Saying he was compelled by his conscience and his love for the Catholic Church, the 64-year-old retired Archbishop of Karaganda Kazakhstan has released an open letter detailing what he calls the “current crisis” in the Church wherein “the work of God is being slandered.” Archbishop Jan Pawel Lenga writes that he believes the crisis can be clearly seen in the appointments of liberal bishops and the fact that “the Vatican through the Secretariat of State has taken the course of political correctness.”
Archbishop Lenga suffered under communism. He studied for the priesthood in an underground Seminary in the Soviet Union and was ordained to the priesthood in the middle of the night. As a priest he was expelled from Tajikistan by the KGB. He then served as bishop for 20 years in Kazakhstan.
“I am forced to resort to this public means of expression because I fear that any other method would be greeted by a brick wall of silence and disregard,” he said in the open letter, an English copy of which was posted to the Traditional Catholic website Rorate Caeli.
“Some Nuncios have become propagators of liberalism and modernism,” Archbishop Lenga writes. Those Nuncios, he said, manipulate and silence bishops who would otherwise be “zealously spreading the faith, courageously preaching the doctrine of Christ, standing firm in the defense of truth and of morals.” Meanwhile, he said, “the meetings of the Bishops’ Conferences often deal with issues which are foreign to the nature of the duties of the successors of the apostles.”
“In not a few Bishop’s Conferences the best bishops are ‘persona non grata,’” writes the archbishop. “Where are apologists of our days, who would announce to men in a clear and comprehensible manner the threat of the risk of loss of faith and salvation?”
“In our days the voice of the majority of the bishops rather resembles the silence of the lambs in the face of furious wolves, the faithful are left like defenseless sheep.”
In the selection of bishops and cardinals, the archbishop says that the mass media is given heed even though it “usually makes a mockery of holy candidates painting a negative picture of them, whereas the candidates who in a lesser degree own the spirit of Christ are praised as open and modern.” And “candidates who excel in apostolic zeal, have courage in proclaiming the doctrine of Christ and show love for all that is holy and sacred, are deliberately eliminated.”
“It is obvious that in the Vatican there is a tendency to give in more and more to the noise of the mass media,” writes Archbishop Lenga. And while the enemies of the Church never betray their faithful servants even when caught in wrongdoing, “the best sons and servants are sacrificed in order to appease the mass media.”
In closing, the archbishop notes that the Lord often uses the least and downtrodden to bring about his greatest works and that the revival of the Church will happen by that very means today.