bring a new era of healing to St. Agatha’s.  Now Just Call Me Larry is head of the deanery as was his predecessor—and in addition  he’s an official consultor to Cardinal George.  Just Call Me Larry is good friends with the equally liberal pastor of St. Nicholas in Evanston, Fr. William (Just Call Me Bill) Tkachuk.    

         Well, as we all know Just Call Me Larry wrote a letter to His Eminence and said a terrible thing is happening: community groups are being asked….downright asked, mind you…whether they support abortion or non-traditional marriage.    Because if they don’t  they won’t get any Catholic money.  Terrible.  Well in this archdiocese where the tiller slips to-and-fro, it turns out that Just Call Me Larry Dowling’s auxiliary bishop is a liberal, Bishop Francis Kane.

        Sometime between October 2 when Rey Flores conducted a meeting at Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica and November 2 when Just Call Me Larry Dowling’s letter was sent to the Cardinal, Flores was fired. He doesn’t know when but Dowling started referring to him as “the former director.”

         Yesterday Bishop Kane told the USCCB in Baltimore that he prefers the Chicago Campaign for Human Development and the national office follow the  same guidelines and Tribune religion editor Manya A. Bracheear…you know her, she bills herself as The Seeker…reported that “to abide by these guidelines the leaders of the campaign in Chicago might have to scale back some of the changes they rolled out in August when they awarded funds to groups providing  pregnancy counseling to divert women from getting abortions.”  

        Aha.  That gives us a pretty good clue as to who fired Rey Flores.

       Now there’s another priest go goes by “Just Call Me Larry.”   He’s the pastor of Oak Park’s Ascension  parish.   He’s Fr. Larry McNally.   The other day he signed a petition urging the Church to support women priests and married clergy.  He delivered it to the Cardinal.  But this Just Call Me Larry McNally has a different boss as auxiliary bishop—John Manz.  Manz went to see this Larry and said that unless he apologize in public he’ll be removed from Ascension.  So this Just Call  Me Larry did.  Apologized all over the place…especially in the bulletin.   “I am sorry that my words and actions may have caused some upset and some inner turmoil among our parish family.”

         So it depends on who’s your immediate boss.  Meanwhile the Big Boss remains quiet.    As I said…the tiller swings to-and-fro.